In 2022, the Ice Hockey World Championship will be held without Russia for the first time in history. Our team has gone through a lot of ups and downs since we started playing under the tricolor flag, but it has never dropped out of the elite. However, this time no one wanted to compete with the Russians for medals.

Misses the international hockey celebration and Ukraine, which some even offered to take to Finland instead of Russia. Now the Ukrainians do not have a residence permit in the top division, but in the past they have played together with the best, including Russia, more than once. And sometimes neighboring countries could even compete with each other, which is almost impossible to think about today.

The last time our teams met was on the ice… fifteen years ago. The confrontation in Moscow became historic – and marked the end of happy hockey times for Ukrainians.

Under the hot hand

Since the appearance on the map of both states, the national teams of Ukraine and Russia have met only four times at the international level, and certainly at the World Cup. At the same time, the favorites, of course, throughout the history of this confrontation were the Russians: our team has never lost to its neighbors. The only time “Red Machine” lost points in a fight with the Ukrainians at the 2002 World Cup, snatching a draw from rivals only in the third period (3:3).

Five years later, at the 2007 World Cup, a meeting with the Ukrainians did not portend any special problems for our team. Over the past time, the yellow-blue team did not improve in level, and at some point it was completely one step away from relegation from the top division … However, the Ukrainians still got to the tournament in Moscow, and it turned out to be their last.

Yuri Gunko / Photo: © Doug Pensinger / Staff / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

The match between the national teams of Russia and Ukraine took place on April 29, and our rivals approached it not in the best condition: a couple of days before that, the team lost to the Finns devastatingly (0:5). But the Russians started the tournament really powerfully, equalizing the Danes with ice at the Megasport arena (9:1). The same attitude, as it turned out, the team kept for the meeting with the Ukrainians.

“Massacre of the innocents”

The meeting in the capital began for the Russian team in a somewhat unexpected way. Outsiders opened the scoring in the match: already in the 4th minute, Alexander Eremenko’s gate was hit by Ukrainian defender Sergei Klimentiev. The “Yellow-Blues” entered the game cheerfully, but their mood in the end was not enough even for a period.

The Russians managed to come out ahead already in the first 20 minutes, and subsequently brought the matter to a rout. Under pressure from the team of Vyacheslav Bykov, the opponent simply crumbled, and Alexei Morozov played a decisive role in the victory over the Ukrainians. It was he who equalized the score in the match, and then added four more effective actions to his asset. In total – two assists and three goals.

Alexey Morozov / Photo: © Elsa / Staff / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

The result of the meeting turned out to be completely indecent for the Ukrainians: 1:8. This defeat is still one of the largest in the history of the team. In the Russian press, among other things, he was dubbed the “beating of babies.”

The end of Ukrainian hockey?

However, in terms of symbolic significance, it is this defeat that should be considered the most important for Ukraine. The fact is that following the results of the 2007 World Cup campaign, the national team, once considered promising, left the world hockey elite forever. In the third match of the preliminary stage, the Ukrainians lost to the Danes (3:4), after which they lost their place in the top division, and a few years later they fell even lower. It is symbolic that right after the historic defeat from Russia, one of the Russian-speaking fans wrote:

– I am sincerely sorry for the Ukrainian team. The leadership of Ukraine finally scored on hockey. The main sports palace is mainly used for all kinds of exhibitions and festivals. And the main team Kyiv “Sokol”, which in the current situation is the base of the national team, plays in some barn. The team does not receive any actual financial support. There are considerable problems with ammunition in the Sokol. It’s the same with the team. At the same time, the Ukrainians, for which I respect them, managed to maintain a residence permit in the elite year after year. In general, if the attitude towards Ukrainian hockey continues to be appropriate, then we will not see more Ukrainians at the World Cup. It’s a pity…

The words of a fan from 2007 turned out to be prophetic: the team has not yet been able to return to its former level. I would like to believe that in the future Russia and Ukraine will again be able to meet on the ice. But for now, it is very difficult to talk about the return of both teams to the elite, albeit for different reasons.