Tambov

Winning the title is one thing; getting promoted for it is another, and Tambov had to do it twice.

The club traces back to Avangard Tambov, a side founded in 1981, before the present organisation was registered in September 2000 under its current name. What followed was a climb through the divisions: the Second League title in its first full season, the Russian Hockey League Cup in 2012, then the two VHL-B championships that finally lifted it into the top flight of the Vysshaya Hokkeynaya Liga.

For much of the past decade the club has also worked as a feeder side for the Kontinental Hockey League, supplying players first to Sochi, then to Kunlun Red Star, and from the summer of 2021 to Admiral Vladivostok.

None of this happens without HC Buran across the Chernozem region in Voronezh, and the meetings between the two are still billed locally as the Derby of the Chernozem Region. Both sides carry the name of the black earth that surrounds them into a rivalry played out, on Tambov's end, in front of no more than 1,500 people packed into the Ice Palace Kristall.