The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) (Russian: Континентальная хоккейная лига, Kontinental'naya khokkeynaya liga) is an international professional ice hockey league in Eurasia founded in 2008. It is commonly considered to be the strongest hockey league in Europe, and the second-best in the world.

The league was formed in 2008, from a predecessor organization, the Russian Superleague (RSL). The RSL, in turn, was a successor to the Soviet Championship League, which was founded in 1946 with only five teams. The KHL began its operations with 24 teams. After minor changes in the composition of the Russian teams and even a reduction to 23 teams for two seasons, the league is expected to expand to 26 teams for the 2012–13 season: Lokomotiv Yaroslavl will return after missing last season due to the air disaster in 2011, Slovan Bratislava from Slovakia and HC Donbass from Donetsk, Ukraine are set to join the league, while Lev Poprad will be replaced by HC Lev, a team with the same name, but based in Prague, Czech Republic. Thus, the league will for the first time consist of 26 teams, of which 20 are based in Russia and 6 more are located in Belarus, Czech Republic, Latvia, Kazakhstan, Slovakia and Ukraine.