Damir Ryspayev Fights Kunlun Over and Over

Kunlun Red Star, the first Chinese team in the KHL, has only been playing games for two weeks. However, the league’s newest club is already building quite the rivalry with fellow Asian club Barys Astana. The two teams met for the first time on August 5th in a preseason affair that saw numerous tilts and 196 penalty minutes handed out during a 3-1 Kunlun victory, the first in their brief history.

Both sides faced off against each other just three days later on August 8th and the bad blood was evident from the start. Just 2:57 into the first period, the game was paused — and eventually abandoned — after Barys enforcer Damir Ryspayev attempted to take on the Beijing-based club singlehandedly. Ryspayev threw punches at three separate Kunlun players on the ice, none of whom wanted anything to do with the KHL heavyweight. Ryspayev then skated over to the Kunlun bench, and became involved in an altercation with a fourth Kunlun player.