The Youth World Hockey Championship, held in the USA, ended with the triumph of the Swedish team. The champions included the son of a former KHL star, Herman Liv. The goalkeeper didn’t get much playing time, but his father could definitely be proud of him. But the ex-goalkeeper of Sibir and Lokomotiv did not have the opportunity to see the success of his heir.

Stefan Liv has not been with us for a decade and a half.

Second generation

The Youth World Hockey Championship ended in the United States on Tuesday night. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) still does not allow Russians, which, of course, plays into the hands of competitors. True, neither the American owners nor their Canadian neighbors drew any special dividends from the absence of our youth team. The Maple Leaves finished the tournament with bronze, and the US youth team stopped competing altogether in the quarterfinals.

The fate of the gold medals was decided by the teams of the Czech Republic and Sweden. The Swedes won the final with a score of 4:2. The champions included several players whose fathers achieved significant success in professional hockey. Among them are Erik Nilsson, Victor Eklund, Jack Berglund, Herman Liv. Swedish hockey stars can definitely be proud of the successes of the younger generation.

Hockey players of the Swedish national team / Photo: © David Berding / Stringer / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

True, not all champions were able to please their titled parents. The 19-year-old Örebro goalkeeper, who played in the tournament’s victorious match against Germany, has not seen his father Stefan Liev since September 2011. Herman had just turned five years old when one of the worst tragedies in Russian and world hockey occurred.

Swedish champion

Olympic champion and world champion in hockey Stefan Liv was born in 1980 in Poland. A boy named Patrick Slizh was left by his mother in an orphanage, where he was adopted by a Swedish couple. True, the family idyll did not last long in the new country – the adoptive father who gave the hockey player his last name died when Stefan was 10 years old.

A difficult childhood did not prevent Liv from realizing himself in hockey. A graduate of the XB71 club achieved significant success with the national team: in 2002 he won bronze at the World Championships, and silver in 2004. And in 2006 we managed to win both the Olympics and the World Championships. With such baggage at the international level, one could count on success in the NHL, but Stefan’s overseas career did not work out. The Swede tried his luck in the Detroit Red Wings system and soon returned home.

Stefan Liv / Photo: © Richard Wolowicz / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

At less than 30 years old, Liv decided to prove himself in another ambitious hockey league. The Olympic champion signed a contract with Sibir and already in the first season received an invitation to play in the KHL All-Star Game. Stefan’s partners on the ice were Jaromir Jagr, Alexander Radulov, Alexey Morozov, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Sergey Fedorov. Rivals: Alexey Yashin, Sandis Ozolins, Dominik Hasek.

Before the start of the next season, Liv joined a more ambitious team – Yaroslavl Lokomotiv. The star Swede did not really have time to help the new team: on September 7, 2011, his career, like the player’s life, ended not far from the Tunoshna airport. The tragedy claimed 44 lives and shocked not only Russia, but the whole world. And now, almost 15 years later, the son of one of the victims of the plane crash has achieved significant success on the international stage. Stefan Liv would definitely be proud of Herman.