Kurhan

Three times before it settled on a name, the club skated under someone else's banner. It began in 1961 as Zauralets, then in 1993 the Kurganstalmost plant took over as sponsor and put its own name on the sweaters: Mostovik. Only in 2003 did the team become Zauralie, the name it carries into the Supreme Hockey League today, and the nickname that stuck with the city, Zauraltsy, predates all of it.

Kurgan gave the club its identity more than any single trophy did. The nearest thing to a golden era came in the 2016/17 season, when Zauralie reached the VHL final and finished as runners-up, a result it has not matched since — the closest it came was a bronze medal in 2023/24. Long before either finish, the captaincy belonged to Ilya Bochkov.

The club has functioned for years as a proving ground rather than a final destination: defenceman Kirill Spitsenko moved on to Avangard Omsk and Amur Khabarovsk, forward Nikita Guslistov to HK Sochi, part of a pipeline that has also fed Sibir Novosibirsk and Metallurg Magnitogorsk. Home games are played in front of 2,500 at the Ice Palace named for N.V. Parysheva.

No fixture on the calendar carries more weight than the one against HC Rubin. The trip up the road to Tyumen, and the return leg in Kurgan, is billed locally as the Kurgan–Tyumen derby.