HC Vityaz Podolsk

History

The club was founded in 1996 in Podolsk. In 2000, the team moved to the neighboring city of Chekhov; however, the team kept playing under the name Vityaz Podolsk until 2004, where the renaming was finally done. The team initially played its home games at the Ice Palace Vityaz in Podolsk, the same arena HC MVD used until 2006. Such a thing was allowed by virtue of the opening in 2004 of a new arena in Chekhov, the Vityaz Ice Hockey Center, that Vityaz began using. Initially, this arena had a capacity of 1,370; it was expanded in 2007–08 to 3,300.

Vityaz played at the top level of Russian hockey for the 2000–01 season; it got relegated to Vysshaya Liga at the end of the season. In 2005, Vityaz made to the Vysshaya Liga final losing the championship to HC MVD 4 games to 1 but earned a promotion back to the elite level.

Rumors of a move back to Podolsk arose in the wake of the inaugural KHL season as even with the expansion of 2007–08, due to Chekhov's capacity being below the KHL league standards. The team restarted playing their home games in Podolsk, but remained attached to Chekhov. For the 2013–14 KHL season, the team moved back to Podolsk.

Kontinental Hockey League

Chekhov's debuts in the KHL were pretty bad. Vityaz registered a mere 6 wins in regulation, plus 5 in overtime; in counterpart for those 11 wins, the team lost 45 times (of which, 12 games were in overtime). The meager 40 points collected meant that the team finished at a dismal 23rd place out of 24, a single point ahead of the equally bad Khimik Voskresensk. Head coach Sergei Gomolyako made the mistake in October to dress one more foreign player than allowed by the rules, resulting in a match lost by forfeit. Gomolyako claimed he ignored there was such a rule, and the following week, he was fired, to be replaced by former NHL player and Vityaz head coach Mike Krushelnyski. Vityaz' fans enjoyed the return of Krushelnyski, who had brought the team to the playoffs in 2006–07. But Chekhov's goon-full roster, which general manager Alexei Zhamnov wishes to shape after the 1990s Chicago Blackhawks for whom he played, just couldn't bring good enough performances to repeat the feat. They however led the league in penalty minutes, some 500 minutes ahead of the second most penalized club, with players such as Nathan Perrott (137 minutes in 9 matches and not a single point), Darcy Verot (more disciplined and productive than in his first season with Vityaz, even though it still only meant 5 points and 168 minutes) and Chris Simon (league leader at 263 minutes, and club's second best scorer behind Gleb Klimenko at 27 points).

Chekhov's season was darkened by the death of Alexei Cherepanov in October 2008, a death occurred on its home ice and that might have been avoided had Chekhov's arena been equipped with a working defibrillator and the ambulance that is required to remain available until the end of the match not departed well before the end, resulting in much longer delays between the accident and the moment where Cherepanov arrived at the nearest hospital.

2009–10 felt like déja-vu for Chekhov. After almost being thrown out of the league due to its finances in August (it needed to find 300 million rubles, which it did), the Knights started the season with two wins and temporarily led the league. Things didn't last however as the team finished 23rd out of 24 teams with only 13 regular-season wins (plus 3 in overtime and 2 in the shootouts—an improvement from the previous year), 54 points and, once again, a colossal amount of penalty minutes: 1522, ahead and by far every other team in the league. Vadim Berdnikov, Gleb Klimenko (who came back from Kazan) and Chris Simon led the offence with respectively 33, 27 and 25 points.

Relocation to Balashikha and separation from youth academy

In 2022, Vityaz moved from the Vityaz Ice Palace in Podolsk, which was declared no longer acceptable for the KHL's requirements, to Balashikha Arena in Balashikha. Vityaz's youth academy stayed in Podolsk.

In 2023, Vityaz's academy was separated from the KHL club completely, instead signing an affiliation agreement with Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod, .

As an inaugural member of the KHL and having completed the 2024–25 season, Vityaz announced their initial withdrawal from the KHL after 17 seasons for the upcoming 2025–26 season due to financial constraints, on 24 June 2025. After an emergency league meeting with the board of directors, it was announced that Vityaz would not be eligible for a return to the competition until 2030. All contracted players were to be released as free agents from 15 July and junior club Russkie Vityazi was confirmed to have withdrawn from the MHL for the season.

In 2026, a junior team under the Vityaz Podolsk name, part of the Vityaz youth academy, started play in the Russian Hockey League.

Season-by-season KHL record

Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OTL = Overtime/shootout losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against

Players

KHL All-Star Game

Players

Mikhail Anisin, RW, 2011–12, 2012

Alexander Korolyuk, RW, 2004–05, 2005–08, 2012–2014, 2013

Chris Simon, LW, 2008–11, 2010, 2011

Ivan Lisutin, G, 2012–15, 2014

Maxim Afinogenov, RW, 2013–18, 2014

Franchise records and leaders

KHL scoring leaders

These are the top-ten point-scorers in franchise history in the KHL. Note: Pos = Position; GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; P/G = Points per game;

Honors

Runners-up

Vysshaya Liga (1): 2005

Champions

Wingas Cup (1): 2017

Lehner Cup (1): 2018