HC Donbass

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Hockey Club Donbass (Ukrainian: Хокейний Клуб Донбас, romanized: Hokeinyi Klub Donbas) is a Ukrainian professional ice hockey team based in Druzhkivka, that played in the Ukrainian Hockey League and briefly the KHL. HC Donbass is a six time Ukrainian champion (2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018). The team was a member of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) during the 2012–13 and 2013–14 seasons, and was the sole representative from Ukraine competing at the elite international level. Due to the war in Donbas, the team did not compete in the 2014–15 KHL season. Borys Kolesnikov, a prominent Ukrainian politician and businessman, purchased the team in 2010, and from then until 2014 it was the most successful hockey club in Ukraine. The team takes its name from its geographic location in the heart of the Donets Basin (Donbas). The club was founded in 2005 as Hockey Club Kolbiko-Donetsk and took part in the XIV Ukrainian Championship by competing in the First League. After three years of competing only in tournament play, the club returned to the Ukrainian Hockey Championship, and ascended to the Ukrainian Major League. In its fourth seasons of national competition beginning in 2008, the franchise won its first national title in 2011, before joining the Supreme Hockey League (VHL). The team also won the 2012–13 IIHF Continental Cup, becoming the first team from Ukraine to do so. Following the 2010–11 season, Donbass split into two teams with their affiliate, Donbass-2, representing the organization in the Professional Hockey League of Ukraine. Donbass-2 won its first title in 2012 during the inaugural PHL season, and its second title the following season for the organization. In 2013, Bilyi Bars began acting as HC Donbass's PHL affiliate, dissolving Donbass-2. Their second arena, in Druzhkivka, was bombed by Russia on 2 January 2023.