Ryazan

In the VHL, Ryazan-VDV reached the quarter-finals in the 2025/26 season. Vladimir Gusev runs the bench now, with the team affiliated to Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk after a long stretch, from 2009 to 2018, as a farm side for Dynamo Moscow.

The club has carried more names than most: Trud, Krasnoye Znamya, Ryazselmash, Khimik, Spartak, Stankostroitel, Vyatich, then HC Ryazan, and since 2022 HC Ryazan-VDV.

The clearest date in that lineage is 1949, the year cited on the club's own records, though the entity now competing under the Ryazan name only took shape in 1999 out of the old Vyatich side.

None of that prepared anyone for October 12, 2007, when the team bus crashed near Orel, injuring twelve players, among them captain Oleg Kobzev. The club plays home games at the Ice Palace "Olympic," in navy blue and white, and treats HC Khimik Voskresensk as its main rival.