Do you remember how it all began?…

The national ice hockey team of Belarus celebrated its 30th anniversary on November 7th

'The qualifying tournament for the national teams of Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan for the right to participate in the World Championship in Group C next year began at the Sports Palace in Minsk yesterday. The opponents will play one match between each other. The two best teams will qualify for the championship, the third one will have to wait at least another year. In case of equality of points for two teams, the result of the meeting between them will be taken into account, and then the total difference between abandoned and missed goals. If all teams score the same number of points, the best ones are determined only by the goal difference. Belarusian team will meet with Ukraine and Kazakhstan today and tomorrow at 17.00’ This article entitled ‘Two is company, three is none’ was published in Sovetskaya Belorussiya on November 7th, 1992. The date is of great importance for the Belarusian hockey: it was on this day that the national team of our country played the first official match in its history. Just a little while ago, this debut turned 30 years old. Let’s remember how it all began. 

Of those who can

That was a difficult time. The Soviet Union had just collapsed, and the countries that were part of it were starting a new life. 
“Since HC Dinamo Minsk entered the elite of the USSR championship under the leadership of Vitaly Stain, many people began to go to hockey. Huge queues lined up for tickets for matches — 300 metres each! Hockey was loved, it was given a lot of attention both from the government and from the sports department... Before the creation of the national team, we had a lot of success: the BSSR team won one of the most prestigious competitions — the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR, became champions of the All-Union youth competitions. We did not have a lot of ice palaces, but the level of the players in those years has seriously increased, because they went through a good school,” the first head coach of the national ice hockey team of Belarus Vladimir Safonov recalls the background. 

Vladimir Safonov remembers the events of 1992 as if they happened yesterday
Photo by Tatyana Stolyarova

In 1992, he headed HC Dinamo Minsk. Since this club became the basis of the national team, the coach was asked to stand at its helm. Work began on the recruitment of the composition. Vladimir Safonov says that everything went smoothly on paper, but in reality, it turned out to be completely different. Hockey players who played in HC Dinamo Minsk and other well-known clubs did not come to the qualifying tournament. So, the first team lost Oleg Mikulchik, Alexander Andrievsky, Andrey Kovalyov, Alexander Galchenyuk, Alexander Yudin, Yuri Krivokhizhi, Mikhail Zakharov... Some of the players dropped out due to injuries: Andrey Rasolko, Oleg Antonenko could not compete in the tournament...
They had to create a team of those who remained. The coaching staff, which, in addition to Vladimir Safonov, included Valery Voronin and Vladimir Semenov, joined the Dinamo backbone, took several guys from Neman, who played in the first league, and Khimik Novopolotsk from the second league, “It should be noted that at that time there were not the best sentiments in HC Dinamo Minsk. Let me explain: until the club went into private hands, there were no problems in it. But when this happened, and Igor Makaed became the president of the club, they appeared. For six months, if not more, the club did not pay wages at all. We lived on peanuts, and the leader told us ‘There is no money’. We did not have any inventory at that time. A player could not go to a training session or a match simply because his skates broke. There were not enough clubs and  other necessary equipment... But when the team gathered, we did not talk about it and did not think about it. For the players, the national team was an ideal, a goal that everyone aspired to.”
In the qualifying tournament, our team was placed in the same group with the national teams of Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Ukrainian Sokol then performed well in the championship of the USSR, in Kazakhstan there were also many strong players. Vladimir Mikhailovich says: there was no such competition in other groups, “Let me not go very far: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia gathered in one of the groups. Latvians defeated everyone just ‘on one skate’! True, only one team came out of their trio, and two of ours. Rivals from Ukraine and Kazakhstan managed to collect almost all the best players. We didn’t have that opportunity.”
The Belarusian team also had nothing to prepare for. The team literally practiced for a couple of days at Raubichi. Once Yevgeny Ankuda, who headed the hockey federation at that time, came to this training base, “He knew that it was necessary to motivate the team, maybe somehow reward if we played successfully, and said: ‘There is no money, but we will find a stretcher for everyone. Give it your all, and we’ll take you out’. The boys played with their hearts. Everyone understood that the national team was not Dinamo, but a completely different team. We realised that this was the first such competition for our sovereign country.”

Overboard

Vladimir Safonov continues, “The qualifying tournament was difficult. In the first match with the Ukrainian team, we fought for the first two periods, the game was on an equal footing. Before the last twenty minutes we lost to the opponent 0:1. And in the third period they began to make mistakes and eventually lost with a score of 1:4. But we did not lose the chance to go further: the next day we played with the team of Kazakhstan, which beat the Ukrainians in the first match. It turned out that we could become both the first and the second. To be leaders in the group, we had to win by five goals in order to take second place with three. The match with Kazakhstan was held at the Sports Palace with full stands. We were leading 3-0, and this result suited us. At the same time, two goals were scored by Sergey Stas and Dima Pankov, who were then 18 years old — they did not sit on the bench, they tried to help the team. And then our goalkeeper Sasha Gavrilenok made a mistake: he caught the puck, which was put into the goal from the centre of the rink, on the ice, but still missed it between his legs... We won with a score of 3:1, but in order to go further, it was not enough. Everyone was so sad.”
In that tournament, each team scored two points. Everything was decided by the difference between goals scored and goals conceded — the Belarusians remained on the third line in the standings. Vladimir Safonov says that despite the fact that thirty years have passed since that tournament, all the events that unfolded then on the Minsk ice are remembered as if they happened yesterday. The coach says, “I am grateful to the guys who were able to take part in the first competitions of our national team, who went to great lengths on the ice. Despite any difficulties, they fought and tried. The guys created this team, put the spirit into it, and this charge remained in the team for many years. Those players became great hockey players. For many years, the backbone of the first team played at major tournaments, including the Olympics. Very good coaches were appeared from the guys who were in that team. This means that the grain that was thrown into the soil at that time gave good fruit. This is our history, and I believe that it should not be forgotten.” 

By Tatiana Pastushenko