Channel One Cup. Sweden - Russia

Today on the 15th of December, the Russian national team will open the Channel One Cup with a match against Sweden. This year's tournament is dedicated to Russian ice hockey's 70th anniversary.

Sweden, the opponents, will have several familiar faces on show. Five KHL players will take to the ice: goaltender Viktor Fasth (CSKA Moscow), defenseman Erik Gustafsson (Avangard Omsk) and forwards John Norman (Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod), Linus Omark (Salavat Yulaev) and Mario Kempe (Vityaz Podolsk).

For Russia, head coach Oleg Znarok has named practically a full strength squad with SKA Saint Petersburg's Ilya Kovalchuk and Pavel Datsyuk included. The latter has been named the team's captain during the course of this competition.

These two teams played against each other at the Karjala Cup, with Russia taking a hard fought 3:2 victory. We note that today's fixture will start with a minute's silence in honour of Gennady Tsygurov, who recently died at the age of 75.

The Sweden - Russia will begin at 19.00 Moscow time inside the Moscow Ice Palace. Channel One will broadcast live, and you can follow events on our official Twitter account.

Russian Ice Hockey Federation