December is a special month in the Kontinental Hockey League season. Teams aren't just taking that important break, they're also giving themselves the opportunity to have fun and get away from the grind. True, this applies only to certain players who are chosen by fans, journalists and the league to participate in the KHL All-Star Game.
The event was already held in St. Petersburg 12 years ago. In 2011, a significant event for the KHL was hosted by the Ice Palace, the current home of SKA. In 2023, the All-Star Game went to the new arena of the army club. It was she who became the main object of attention.
“The largest ice arena in the world” is exactly how it is presented. According to the managers, at the start of construction there was an idea to overtake the site of the NHL club Montreal Canadiens, which can accommodate just over 21 thousand spectators. And here St. Petersburg succeeded. The new SKA arena seats 21.5 thousand people, and looks incredibly huge from the outside. It’s not so obvious in the photo until you see the stadium with your own eyes. A spacious sub-tribune, an unusually large mixed zone for communication between journalists and athletes and, of course, the SKA locker room, which can compete in size with the Edmonton Oilers locker room.
The fact that the SKA Arena will host the KHL All-Star Game 2023 became known in September. Then there was active talk on the sidelines of journalists: they say that the stadium will not be ready in time for the event, there will be a transfer. True, it was not clear which arena would be able to host the tournament. Omsk and Novosibirsk did not count on this – the leaders of Avangard and Sibir, respectively, had other concerns. Subsequently, the rumors were not true. In November, the arena was officially put into operation, a test friendly match was held, and on December 9, the stadium successfully opened its doors to two dozen fans of KHL clubs.
SKA Arena left positive reviews from both journalists and All-Star Game participants. Everyone noted, of course, the size and novelty. Although there were some comments. For example, to a media cube. It consists of three parts: the cube itself, four separate screens on top of it and a kind of ribbon above them. It was the screens in the middle that caused the main negative comments. They say it looks ridiculous, considering how much money was spent on the construction of the arena (according to the general director of the building, Dmitry Svatkovsky, about 60 billion rubles). We can agree with this statement, but if we like to make comparisons with the NHL, then a similar cube is installed in the Chicago Blackhawks arena.
The position of SKA itself raises important questions. The head coach of the St. Petersburg club, Roman Rotenberg, tactfully redirects the topic of moving from Ledovoy to the management of the title sponsor. And the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Alexander Medvedev, in an interview with Sport, said that this will definitely not happen before the next season. It will be strange if the new stadium continues to be empty after this.
The KHL All-Star Game itself included everything the event is loved for: memes, laughter, creativity and a friendly atmosphere. The winner of the tournament was the Kharlamov division team, led by the coach of Magnitogorsk Metallurg Andrei Razin. He was helped both on the bench and on the ice by the former captain of the Russian national football team Andrei Arshavin – a man who can be called one of the symbols of St. Petersburg.
Second place went to the Tarasov division team under the leadership of Dynamo Moscow coach Alexei Kudashov. By the way, he couldn’t do without football help either – Roman Shirokov, another athlete who devoted several years of his career to St. Petersburg, was among his assistants.
The Bobrov division team with the main KHL stars Nikolai Goldobin and Pavel Poryadin took bronze. Spartak's team was supposed to arrive in St. Petersburg as a whole trio, which had made a splash in the league this season, but Ivan Morozov withdrew due to injury. They and Alexey Zhamnov were eventually helped by another athlete, whose name is continuously associated with Moscow Spartak, Alexander Mostovoy. The fourth place was taken by the hockey players of the Chernyshev division with Vladimir Tkachev and Dmitry Sychev in the lineup.
The competitions attracted much more attention. They attracted even more spectators than at the games.
The strongest throw was demonstrated by Alexander Nikishin, who accelerated the puck to 168.28 kilometers per hour. The most accurate shot was another representative of Bobrov's division, Pavel Poryadin, who hit five targets in six attempts.
Poryadin's teammate Nikolai Goldobin won the captain's competition (12 points). The fastest was also a player from Bobrov's division, Vladimir Alistrov, who ran a lap in 14.115 seconds.
The most spectacular shootout was performed by Vasily Atanasov. Naturally, with pineapples. 36.58% of all fans voted for the young Torpedo forward.
The list of competition winners was diluted by goalkeeper Vladislav Podyapolsky, the goalkeeper of the Kharlamov division in the competition for the most reliable defense, reflected all seven shots on goal.
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