KHL Preseason tournaments 2017

[Kgbeast 195]

Sochi Hockey Open could be a good summer time hockey watch, but unfortunately, it is not really covered by anyone so only place where I found I can watch it is on youtube. Only Russian commentator or no comentator option, which makes it a bit of a drag to watch at least to me.  

This being a KHL tournament, Team Canada and Team Russia teams appear to be entirely made up of KHL players. I think only the goalies in Canadian team are not from KHL. I expected at least some OHL/AHL presence, but I guess not.  They do call it Olympic team here and there, but looks like a different roster will play in Puchkov's tournament and after that, Canadian organization will pick the better performing players from both, perhaps add some OHL/AHL players in it and that will be the actual Olympic team. Russian team is called Russia-2 and is also referred to as Olympic team, but I doubt this will be it either. They have pretty good players on that, but in reality only goalies are pretty prominent.

Canada vs Russia was a pretty good game with Shestyorking being a much better goalie. Plus Russia had pretty good defense, even in pretty lengthy 3 on 5 Canada could not capitalize.. Russia has won that game 4-3. There were no goals in the 3rd period after a line brawl at the conclusion of the 2nd which resulted in starting lines on the bench with a couple of players ejected. Overall, the quality of the game was of a level of the average NHL game in October (not really hot). Officiating was pretty steep. Both teams spend quite a bit in the box. Cross-checking, roughing, holding, fighting were given zero tolerance.

Pretty interesting thing was that the rink was not netted all the way up, but just about 10'-15' or so all around. While no pucks were sent out flying in the spectators during the game, the organizers made sure to fix that. A couple of chaps with puck-shooting guns came out in the second intermission and lobbed off a dozen of what appeared to be full size hockey pucks out in the stands. In lesser sports, they would do this with t-shirts, but in the mans game you got to keep audience on their toes I guess. Either way, I expect St.Pet's SKA vs Russia-2 be a much more interesting game based on Ska vs HC Sochi was a pretty good game.