{"id":125893,"date":"2022-02-24T18:40:58","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T23:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=125893"},"modified":"2022-02-24T18:40:58","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T23:40:58","slug":"jokerit-helsinki-quits-khl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2022\/02\/24\/jokerit-helsinki-quits-khl\/","title":{"rendered":"Finnish Team Jokerit Helsinki Quits Russian Based KHL Over Ukranian Invasion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Notable Finnish team Jokerit Helsinki quits the Russian-based KHL after Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine. Jokerit has competed in the KHL since 2014 and previously competed in Finland&#8217;s top league (Liiga, 1 Divisioona, SM-Sarja) since 1967.<\/p>\n<h2>Jokerit Helsinki Quits KHL Over Ukranian Invasion<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">MTV reporting that Finnish ice hockey team Jokerit have quit the Russian-dominated Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) due to Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>They had been due to play Spartak (of Moscow) in the play-offs next week. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1gAb4UsSR9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/1gAb4UsSR9<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ronan Browne (@RonanBrownen) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RonanBrownen\/status\/1496891561967333390?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 24, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>After Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, Jokerit Helsinki announced that they have cut ties with the KHL. The club is expected to return to Finland&#8217;s Sm-Liiga, where they played before 2014.<\/p>\n<p>This comes after Ukraine&#8217;s UHL Suspended operations indefinitely for safety reasons. For now, Jokerit is the only non-Russian team in the KHL to speak out about the issue. There haven&#8217;t been any statements from Kunlun (China), Dinamo Riga (Latvia), Dinamo Minsk (Belarus), or Barys Nur-Sultan (Kazakhstan). None are expected to speak out as of right now.<\/p>\n<p>Jokerit has been one of the top teams in the KHL standings for the last couple of years. However, they haven&#8217;t won a Gagarin Cup, either being knocked out of the playoffs late or having the playoffs cancelled.<\/p>\n<p>The team has produced a number of notable finish alumni, some of the most recognizable include <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/selante01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Teemu Selanne<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kurrija01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jari Kurri<\/a>, who is the majority owner of the team.<\/p>\n<p>Jokerit was in the news during the 2020 offseason for highly sought-after defenceman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=lehtomi03,lehtomi01,lehtomi02&amp;search=Mikko+Lehtonen&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mikko Lehtonen<\/a>, who never panned out for either the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2022\/02\/23\/podcast-ilya-lyubushkin-trade\/\" target=\"_self\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> or the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2022\/02\/24\/nhl-predictions-minnesota-wild-vs-toronto-maple-leafs\/\" target=\"_self\">Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means For The KHL<\/h3>\n<p>With Jokerit leaving the KHL, Russia loses Finland as a market, which had been highly successful up until this point. As the sports league that represents Russia, the KHL will most likely be highly publicized for a while.<\/p>\n<p>For Jokerit, they will most likely join the league they started in, the SM-Liiga. Although it is slightly lesser competition, it&#8217;ll be a much-needed reunion with one of\u00a0 Liiga&#8217;s most recognizable and storied teams.<\/p>\n<p>For now, it is unknown if Jokerit will take their current players over. It wouldn&#8217;t be surprising if Finnish-born players currently in the KHL will sign with Jokerit to further bolster their roster, get out of Russia entirely, or until this situation resolves.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"2lHzFtxwSaRGRJlslgEQ-w\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/884552978\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'2lHzFtxwSaRGRJlslgEQ-w',sig:'9vPbE6bFlP6N2lqg_Ucl_bar-3c6RvuMinFekyiSP4o=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'884552978',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Notable Finnish team Jokerit Helsinki quits the Russian-based KHL after Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine. Jokerit has competed in the KHL since 2014 and previously competed in Finland&#8217;s top league (Liiga, 1 Divisioona, SM-Sarja) since 1967. Jokerit Helsinki Quits KHL Over Ukranian Invasion MTV reporting that Finnish ice hockey team Jokerit have quit the Russian-dominated Kontinental [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4073,"featured_media":125900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4547,3271,2003,34],"tags":[517,4755],"class_list":["post-125893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hockey","category-european-leagues","category-khl","category-news","tag-khl","tag-khl-news"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4073"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}