SKA Saint Petersburg

History

The club was established in 1946 as a top-level club of the Soviet Championship League to participate in its first season. The original name of the club was Kirov LDO (Kirov Leningrad Officers' Club). It was subsequently changed to ODO (District Officers' Club) in 1953, SKVO (Sports Club of the Military District) in 1957 and finally Sportivnyi Klub Armii (Sport Club of the Army) in 1959. During the Soviet era, the SKA (along with CSKA Moscow) belonged to the Ministry of Defense sports club system.

After finishing last in their group during the first season, LDO skipped the next season and was downgraded to the second level of the championship in 1948. The club returned to the Soviet Class A in 1950–51 and remained in the top division of the Soviet league until 1991. The highest achievements of the club during that time were the 1968 and 1971 Soviet Cup Finals (the former was lost to CSKA Moscow 7–1, the latter to Spartak Moscow 5–1) as well as the bronze medals of the 1970–71 and 1986–87 Soviet Championships.

After one season in the second level division of the Soviet League (the first and the only CIS Championship), the SKA joined the International Ice Hockey League established by the top ice hockey teams of the former Soviet Union. During its 1993–94 season, the SKA managed to advance to the IHL Cup semi-finals but lost to that year's champion Lada Togliatti. The club was less successful in the Russian Superleague, which replaced the IHL as the main Russian championship since 1996, failing to get further than the first playoff rounds.

The formation of the Kontinental Hockey League in 2008 marked the beginning of a new era for the team. HC SKA got into their first Conference finals during the 2011–12 season and finishing first during the regular season the next year winning the 2012–13 Continental Cup.

In the 2015 Gagarin Cup playoffs, after defeating both Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod and Dynamo Moscow in five games in the first two rounds, HC SKA were in the Western Conference finals for the third time in four years this time facing CSKA Moscow. HC SKA were already down 0–3 after the first three games, but managed to rebound and win the next four straight clinching the series 4–3. This made them the first team in KHL history to win a playoff series after being down three games to none. The team would go on to defeat Ak Bars Kazan 4–1 to win the Gagarin Cup and become the KHL champions, the first nationwide championship in club history. But they could not manage to retain the Gagarin Cup in the following season, as they were swept by 2015–16 Continental Cup winners CSKA Moscow in the conference finals and finished in 3rd place.

In the 2016–17 KHL season, SKA drew an average home attendance of 11,735.

Awards and trophies

Team

Gagarin Cup

• Winners (2): 2014–15, 2016–17 Continental Cup
• Winners (3): 2012–13, 2017–18, 2022–23 Opening Cup
• Winners (2): 2017–18, 2018–19 Soviet Championship League
• 3rd place (2): 1970–71, 1986–87

Pre-season

Spengler Cup

• Winners (4): 1970, 1971, 1977, 2010 Motorola Cup
• Winners (1): 1983 Puchkov Cup
• Winners (6): 2008,2015,2017,2018,2019,2021,2022 Basel Summer Ice Hockey
• Winners (1): 2009 Donbass Open Cup
• Winners (1): 2011 President of the Republic of Kazakhstan's Cup
• Winners (1): 2012 Tournament Hameenlinna
• Winners (1): 2013 Sochi Winter Cup
• Winners (1): 2022

Season-by-season record

Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, OTW = Overtime/shootout wins, OTL = Overtime/shootout losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against

Players

Current roster

All-time KHL scoring leaders

These are the top-ten point-scorers in franchise history. Figures are updated after each completed KHL regular season.

Note: Pos = Position; GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; P/G = Points per game; = current SKA player

Head coaches

• URS Gennady Dmitriev (1946–47)
• URS A. Semenov (1950—1951)
• URS Belyay Bekyashev (1951—1952)
• URS Georgy Lasin (1952—1953)
• URS Anatoly Viktorov (1953—1956–57)
• URS Evgeny Voronin (1957—1958)
• URS Aleksander Komarov (1958—1962)
• URS Yevgeni Babich (1962–1963)
• URS Nikolai Puchkov (1963—1973)
• URS Veniamin Alexandrov (1973—1974)
• URS Nikolai Puchkov (1974—1977)
• URS Oleg Sivkov (1977–78)
• URS Nikolai Puchkov (1978)
• URS Valeri Shilov (1978—1979)
• URS Igor Romishevsky (1979—1981)
• URS Boris Mikhailov (1981—1984)
• URS Valeri Shilov (1984—1989)
• URS Gennadiy Tsygankov (1989–90—1990–91)
• URS/RUS Igor Shurkov (1990–91—1991–92)
• RUS Boris Mikhailov (1992–93—1998)
• RUS Nikolai Maslov (1998–99)
• RUS Alexander Zhukov (1999)
• RUS Rafael Ishmatov (1999—2001–02)
• RUS Nikolai Puchkov (2002)
• RUS Boris Mikhailov (2002—2005)
• RUS Nikolai Solovyev (2005–06)
• RUS Sergei Cherkas (2006)
• RUS Boris Mikhailov (2006)
• RUS Yuri Leonov (2006—2007)
• USA Barry Smith (2007—2010)
• CAN Ivan Zanatta (2010)
• CZE Václav Sýkora (2010—11)
• CZE Miloš Říha (2011—2012)
• RUS Mikhail Kravets (2012)
• FIN Jukka Jalonen (2012—2014)
• RUS Vyacheslav Bykov (2014—2015)
• RUS Andrei Nazarov (2015)
• RUS Sergei Zubov (2015–16)
• LAT/GER Oļegs Znaroks (2016—2018)
• RUS Ilya Vorobiev (2018—2019)
• RUS Alexei Kudashov (2019—2020)
• RUS Valeri Bragin (2020—2022)
• RUS Roman Rotenberg (2022—)

Logos

File:SKA Saint Petersburg, 2010.jpg|Logo during 2010 File:Logo SKA 2015.png|Former logo (2015) File:Logo SKA 2022 24.png|Former logo (2022) File:Ska logo.png|Former logo File:HC SKA Logo 2023.svg|Former logo File:SKA St. Petersburg logo.png|Current logo

References

References

1. (2023-07-21). "Ротенберг продлил контракт в качестве главного тренера СКА на пять лет".
2. "Swiss club and Swedish league lead European attendance rankings". INTERNATIONAL ICE HOCKEY FEDERATION.
3. "Геннадий Тимченко: СКА – это базовый клуб сборной России, и ЦСКА – тоже". [[Sovetsky Sport]].
4. [http://www.iihf.com/home-of-hockey/news/attendance-2016-2017/ Attendance]IIHF {{Webarchive. link. (7 March 2018)
5. "SKA Saint Petersburg ‑ All-Time KHL Leaders". QuantHockey.com.