MINSK, 13 July (BelTA) – The Kontinental Hockey League presented the calendar of the tenth season on 12 July, BelTA learned from the press service of the League.
The regular season will start with an encounter between HC St. Petersburg SKA, the Gagarin Cup winner, and HC Moscow CSKA, the winner of the 2016/17 regular championship, for the Opening Cup in St. Petersburg on 21 August.
Dinamo Minsk will face HC Jokerit from Helsinki in the first game of the season on 23 August. On 25 August the Minsk team led by Gordie Dwyer will host HC Vityaz and will complete the home series with a match against HC CSKA on 27 August.
The first phase of the KHL championship will run for 193 calendar days till 1 March 2018. The second phase will begin on 3 March for teams of the Western Conference and on 4 March for the Eastern Conference clubs.
Each of the 27 participating teams will play 56 matches during the first phase. The schedule provides for the breaks scheduled according to the calendar of the International Ice Hockey Federation: Eurotour events in Finland (7-11 November) and Russia (13-17 December), the 2018 Winter Olympic Games (9-25 February). There will be a break for the Russian team to prepare for the Olympics (24 January-8 February).
The calendar also envisages breaks for Hockey Stars Week 2018 in Astana (12-15 January), the New Year's Eve holidays (31 December-2 January). Traditionally, there will be no games on 7 September, the Memorial Day for HC Lokomotiv Yaroslavl.
