The year 2025 in Ukrainian hockey ended in alarming fashion: for the second time in the regular season, the national championship match between Krizhinka Capitals and Storm did not take place. But if in the first case it was about another joke of the owners of the self-crowned capital club, now the situation is more complicated. Odessa “Storm”, which decided to play in Vinnitsa this season, looked like an island of stability compared to other formed or dissolved teams.

As you know, the team made its debut in professional hockey by winning the National Cup in 2024. This was followed by a bright regular season, in which the team led by Alexander Bobkin fought on equal terms with Sokol, Kremenchug and Kyiv Capitals and lost 0:4 to the Monarchs in the playoffs. This is where all the negativity starts counting down. After the failure, coach Bobkin immediately took responsibility and resigned. But the roots of the current problems are far from being linked to the coaching factor.

On Epiphany, yesterday, January 6, a video message from the club’s sports director Georgy Lopatukhin appeared on the Storm Telegram channel. Accusing the Ukrainian Hockey Federation and some information sources of bias and trying to discredit the club, Mr. Lopatukhin decided to fill the information gap.

“Following our failure to return with registered contracts for the full 2024/25 season, we realized that this could lead to very interesting and unexpected consequences for the club,” says the respected sporting director. “Therefore, a decision was made before the 2025/26 season: not to send the contracts by mail, but to register them in our presence. This was done. After that the adventures of the “Storm” began. Therefore, the “Storm” sends all official requests to the official mail of the FHU, as expected. There are currently more than two dozen different objections, and they still do not even have a registration from the FHU.

One of these, for which no official response has been received yet, is the request of the club to postpone the match, which has the right to do so in accordance with the championship rules. (against Krizhinka – auto) Due to the large number of injured players. According to the regulations, the club can send a letter two days before the start of the match. The letter was sent on December 25 (the match was supposed to be played on December 28 – auto). The club also provided medical clearance for the injured. However, there has been no response from the club yet confirming or denying that the match has been postponed.

You probably noticed that during the last trip of the Ukrainian national team to Romania, Ilya Kryklya was not on the field. (Storm player – auto). Thus, Ilya, who was injured in the national team, was also among those injured. But despite FHU’s medical rehabilitation, the hockey player had to return to the club. Since we met with the head physician of the team at FHU, there has been no suggestion or interest regarding Ilya’s condition. FHU counts a technical defeat rather than facing a club with a certain number of injured players. If they tell you that we sent you something late, we can help another newly created club. (obviously we are talking about the “Odessa region” – auto) Start playing by the rules.”

Mr. Lopatukhin concluded his speech by promising that this “will not be our last communication with you.” “There are many interesting things about the state of Ukrainian hockey and not only,” the sports director wonders.

We should also point out that Georgy Lopatukhin’s son is responsible for the information sources of “The Storm” this season. And he manages them quite aggressively. For example, when a fan asked why the publication of team compositions before matches was stopped, the answer was: “We do not think it is necessary.”

In fact, the attempt to hide information that by definition should be in the public domain already speaks volumes. Let’s say, not because of a large number of injuries, but because hockey players refused to go on the ice, the Storm had no one to play with at the end of the year. He told Sport.ua many interesting things, keeping his name secret.

It was not in vain that I said above that the Storm had been in a storm since the end of last season. Because hockey players were not paid their outstanding salaries from March to September. However, this practice is considered advanced for our hockey. For example, it has been practiced for more than one season in Kiev Sokol, where it is customary for as long as possible not to return funds for the last game month of the previous season to hockey players and club employees who are not trusted in the next championship or have not yet decided on their future. Therefore, “Storm” did not invent the wheel, but adopted best practices. And not only in Sokol, you will find more about this below.

In the summer, on the eve of the 2025/26 season, Storm was left without one of its main sponsors, having not found a common language with club owner Oleg Kropivnitsky. Then there were rumors that Mr. Kropivnitsky might agree on cooperation with Red Bull. But the rumors remained just rumors. In this context, the decision to move Storm from Odessa to Vinnitsa seemed quite unexpected. Provided that the club does not officially change its registration and no one kicks the team out of Pearl by the Sea. In one of the interviews, Evgeniy Filonov, deputy director of the Odessa Sports Palace, deputy of the local regional council from the anti-Ukrainian OZhPZ, openly said: “We are waiting for the Storm” in Odessa.”

However, the club had its own ideas. No one took into account the opinions of the players, many of whom moved to Storm precisely because of the opportunity to live in Odessa. The management of the hockey players assured that “Everything will be fine, everything will be fine” in the summer due to the team’s inability to start preparations for the season. The coach of the new team, Ruslan Borisenko, initially planned to gather the players at the beginning of August, and then at the beginning of September. But in the end, the team not only did not gather, but also did not participate at all in the Ukrainian Cup, which was the first official start of the new season. At the same time, hockey players did not receive salaries for August-September (not paying hockey players in the off-season is the usual norm for most of our hockey clubs).

As a result, “The Storm” was assembled just a few days before the start of the new championship. They placed hockey players who had no place to live in Vinnitsa in one of the dormitories, with five to seven people per room. The team went from three meals a day to one. This experience was taken from the management of the club, which actually turned out to be “Storm” – Kherson “Dnepr”. Part-time coach of the Pikes and the youth team, Bobkin ironically joked to representatives of his club at the training camp of the youth team: “At least you can get fed in the national team.”

And Storm players were no longer paid the wages stated when they signed their contracts. According to Sport.ua, most men are paid a minimum salary of 10,000 (ten thousand) hryvnias.

In this case, the smartest among the hockey players was 18-year-old Daniil Skorokhod, or rather his father, who warned the club management before the season even started that his son would not stay in the Storm. If Danil was not released, my father would summon him to court. As a result, they managed to impress Mr. Kropivnitsky with national team coaches Oleg Shafarenko and Andrey Sryubko, who stated that Ukraine could lose a promising hockey player and each offered to buy Skorokhod to his own club. Later, more favorable conditions were offered by Sokol Shafarenko, for whom the hockey player currently plays.

Storm’s next departure was forward Dmitry Kobilnik, who transferred to Odesshina during the season. National team candidates Nikita Sidorenko and Sergei Stetsyura, as well as Dmitry Sapozhnik, have refused to play and are not yet performing. Goalkeeper Nikita Gordyushin decided to leave the Storm after he was given a 40 percent penalty for leaving the team’s location while his wife was about to give birth. They cannot find a new team, because the “Thunderstorm” put a clause that is unaffordable for our realities – one million hryvnia.

Now in “The Storm” the situation is such that there is not enough money for everything. The funds allocated by the betting company “Favbet”, which agreed to sponsor the Odessans before the start of the season, are not enough. More precisely, the bettors fulfill their obligations completely and Storm actually has no other source of financing. The players are demoralized and refuse to take the ice. Previously, the Storm were supposed to leave the Christmas break on January 4, but the team never met that day. Meeting the bad game with a good face, the club announced on December 30 that it was suspending participation in the championship, citing the decision as a conflict situation with FHU.

We live like this.