Metallurg Novokuznetsk

Silver in the Supreme Hockey League came first, in 2020/21, and Novokuznetsk built on it rather than let it stand alone: bronze followed in 2022/23, then the regular-season title in 2024/25. None of it matches what the club did in 1960, when it took the RSFSR championship.

The club was founded in December 1949, and its nickname, Kuznya, comes straight from the city's old identity as a blacksmith's town rather than from anything won on ice. That link to Novokuznetsk's industrial past has outlasted most of what the club has actually achieved.

What keeps Kuznya's name current elsewhere is the academy. Sergei Bobrovsky, Ilya Sorokin, Kirill Kaprizov and Dmitry Orlov all passed through it before the NHL. In Novokuznetsk itself, the fixtures that matter are against HC Yugra and HC Khimik, with Yermak of nearby Angarsk supplying the more local, Siberian edge to the rivalry.

Games are played at the Kuznetsk Metallurgists Sports Palace.