HC Dinamo Minsk

Dinamo Minsk Дина́мо-Минск
Nickname	Bisons
City	Minsk
League	KHL 2008-present Belarusian Extraleague 2003-2008
Conference	Western
Division	Bobrov
Founded	1948
Home arena	Minsk-Arena (capacity: 15,086)
Colours
Owner(s)	BFSO Dinamo
Head coach	Gordie Dwyer
Captain	Alexander Pavlovich
Affiliate(s)	Dinamo-Molodechno (Belarusian Extraleague) SDUSHOR BFSO Dinamo (Second Belarusian Extraleague)
Website	HC Dinamo-Minsk
Franchise history
HC Dinamo-Minsk

Hockey Club Dinamo Minsk (Russian: Дина́мо-Минск; Belarusian: Дынама-Мінск, Dynama-Minsk) is an ice hockey team based in Minsk, Belarus. They are members of the Bobrov Division of the Kontinental Hockey League.

Dinamo has qualified for the KHL playoffs (Gagarin Cup) four times: in the 2010–11, 2011–12, 2014–15 and 2016–17 KHL seasons. The team has not won a single round in the Gagarin Cup playoffs, losing in all four series.

Alexander Pavlovich is the current captain of the team, with his alternates being Marc-Andre Gragnani and Dmitri Korobov.

History

The origins of the club began in 1966, where the original Dinamo played 5 seasons in the Soviet Top Ice Hockey League, with its highest finish being 10th place in the 1989/90 season. Dinamo was renamed as Tivali Minsk in 1993 and four times became a champion of the Belarusian Championship in 1993, 1994, 1995 and 2000. Tivali was disbanded in 2000. Dinamo was founded in 2003, taking the name of the historic club, and won the championship title once and the Belarus Cup twice.

On 26 March 26 2008, the KHL confirmed the Belarusian club's inclusion in the Bobrov Division. Dinamo-Minsk started to play on the ice of Minsk Palace of Sports and was relocated to the newly built Minsk-Arena in December 2009. The first head coach of the Belarusian club was Paul Gardner, who was dismissed until the championship had begun. The next one became Jim Hughes, a protégé of previous Belarus national team head coach Curt Fraser. But after the first twelve games, the team came down next to the last place and soon Jim Hughes was dismissed. The new vacancy was taken by Russian specialist Vasili Spiridonov whose efforts were not enough to raise Dinamo-Minsk from the bottom of the tournament table. The club became the 22nd out of 24 teams.

The next season team began under command of Glen Hanlon, who brought the Belarus national team to the sixth place at WC2006 in Riga. The team roster was fulfilled with world-famous players Ville Peltonen and Ossi Väänänen, also one of the best Belarusian goaltenders Andrei Mezin was employed by HC Dinamo-Minsk. Season of 2009/2010 was alike to the previous. The team hadn't shown good result and Glen Hanlon was substituted by the head coach of HK Homiel. Dinamo-Minsk finished at the 17th spot in the KHL while missing the playoffs, but still managed to win Spengler Cup under the guidance of Alexander Andrievsky.

Season 2010/11 became the best season in KHL history of Dinamo-Minsk. The new head coach of the team became Marek Sýkora. Sýkora is widely thought of as one of the best coaches in the KHL. He brought Metallurg Magnitogorsk to the final games in 2005 and a rookie of the KHL Avtomobilist to the KHL playoffs in 2010. Dinamo-Minsk under his command managed not only to get into the playoffs but stayed in one step from the Western Conference semi-finals when Lokomotiv prevailed in the decisive game seven of the series. Also, Dinamo-Minsk was named the most attended club in the KHL after the 2010-2011 season.

The 2011/12 season of Dinamo-Minsk was to have begun on 8 September 2011, versus Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. However, on 7 September 2011, the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash occurred. The plane carrying the Lokomotiv team to the game in Minsk had crashed during takeoff, killing all but one of Lokomotiv's roster. Four days later, a memorial ceremony took place at the Minsk-Arena, with all Minsk players paying tributes to each one of the victims.

In the 2016/17 season, the assistant coach of the Belarus national team Craig Woodcroft, became the head coach of Dinamo-Minsk. From the very beginning to the end of the regular season, the "Bisons" were in the playoff zone and breaking a number of club records. They first collected 105 points in a regular season and took eighth place in the general standings of the KHL. Also, they regained the status of the most popular team of the Kontinental Hockey League, collecting 13,230 spectators at home matches. In total, more than 400 000 fans visited Minsk Arena during the season. But in the playoffs, Dinamo did not succeed. Again, like six years ago, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl became the rival at the first stage. The series ended in five games - 1-4. Also during the season, in December 2016, Dinamo for the second time took part in the Spengler Cup.

Woodcroft had a three-year contract and the club was ready to continue cooperation. But Craig left the team in spring and headed the Swiss club Geneva-Servette. So, before the 2017/18 season Dinamo-Minsk again replaced the head coach. Gordie Dwyer became the new coach. Roster had to be formed taking into account the financial difficulties that arose at the end of the previous season, so the team was weakened. Leaders like Ben Scrivens, Kevin Lalande, Raman Hrabarenka, Matt Ellison, Rob Klinkhammer, Sergei Kostitsyn, Andrei Stas and Nikita Komarov have left. Instead of these players came mainly young Belarusians and four hockey players who had not previously played in the KHL - Jhonas Enroth, Quinton Howden, Justin Fontaine and Jack Skille. Some of them showed great performance: Enroth joined the Sweden national team to participate in the Olympics in Pyeongchang and became the best player of the season in the opinion of the fans, and Howden took the second place in the list of the team's top scorers. But in general, the season for Dinamo was unsuccessful: the team finished in the 10th place in the conference and did not qualify playoffs.

Arenas

Dinamo-Minsk called Minsk Sports Palace as their home until they moved to the new Minsk-Arena in 2010.

Honors

Season-by-season KHL record

Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, OTW = Overtime/Shootout Wins, L = Losses, OTL = Overtime/Shootout Losses, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, Pts = Points

Players

Current roster

Updated August 15, 2016.^[1][2]

#	Nat	Player	Pos	S/G	Age	Acquired	Birthplace
7001150000000000000♠15		Artem Demkov	F	R	29	2016	Minsk, Belarus
7001130000000000000♠13		Sergei Drozd	C	L	28	2010	Minsk, Belarus
7001910000000000000♠91		Artur Gavrus	F	L	24	2014	Minsk, Belarus
7000200000000000000♠2		Kirill Gotovets	D	L	27	2016	Minsk, Belarus
7001170000000000000♠17		Marc-André Gragnani	D	R	31	2016	L'Île-Bizard, QC, CAN
7001180000000000000♠18		Kristian Khenkel	D	L	22	2016	Minsk, Belarus
7001120000000000000♠12		Rob Klinkhammer	LW	L	32	2016	Lethbridge, AB, CAN
7001240000000000000♠24		Dmitry Korobov	D	L	29	2016	Novopolotsk, Belorussian SSR
7001740000000000000♠74		Sergei Kostitsyn	LW	L	31	2016	Novopolotsk, Belorussian SSR
7001880000000000000♠88		Evgeni Kovyrshin	C	L	32	2016	Elektrostal, Russia
7001250000000000000♠25		Lukas Krajicek	D	L	35	2011	Prostejov, Czech Republic
7001110000000000000♠11		Alexander Kulakov (A)	LW	L	35	2014	Minsk, Belarus
7000700000000000000♠7		Charles Linglet	LW	L	36	2014	Montreal, Quebec, Canada
7001140000000000000♠14		Yevgeni Lisovets	D	L	23	2013	Grodno, Belarus
7001280000000000000♠28		Olexander Materukhin	LW	R	36	2013	Kiev , Ukraine
7000400000000000000♠4		Yevgeni Nogachyov	D	L	27	2012	Minsk , Belarus
7001710000000000000♠71		Alexander Pavlovich	RW	L	29	2011	Grodno , Belarus
7001300000000000000♠30		Ben Scrivens	G	L	32	2016	Spruce Grove, AB, CAN
7000800000000000000♠8		Ilya Shinkevich	D	L	29	2015	Minsk, Belarus
7001610000000000000♠61		Andrei Stepanov	RW	R	32	2016	Moscow, Russia
7001260000000000000♠26		Nikita Ustinenko	D	R	23	2015	Gomel , Belarus
7001850000000000000♠85		Artyom Volkov	LW	L	33	2016	Navapolatsk, Belarus
7001730000000000000♠73		Dmitri Znakharenko	D	R	25	2015	Gomel , Belarus

Franchise scoring leaders (KHL)

These are the top-ten point-scorers in franchise history while being a KHL club. Figures are updated after each completed KHL regular season.

Note: Pos = Position; GP = Games Played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; P/G = Points per game; bold = current Dinamo player

Points Player Pos GP G A Pts P/G Geoff Platt LW/C 260 87 82 169 0.65 Matt Ellison RW 166 66 95 161 0.97 Alexander Kulakov LW/RW 360 49 60 109 0.30 Charles Linglet LW 184 39 69 108 0.59 Dmitry Meleshko RW 356 52 53 105 0.29 Andrei Stas C 307 35 56 91 0.30 Alexei Kalyuzhny C 152 28 63 91 0.60 Olexander Materukhin RW 208 53 35 88 0.42 Zbyněk Irgl RW 153 37 51 88 0.58 Jonathan Cheechoo RW 103 48 49 86 0.83

Goals Player Pos G Geoff Platt LW/C 87 Matt Ellison RW 66 Olexander Materukhin RW 53 Dmitry Meleshko RW 52 Alexander Kulakov LW/RW 49 Andrei Mikhalev LW/RW 41 Jonathan Cheechoo RW 40 Charles Linglet RW 39 Zbyněk Irgl RW 37 Teemu Laine LW 37

Assists Player Pos A Geoff Platt LW/C 82 Charles Linglet LW 54 Zbyněk Irgl RW 51 Dmitry Meleshko RW 49 Alexander Kulakov RW 49 Andrei Stas C 49 Lukas Krajicek D 48 Alexei Kalyuzhny C 42 Teemu Laine LW 40 Peter Podhradský D 39

References

External links

• (in Russian) Dinamo Minsk Official website