The Moscowtimes, August 25, 2016.
After three straight preseason losses, Beijing’s Red Star won their first match in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL). Barely six weeks old, they toppled Kazakhstan’s Barys Astana 3-1, prompting a team-to-team fight. Three days later, when the two teams met again, it was clear that a new KHL rivalry has been born.
It was the first game of Kazakhstan’s President’s Cup—a traditional curtain-raiser for the KHL season in late August. Tension between the teams was apparent within the first three minutes. Astana player Dmitry Rypsayev tried to single-handedly fight the entire Red Star roster, and saw some success.
Going into this Aug. 8 match with just 23 games of KHL play under his belt, Ryspayev had yet to score a single goal. But with 194 minutes spent in the penalty box during that time, the young Kazakh’s genius for on-ice violence was clear. Red Star didn’t have anyone on their roster to match that kind of pugilistic talent. The team’s Russian coach, Vladimir Yurzinov Jr., pulled his players from the ice.
It was a strategic decision: accept a forfeit and ensure the team is healthy enough to fight another day. This matchup was, after all, intended to be a friendly preseason game and trial run leading into the Aug. 22 start of the KHL season. For Red Star, these games were also intended to set the stage for their arrival in Beijing for their first home game on Sept. 5.
Fighting would give the new Chinese audience the wrong idea about hockey, the KHL reasoned. When the league decided to hand Ryspayev a lifetime ban on Aug. 18, it used precisely those reasons to justify it. While there is a place for fair fighting in hockey, said KHL President Dmitry Chernyshenko, there is no place for Ryspayev’s assault on the “newcomer.”
“We are constantly working to attract a new audience and broaden the game’s geographical reach,” Chernyshenko continued, “and Ryspayev’s behavior is not merely harmful in a sporting context, it also blackens the image of the league.”
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