HK Norilsk

The roster has grown around him: Mikhail Shalagin, a record-holder in his own right, joined for the 2025/26 season, and forward Sergei Golodnyuk gives the side another established scoring option.

The club exists because Nornickel wanted a senior team in the city again. Vladimir Potanin, the company's president, announced the project on 1 April 2023, and the registration followed on 17 April that year, ahead of a first VHL season in 2023/2024. Home games are played at the Arctic Palace of Sports, which holds 2,184 — a capacity that is often filled on derby nights against HK Sokol of Krasnoyarsk, a fixture both sides call the Frosty Derby.

The bear on the crest, and the nickname that goes with it, point past 2023. Norilsk had a senior club before: Zapolyarnik, founded in 1958 as Trud and renamed in 1961, won the RSFSR Championship in 1969 and the Class "B" final tournament of the USSR Championship in 1974 before folding in 2001. HK Norilsk carries itself as that club's successor rather than a fresh start, though the honours list it plays for now is still its own to write.

Kaletnik remains the name attached to the club's short history so far — the player whose scoring numbers the new franchise measures itself against as it works out what it wants to become.