The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics is over, and the athletes' footsteps have not stopped. The girls of the Shenzhen Vanke Sunshine team have flown from Beijing to Moscow to welcome the upcoming second half of the 2021-2022 Russian Women's Ice Hockey League (WHL), the first match will be away to Neva Dynamo on February 23.
The Russian Women's Hockey League WHL is the highest level women's hockey league in the world, divided into regular season and playoffs, the regular season stage adopts a double round robin format, each team and nine other teams play 4 league games, including two consecutive home and two away games, and then rank the regular season according to points. This is followed by a playoff scramble to determine the league championship.
The 2021-2022 Russian Women's Ice Hockey League has a total of 10 teams, except for Shenzhen Kunlun Hongxing Vanke Sunshine, the other teams are: Ufa, Scythians, Pilyusa, Tornado, Neva Dynamo, Yekaterinburg Skoso, 7.62, White Bears and Ice Wings.
The season's league kicked off on 22 September, coinciding with the Year of the Winter Olympics, and the league ended its first phase on 2 December, with 22 rounds of league matches. Shenzhen Vanke Sunshine team scored 44 points from 15 wins and 7 defeats in the first 22 league rounds, temporarily ranking fourth in the league.
With the end of the Winter Olympics, the second half of the 2021-2022 Season of the Russian Women's Ice Hockey League continues. Vanke Sunshine will travel away to face Dynamo and Pilyusa, starting on February 23, then returning home to face tornadoes and 7.62, and finally traveling away to challenge old rivals Ufa and Scythians, with the last league game played on March 30, thus ending 36 regular season matches.
In the first half of the league, in order to better prepare for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the players of Shenzhen Vanke Sunshine were all composed of members of the Chinese national training team. In the second half of the league, the team lineup has been adjusted to a certain extent, and some high-level foreign aid has joined the team to enhance the overall strength of the team and help Chinese players grow better.
These new additions include five players who have just entered the Winter Olympics: Susana Tapani of Finland, who scored 6 goals and 2 assists at the Beijing Winter Olympics, Michel Kavinen 3 goals and 4 assists, Tominen 2 goals and 1 assist; czech national team captain Alena Mills and Sweden national team captain Emma Notting.
In addition, new players include Finnish legend Nora Leti and defender Anna Krebone; Canadian players Riley Houston, Mikaela Kava and Abigail Thyssen; and Russian players Polina Yeliseyeva and Maria Pushka. They will compete with Chinese players in the league for the second half of the season.