What happend with Ukraine?

[Yakushev72]

Even in the USSR era, there were only a handful of players who originated from Ukraine. As athletes, Ukrainians are as good as anyone, and you can see that with a fairly steady flow of boxers, soccer players, track and field athletes and so on. Ukraine is an impoverished country, which eliminates any country from contention in hockey. Hockey is a rich man's sport, and only those countries that can afford to build lavish infrastructure can compete for championships.

 

[Namejs]

Those young people don't have the money, live in a economically and politically challenged society, a lot of them think mostly about living elsewehere and not becoming an athlete at home and then again football is the one sport the country is good at, so if they think of an athlete's career, then hockey is certainly not their first choice.

Look at Germany. It does not have most of the issues, but the dominance of football is the same.

Thank you for parroting what I said earlier.

 

[Atas2000]

Thank you for parroting what I said earlier.

Sorry I hurt your feelings so much by supporting your opinon.

 

[lilidk]

I don't remember Ukraine produces any decent hockey player. Hockey has never been popular in Ukraine

 

[Puck Dogg]

I don't remember Ukraine produces any decent hockey player.

Khristich, Fedotenko and Ponikarovsky had decent NHL careers. Khristich of course was the best of them. Also Godynuyk made the NHL, although he was never a big role player.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Also Dainius Zubrus has moved to Ukraine when he was 13 I think. That program (Druzhba-78, Kharkov) contributed a lot to Ukrainian hockey. Fedotenko, Konstantin Kalmikov (Leafs 3rd round pick), Gennadi Razin (Canadians 5th round), Andrei Zyuzin were also on that team. That was the peak of Ukrainian hockey and it didn't come from Kiev.

 

[Mathieukferland]

Khristich, Fedotenko and Ponikarovsky had decent NHL careers. Khristich of course was the best of them. Also Godynuyk made the NHL, although he was never a big role player.

Auston Matthews played for Ukraine. There’s a great example right there of a Ukrainian trained player making waves in the NHL

 

[Firsov99]

The Ukrainian hockey was pretty much doomed in 1991 after the collapse of the USSR. This was the turning point. People, who think that the decline is a recent event, are simply NOT familiar with the subject.

The Ukrainian hockey got its life in the early 60s when Sokol Kiev, the first Ukrainian (within the realm of the USSR, of course) professional hockey club, was founded. All players and coaches were exclusively from Russia (or Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic then). Another professional club was formed in the late 70s in Kharkov via the same approach: all coaches and players were from Russia. So, basically, the Ukrainian hockey was thriving, so to speak, thanks to constant injections of talent from Russia and state support. Eventually, by the mid 80s, Ukraine started producing some home grown talent like Khristich, Zhitnik, Godynyuk (see more interesting info on him below), etc. By the way, now it should make sense (to those not familiar with the topic), why the vast majority of Ukrainian players are from Kiev and Kharkov.

But when the Soviet Union collapsed, everything has drastically stopped: development of future home grown talent, injection of players and coaching from Russia, and, of course, the state funding. It has been a downhill motion for the Ukrainian hockey since then. The reason why Ukraine was fairly competitive in the 90s (and maybe slightly beyond) is because it was "riding" on some of its talent grown earlier. Once the "fat was burned", there was nothing left.

P.S.1. Please don't nitpick about the term professional in reference to the Soviet sport. Yes, technically, there was no professional sport in the USSR, but, factually, athletes were making money.

P.S.2 Godynyuk played a supporting role in a Soviet youth flick "Troika" (referring to the hockey term "line"). The movie was filmed in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, and local kids from Sokol Kiev youth squad took part in it. The mid 80s was the absolute peak of the Ukrainian hockey.

 

[Firsov99]

Also Dainius Zubrus has moved to Ukraine when he was 13 I think. That program (Druzhba-78, Kharkov) contributed a lot to Ukrainian hockey. Fedotenko, Konstantin Kalmikov (Leafs 3rd round pick), Gennadi Razin (Canadians 5th round), Andrei Zyuzin were also on that team. That was the peak of Ukrainian hockey and it didn't come from Kiev.

I thought that Zyuzin was the product of the Ufa youth system. He definitely started playing hockey in Ufa. I wonder how he ended up in Kharkov.

 

[SoundAndFury]

I thought that Zyuzin was the product of the Ufa youth system. He definitely started playing hockey in Ufa. I wonder how he ended up in Kharkov.

Same way as Zubrus probably, he was invited to join the team which I heard used to travel to NA play friendlies and whatnot, naturally, they wanted to make the roster better. Why did Zyuzin agree your guess is as good as mine though. Maybe he wanted to showcase himself in NA, maybe took it simply as an opportunity to see foreign countries (it was a quite different thing back in the day). Or maybe the Ufa program was struggling in the early 90s, not really the most fun times in the former USSR.

 

[Dofs]

The 'hockey revival' project was implemented by Russian entities though. War or no war, Western Ukraine was unlikely to climb on board for obvious reasons; especially considering nobody cares about the sport to begin with. I mean the owner of Donbass who brought the KHL to Donetsk was in the Party of Regions. Good luck with that in Kiev.

I suppose, without hostilities, the game could've grown a little amongst ethnic Russians in Donbass, but, all in all, the disappearance of the game has nothing to do with war.

Party of Regions, you mean the party that the majority of Ukrainians voted for and Poroshenko himself once was part of? Please. You also make it sound as if Western Ukraine equals to Ukraine and that only them are true Ukrainians or smth.

The game could have caught on in the East and over time spread West. More and more kids could have been brought into the game in the Eastern half, making a Ukrainian National Team more successful. It's perfectly possible even if the game wouldn't be popular in the Western part of the country because even without it it's still tens of millions of people.

But I am sure that over time if the national team was successful, it could have possibly grown in the West too because the team would still represent its country, play under its flag, with Ukrainian anthem sounding in their games.

I am talking about decades of course though, not few years. And I am not saying it would definitely have happened, just that it was possible if there was enough will to push it.

I also never mentioned that the game's disappearance was caused by the war so don't try to argue about something I've never claimed. I've only said the the last serious push to revive hockey In Ukraine was stopped/paused by the war.

 

[Firsov99]

Same way as Zubrus probably, he was invited to join the team which I heard used to travel to NA play friendlies and whatnot, naturally, they wanted to make the roster better. Why did Zyuzin agree your guess is as good as mine though. Maybe he wanted to showcase himself in NA, maybe took it simply as an opportunity to see foreign countries (it was a quite different thing back in the day). Or maybe the Ufa program was struggling in the early 90s, not really the most fun times in the former USSR.

Gotcha. Thanks.

 

[Eye of Ra]

Last time Ukraine played in highest level was 2007. Not that long ago.

Tried doing a best possible Team Ukraine for OG 2002:

Alexei Ponikarovsky - Igor Chibirev - Dmitri Khristich
Ruslan Fedotenko - Vadim Shakhraichuk - Vadim Slivchenko
Olexander Matviychuk - Sergei Varlamov - Vitali Litvinenko
Konstantin Kasyanchuk- Konstantin Butsenko - Bogdan Savenko

Valeri Shiryayev - Alexander Godynyuk
Gennadi Razin - Sergei Klimentyev
Vyacheslav Zavalnyuk - Dmytro Tolkunov

Alexander Viyukhin

Thats not a bad team.

 

[ozo]

Same way as Zubrus probably, he was invited to join the team which I heard used to travel to NA play friendlies and whatnot, naturally, they wanted to make the roster better. Why did Zyuzin agree your guess is as good as mine though. Maybe he wanted to showcase himself in NA, maybe took it simply as an opportunity to see foreign countries (it was a quite different thing back in the day). Or maybe the Ufa program was struggling in the early 90s, not really the most fun times in the former USSR.

I don't want to spread misinformation, but I think I recall reading article that stated that Zubrus went to Kharkov due to invite from his coach Alexei Nikiforov who himself moved to Kharkov at the time.


And yes, Ufa was just another "donor'' city that had good/great hockey school, but no Soviet top league team for most of its history, so the most promising youngsters from lesser cities moved around Soviet Union quite a bit, and just like with Zubrus often they followed their former coaches who got gigs at bigger teams from nicer cities.

 

[Uncle Rotter]

Also Dainius Zubrus has moved to Ukraine when he was 13 I think. That program (Druzhba-78, Kharkov) contributed a lot to Ukrainian hockey. Fedotenko, Konstantin Kalmikov (Leafs 3rd round pick), Gennadi Razin (Canadians 5th round), Andrei Zyuzin were also on that team. That was the peak of Ukrainian hockey and it didn't come from Kiev.

Zubrus was in Ukraine from the age of 11 to 17 when he went to Canada. The dark story behind Druzhba-78:
Behind the Iron Curtain: The Abuse Behind Druzhba 78