13.12.2010, 14:29:37

Fight in the match "Avangard" - "Vityaz". Still from a video posted on the website "Championat.Ru"

Don't hit someone who's lying down

“Vityaz” demanded to be expelled from the KHL for a fight with “Avangard”

The match between the Omsk hockey club Avangard and the Moscow region Vityaz again ended in scandal. However, it would be more correct to say that it just began with a scandal: already at the sixth second, the Vityaz players attacked their opponents and started a fight. After the match, the management and fans of Avangard demanded that Vityaz be expelled from the KHL.

Voivodes

“Vityaz” occupies the last place in the KHL, and the only indicator by which the hockey players of the Chekhov club are ahead of the players of other teams is penalty minutes. That is, “Vityaz,” on the one hand, has something to brag about - if, for some reason, Nizhny Novgorod “Torpedo” leaves the league, many will not even notice it, and “Vityaz” is a brand. On the other hand, what makes Chekhov’s club famous is that it’s not really hockey anymore. Or even not hockey at all - this point of view is also very common.

The “Vityaz” project found ideological completion in October 2010 - just then the team, assembled from experienced Canadian and beginning Russian fighters, also received a suitable coach - “Vityaz” was headed by Andrei Nazarov, whose career in the NHL turned out to be successful in its own way that Nazarov did not have the talents of a scorer. But he knew how to fight well.

Joshua Gratton. You can’t say about him “appearances are deceiving.” Photo from the site hcvityaz.ru

Nazarov turned out to be a good coach - Chelyabinsk Traktor, under his leadership, consistently reached the playoffs, and in the spring of 2010, Nazarov joined the coaching staff of the Russian national team. did not approve of the decision to lead Vityaz True, the specialist did not work for the national team for long - Vyacheslav Bykov , and Nazarov left the team.

Under Nazarov, the Chekhov club defeated Salavat Yulaev and Magnitogorsk Metallurg, but cannot boast of stable results and, as before, does not pretend to reach the playoffs. But “Vityaz” still succeeds in a certain kind of show, as the game on December 10 showed.

The most famous match between Vityaz and Avangard (except for the game in 2008, during which Alexei Cherepanov died) took place in January 2010, if the word “took place” is generally applicable to a game that lasted three minutes and 39 seconds. Then the hockey players started a fight, and there were almost no players left who were not sent off before the end of the game. The match was interrupted, the clubs paid large fines, and Vityaz was threatened with expulsion from the KHL if the incident repeated.

Whether what happened on December 10 is considered a “repetition of the incident” is a personal matter, but the league apparently did not find complete similarities between the two conflicts. At least Vityaz were not expelled from the KHL.

Match

After the January match, any game between Avangard and Vityaz attracts special attention. This time, the “ideological preparation” began a few days before the match: on the website of the Vityaz fans’ association “Voevoda” they posted an ambiguous video entitled “Preview of any match with HC Avangard.” Vityaz fans apparently thought it was witty, but Avangard fans, judging by the comments, were offended. It is not known whether the hockey players of the Omsk club saw the video, but perhaps they already knew what awaited them.

After the match, the Avangard coach praised Alexei Kalyuzhny (right) for his courage. Photo from hawk.ru

It was possible to understand that “Vityaz” came to Omsk not only to play hockey from the starting five of Chekhov’s team. Five forwards took to the ice, including Ivan Larin, who had previously played only one match in the 2010/11 season - also with Avangard - and earned 27 penalty minutes in it. Another interesting detail was reported by the host of the online broadcast on the Avangard website. According to him, before the game they said that the Canadian hockey players of Vityaz had purchased plane tickets to Moscow, and not to Khanty-Mansiysk, where the Chekhovites had a match with Ugra on December 12 (though Chris Simon vs. Ugra was still did play).

Immediately after the start of the game, the Vityaz forwards naturally attacked their opponents. Joshua Gratton, Darcy Vero and Sergei Belokon especially distinguished themselves. It’s not very interesting to read about what happened - hockey fights clearly fall into the “better to see once” category. You can watch the recording of the brawl on the Chempionat.Ru website.

An expert assessment of the incident was given by the former Russian tough guy Alexander Yudin. In an interview with the Sport Express newspaper , he said that Avangard players “hit the ice like pears.” Yudin emphasized that he was ashamed of the players of the Omsk club who “could not stand up for themselves.” “If they are afraid to fight, then they should go to another sport,” Yudin decisively concluded.

As a result of the brawl, all players of the Vityaz starting five, as well as two Avangard hockey players, received suspensions of varying lengths. As a result, the Omsk team played “five on three” for five minutes and during this time they converted the majority twice. Ten thousand Omsk fans, who greeted their opponents with chants of “Gopniks!”, were counting on defeat, but it turned out that Vityaz had other plans for this.

It cannot be said that the game became equal, but there was definitely no talk of Avangard’s overwhelming advantage, and Vityaz even managed to win back - it’s funny that the hockey players of the Moscow Region club also scored their two goals in the majority. The decisive goal two minutes before the end was scored by Avangard forward Alexander Perezhogin, but the Vityaz hockey players fought to the end, and the word “fought” this time has nothing to do with fights.

A minute and a half before the siren, Nazarov removed the goalkeeper, and Vityaz even managed to score the third goal, but the puck flew into the goal a few tenths of a second after the end of the match. This incident could have become a reason for a new brawl, but the hockey players not only did not fight, but even shook hands.

Consequences

During the brawl, Czech Avangard hockey players Roman Cervenka and Martin Skoula received concussions. Both players missed the match with Barys on December 12. It is unclear how long it will take to restore Cervenka and School.

Episode of the match "Avangard" - "Vityaz". Photo (c)AFP

Most likely, the Omsk Czechs will return to the ice earlier than the participants in the fight from Vityaz. The KHL suspended Vero for 12 games, Belokon for 13, Larin for 14, and Gratton for 15 games. Nazarov will pay a fine of 400 thousand rubles, and Avangard general manager Anatoly Bardin, who during the match went to sort things out with Nazarov (Bardin had no chance in a fist fight, so he limited himself to verbal attacks), was fined 100 thousand.

On December 16, representatives of Vityaz were invited to a meeting with the KHL management. According to the league's website, based on the results of the conversation, new sanctions may be imposed on the Chekhov club. Vityaz general manager Alexey Zhamnov, on the contrary, expects that the disqualification periods for his team’s players will be reduced.

True, Zhamnov most likely shouldn’t hope for a commutation of his sentence. According to Bardin, Vero and Gratton are facing criminal prosecution. Most likely, Bardin's words will remain words - in any case, Zhamnov denied the information that after the game the Canadians were interrogated at a police stronghold. But it’s hard to believe that the KHL will suddenly decide to forgive players who, in the opinion of many fans, discredit the league.

The KHL largely follows the example of the NHL - fights would not have appeared in Russian hockey if they had not been popular in Canada and the USA. However, you won’t see carnage like the one that happened at the Avangard - Vityaz match in the overseas league, especially in recent years. It seems that the Russian NHL league has already surpassed this.

Yaroslav Kotyshov

Don't hit someone who's lying down

Voivodes

Match

Consequences

Related links

Related sites

Lenta.ru: Sport: Don't bey lying down