The Hockey News

Jersey HOUND

- – RYAN KENNEDY

YUGRA KHANTY-MANSIYSK | 2017-18

STRAIGHT UP, WE DON’T have enough elephants in hockey. Perhaps it’s because big creatures don’t traditiona­lly represent speed or dexterity, but Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk prove that a cool mascot can still be burly.

Yugra actually has a woolly mammoth as their totem, and it’s a pretty nice one at that. The franchise picked the prehistori­c animal since a lot of mammoth fossils have been found in the permafrost around Khanty-Mansiysk.

Yugra joined the KHL in 2010 but will have to play in the lesser VHL circuit next year (think AHL), as the franchise, along with Lada Togliatti, was relegated in late March.

 ??  ?? ANTON KURYANOV
ANTON KURYANOV

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