After 36 rounds of regular season and 8 playoff games, on April 26, Shenzhen Kunlun Hongxing Vanke Sunshine Women's Ice Hockey Team finally won the 2021-2022 Russian Women's Ice Hockey League, which ended this extraordinary season. The club also won two championships in its third season at WHL.
Shenzhen Vanke Sunshine is the only professional team in China to participate in the top international women's ice hockey league. In order to complete the task of achieving excellent results in the ice hockey project of the Beijing Winter Olympics and winning glory for the country, in the summer of 2021, with the approval of the State General Administration of Sport, from August to December, the women's ice hockey national team participated in the 2021-2022 Russian Women's Ice Hockey League (WHL) under the name of Shenzhen Kunlun Hongxing Ice Hockey Club.
In the first half of the league, all the international players of Shenzhen Kunlun Hongxing Vanke Sunshine team left the team, and the lineup was all composed of players who were qualified to represent the Chinese women's national ice hockey team in the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Due to the epidemic, the team's home stadium is located at the Mytish Stadium in Moscow, Russia.
The first round of the regular season began on September 22 and ended on December 22, when the Shenzhen Vanke Sunshine Team, composed of the women's ice hockey national team, participated in a total of 22 rounds of the WHL League, achieving 15 wins and 7 losses, and temporarily ranked fourth among 10 teams.
After the end of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the second half of the league was restarted, and Yu Baiwei, Liu Zhixin, Fang Xin, Wang Yuqing, Zhao Qinan, Zhu Rui, Miller and other Chinese players did not take leave and traveled from Beijing to Russia to continue to compete. At the same time, more than 10 international players of the club have returned to the team, including players from Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic and other countries that competed in the Beijing Winter Olympics.
In the last 14 rounds of the regular season from February 23 to March 30, Shenzhen Vanke Sunshine defeated regular season champion Scythians and other strong teams such as Ufa, Birusa, Tornado, Neva Dinamo, etc., to win thirteen consecutive games, and finally ended the regular season as the runner-up.
In the playoffs that began on April 6, as the Chinese national team members left the team at the end of March to participate in the World Championships, the team had only 11 players at the least, and the team had to temporarily sign several local 16-year-old players in Russia to provide some help to the team.
In the case of overstretched personnel, the team played 3 games, including two wins in the quarter-finals of 7.62 teams, the semi-final encountered a strong opponent tornado, in the first away game, Shenzhen Vanke Sunshine 3 defenders rotated to play the entire game, and finally lost 2-3, which was the only game the team lost in the entire playoffs.
After the return of seven national team players with the World Championship Division B champion, the personnel were greatly relieved. Shenzhen Vanke Sunshine returned to the home court to defeat the tornado 5-2, 4-1 consecutively, reversing the opponent to reach the final, which was also the third consecutive season that the team reached the finals.
Facing the regular season champion Scythians, Shenzhen Vanke Sunshine is fully prepared. Two consecutive away games were won 3-2 and 3-1 respectively, the second of which was a turning point in the entire series, it was Saturday, in the cheers of hundreds of home fans, the Scythians led twice, but Shenzhen Vanke Sunshine did not give up, twice quickly equalized, and completed the kill two minutes before the finale to win the championship point.
On April 26, back at the home of Medzic, Shenzhen Vanke Sunshine won the championship of the season with a 2-1 victory over the Scythians after a free-kick match, engraving the club's name on the championship trophy again.
Since its establishment in 2017 and settled in Longgang, Shenzhen, Shenzhen Kunlun Hongxing Vanke Sunshine Team has competed in the Canadian Women's Ice Hockey League (CWHL) and the Russian Women's Ice Hockey League (WHL) for a total of five seasons, reaching the finals four times and winning the championship twice, leaving an imprint on the international ice hockey map. After the Beijing Winter Olympics, this journey will continue.