SOKIL WINDS UP SEASON WITH THE CUP
On April 13 the Ukrainian national ice-hockey team left for Slovenia to take part in the Group B world championship tournament, which will be its debut. It is basically made up of Kyiv Sokil players and 14 so-called Foreign Legionnaires who play on contract for teams in Germany and Switzerland. The Ukrainians have beaten the Polish team in two off-the-record matches in Tykhe and Opole 4:1 and 3:1. In addition to their Polish and Slovenian rivals the Ukrainian team will also on April 15-24 face Great Britain, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, and Estonia.
It would be good if Ukraine could enjoy success similar to that Sokil has in the Eastern-European Hockey League Cup finals where three times in a row it defeated Neman in Grodno, Belarus, 4:2 and 5:0 and in Kyiv 6:1.
Meanwhile, East European Hockey League President Lev Kontarovich of Minsk has awarded two cups to team captain Andriy Savchenko of Kyiv, who while playing in the regular championship league scored 81 goals in 92 attempts, 88%.
I think that it would have been better, if Sokil (Eagle) had lost one of the final games and defeated Neman with three victories tot one instead of 3 to 0.People might think it was too easy to win the finals. Actually, Neman could have won one of the home games, if Sokil had lost the initiative. But nothing like that happened, and it was the Belarus goalie who failed to bear the tension. After shutting down the breakaway of Vasily Bobrovnykov (the score was one to two then), he rebounded and was easily outdistanced by Vasyl Vasylenko.
By the way, NHL and NBA award the title of the most valuable player. Our 30-years old forward Vasylenko, who was away from Kyiv until late March, did not need time to remember the game strategy of two other older players, Oleg Sinkov and Andrey Ovchinnikov. Playing in the same line with them, he managed to score two goals in every final game. If the league had the MVP title, it would have definitely gone to him. Neman coaches said they had to change all their lines because four offensive players were injured. But Sokil also did not have more than two good offensive lines. The situation changed for the better when Valentyn Oletsky came back from Nizhny Novhorod and Oleh Krykunenko was traded to Sokil from Berkut-PVO. But Sokil got its deadly weapon when it bought Vasylenko from Moscow Khimik. Neman defenders failed to stop the powerful Sokil forwards. The next day Neman substituted their goalie for Oleksandr Prudnikovich. Sokil won the game by scoring five goals to zero. The first to score was Sokil rookie Oleksandr Zynevych.
If only we could bring back our boys who play on contracts abroad. Of help here may be Sokil’s new sponsor, Philips Power Life.
Photo by Volodymyr Rasner, The Day:
SOKIL SOARS TO CUPHEIGHTS.
On the attack, Dmytro Markovsky (№ 16)
