The Zhenskaya Hockey League () or ZhHL, officially called the Women's Hockey League (WHL), is a professional ice hockey league in Russia, currently comprising seven teams. The league is also known as the PariMatch Women's Hockey League for sponsorship reasons.

The league was founded via a joint partnership of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) and the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia (FHR) on 19 June 2015. It replaced the Russian Women's Hockey League (RWHL), which had been founded in 1995 and was operated by the FHR alone.

History The creation of the Zhenskaya Hockey League was announced on 12 September 2014 at a meeting of Alexander Medvedev, president of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), and Vladislav Tretiak, president of the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia (FHR). The parties expressed their readiness to jointly establish the ZhHL and to achieve the dream of taking women's hockey in Russia to a new level of development. However, the FHR established the Zhenskaya Hockey League independently. There was a meeting with representatives of different Russian women's hockey teams on 2 July 2014. On the same day, the Honored Master of Sports, Alexei Yashin, was elected as president of the league while Yevgeny Chizhmin was appointed as the league's executive director.

However, the process of creating the league stalled because of a disagreement of the KHL with the fact that the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia established the league without reaching an agreement with the KHL, and on 22 December 2014, Alexei Yashin said in an interview with Championat.com: "While all this is a little suspended, what will happen next is hard for me to say. The management has made such a decision about changes in the KHL, which is what it is. I have a very good relationship with Alexander Ivanovich Medvedev. I think he did a lot for our hockey. I have not talked with Dmitry Chernyshenko yet. As for the women's league, when we talked, there was a certain situation that the KHL, FHR and Ruslan Gutnov would participate in the creation and development of this project. Now, while this process has slowed down, it's difficult for me to talk about terms."

The KHL, with the FHR, returned to the subject of the ZhHL in 2015. On 23 April 2015, the FHR Executive Committee voted to transfer the rights to host the women's ice hockey Russian Championship to the KHL. On 19 June 2015, the KHL established the Zhenskaya Hockey League, holding a presentation of a new league in the Ministry of Sport of Russia. On 8 September 2015, after the first matches of the championship of the ZhHL, the Board of Directors of the KHL approved the Rules of the League Championship.

Prior to the 2016–17 season, an eighth team, Dinamo Kursk, was supposed to be added to compete in the league. However, on 5 September 2016, despite the league taking all possible measures to ensure they would take part, Dinamo Kursk ultimately withdrew from the competition due to unresolved organizational and logistical issues. On 25 July 2019, the Shenzhen KRS Vanke Rays announced it was joining the ZhHL for the 2019–20 season.

Teams 2025–26 season

In June 2023, the only China-based team in the Zhenskaya Hockey League, Shenzhen KRS, announced they would not participate in the 2023–24 ZhHL season "due to the participation of players of the Chinese national team in the domestic championship of the country." The withdrawal of Shenzhen KRS reduced the number of participating teams to eight, all of which are located in Russia.

The departure of Shenzhen KRS, which featured sixteen Chinese and four Canadian players during the 2022–23 season, and the transfer of Hungarian-American forward Hayley Williams from Dynamo-Neva to Hokiklub Budapest in the European Women's Hockey League, left Czech defenseman Pavlína Horálková of Biryusa as the only foreign import player active in the 2023–24 ZhHL season. In November 2023, Czech forward Alena Polenská signed with Agidel Ufa to bring the number of foreign nationals to two for the remainder of the season.

In the 2024–25 season, there were two players with foreign citizenship active in the ZhHL: Czech defenseman Pavlína Horálková of Dynamo-Neva, and Russian-Latvian forward Alexandra Stolyarova of Belye Medveditsy. Team name Location Home venue Head coach Captain Agidel Ufa City Sports Palace Belye Medveditsy Chelyabinsk Traktor Ice Arena Biryusa Krasnoyarsk Dynamo-Neva Saint Petersburg Sakhalin Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Ice Palace Kristall SKSO Yekaterinburg Ice Arena A. Kozitsyna Tornado Dmitrov Sources:

Former teams MSMO 7.62, Voskresensk Torpedo, Nizhny Novgorod

Russian Champions

1996 : Luzhniki Moscow 1997 : CSK VVS Moscow 1998 : CSK VVS Moscow 1999 : Viking Moscow 2000 : Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg 2001 : SKIF Moscow 2002 : SKIF Moscow 2003 : SKIF Moscow 2004 : SKIF Moscow 2005 : SKIF Moscow 2006 : HC Tornado 2007 : HC Tornado 2008 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod 2009 : HC Tornado 2010 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod 2011 : HC Tornado 2012 : HC Tornado 2013 : HC Tornado 2014 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod 2015 : HC Tornado 2016 : HC Tornado 2017 : HC Tornado 2018 : Agidel Ufa 2019 : Agidel Ufa 2020 : KRS Vanke Rays 2021 : Agidel Ufa 2022 : KRS Vanke Rays 2023 : Agidel Ufa 2024 : Dynamo-Neva St. Petersburg 2025 : Agidel Ufa 2026 : Agidel Ufa

Russian Champions by season Year Champion Runners-up Third PlaceRussian Women's Hockey League 1995–96 Luzhniki Moscow Uralochka-Auto Yekaterinburg Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk 1996–97 CSK VVS Moscow Spartak Yekaterinburg Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk 1997–98 CSK VVS Moscow Spartak Yekaterinburg Spartak Moscow 1998–99 Viking Moscow Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk 1999–2000 Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg Viking Moscow Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk 2000–01 SKIF Moscow Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk 2001–02 SKIF Moscow Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk 2002–03 SKIF Moscow Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk 2003–04 SKIF Moscow HC Tornado Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg 2004–05 SKIF Moscow HC Tornado Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg 2005–06 HC Tornado SKIF Moscow Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg 2006–07 HC Tornado SKIF Nizhny Novgorod Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg 2007–08 SKIF Nizhny Novgorod HC Tornado Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg 2008–09 HC Tornado SKIF Nizhny Novgorod Lokomotiv-Energia Krasnoyarsk 2009–10 SKIF Nizhny Novgorod HC Tornado Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg 2010–11 HC Tornado SKIF Nizhny Novgorod Fakel Chelyabinsk 2011–12 HC Tornado SKIF Nizhny Novgorod Agidel Ufa 2012–13 HC Tornado SKIF Nizhny Novgorod Agidel Ufa 2013–14 SKIF Nizhny Novgorod HC Tornado Agidel Ufa 2014–15 HC Tornado SKIF Nizhny Novgorod Agidel Ufa Zhenskaya Hockey League 2015–16 HC Tornado Agidel Ufa Biryusa Krasnoyarsk 2016–17 HC Tornado Agidel Ufa Dinamo Saint Petersburg 2017–18 Agidel Ufa HC Tornado SKIF Nizhny Novgorod 2018–19 Agidel Ufa Dinamo Saint Petersburg SKIF Nizhny Novgorod 2019–20 KRS Vanke Rays Agidel Ufa HC Tornado/Biryusa Krasnoyarsk 2020–21 Agidel Ufa KRS Vanke Rays SKIF Nizhny Novgorod/Biryusa Krasnoyarsk 2021–22 KRS Vanke Rays SKIF Nizhny Novgorod HC Tornado/Dynamo-Neva St. Petersburg 2022–23 Agidel Ufa Dynamo-Neva St. Petersburg Biryusa Krasnoyarsk/Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 2023–24 Dynamo-Neva St. Petersburg Biryusa Krasnoyarsk Agidel Ufa/Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 2024–25 Agidel Ufa Dynamo-Neva St. Petersburg Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 2025–26 Agidel Ufa Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod Biryusa Krasnoyarsk

All-time Russian Championship titles Team Titles Years won HC SKIF 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2014 HC Tornado 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 Agidel Ufa 2018, 2019, 2021, 2023, 2025, 2026 KRS Shenzhen 2020, 2022 Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg 2000 Dynamo-Neva St. Petersburg 2024

References

External links

Zhenskaya Hockey League at EliteProspects.com Women's Hockey League at Eurohockey.com