Women’s Hockey Update: October 16th, 2017

Members of the Russian women’s national team pose before their game against the Metropolitan Riveters on Friday.  Note, in the back row, the presence of Washington Capitals Alex Ovechkin and Yevgeny Kuznetsov, who had dropped by say hello.  (Image Source)

Yesterday we had a quick look at the Russian women’s national team roster for their current visit to the United States to take on NWHL opposition.  Today, we go into more depth on the team’s first couple of games in North America (and a very interesting start to the series it has been, too), and present you with the promised brief preview of the amateur women’s hockey season in Russia.  Read on…

Team Russia celebrates a goal against the Riveters. (Image Source)

The big question for Team Russia entering this year’s games against the NWHL teams was whether, or how much, they could build upon last season’s respectable 2-3 record in the series.  The answer began to arrive on Friday evening in New Jersey, when the Russians took on the newly-rechristened Metropolitan Riveters.  And it was Russia on the board first in that one; the redoubtable Olga Petrovna Sosina of Agidel Ufa, wearing the captain’s ‘C’ for this series, led by example and put her team up 1-0 nine minutes in when she pounced upon a loose puck in front of the Riveters’ net and fired home.  Nor was she in any way finished for the night…

Team Russia held that 1-0 lead until the dying minutes of the second period, when Alexa Gruschow got the puck past Nadezhda Morozova to level the score at one goal apiece.  Back came Sosina, unassisted, with just 25 seconds left in the middle frame, and she and her team-mates took a 2-1 lead into the final stanza.  Eight minutes into that third period, and Sosina had the hat-trick, carrying the puck from her own zone into the Metropolitan end and snapping it home from the high slot.  3-1 the score, and although Ashley Johnston had the Riveters back within one just a couple of minutes later, Morozova stood tall down the stretch, and the game ended at 3-2.  Sosina’s three goals were obviously the big story of the game, and Team Russia could derive some confidence from the win as the series moved forward.

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If the first game had been Sosina’s show, the second, against the Connecticut Whale on Sunday, belonged to the Tornado Moscow Oblast contingent on Team Russia, and it ended with a truly startling scoreline.  Russia seized control of the game in the early going, as their opening goal by Tornado’s Anna Shokhina (assists to her club and country linemates Alevtina Shtaryova and Yelena Dergachyova) was followed fairly promptly be the 2-0 marker off the stick of Fanuza Kadirova of Arktik-Universitet Ukhta.  Before the first period finished, it was 3-0, as former NWHLer Lyudmila Belyakova (now with Tornado) found the net, and the period shot total of 13-1 in Russia’s favour suggests that the lead was fairly earned.

Nor did Team Russia let up in the second; 18-year-old defender Nina Pirogova, who plays for, yes, Tornado, made it 4-0 with assists from Shokhina and Dergachyova, and the lead became five thereafter thanks to Dynamo St. Petersburg’s Diana Kanayeva.  Shannon Doyle got Connecticut on the board late in the second frame, but Russia kept on rolling into the final 20 minutes.  Anna Shibanova, of Agidel Ufa, scored to make it 6-1, before Pirogova potted her second of the game, again with assists from Shokhina and Dergachyova.  It was 7-1 at that point, the Tornado-ites were not finished; Shtaryova made the score 8-1, as Shokhina and Dergachyova yet again picked up the helpers.  Kelly Babstock rounded out the scoring on behalf of the Whale, and the final score read 8-2 in Russia’s favour.

Nina Pirogova. (Image Source)

A big afternoon, as I said, for the Tornado Moscow Oblast crew.  Shokhina (1-3-4) and Dergachyova (0-4-4) led the way, Pirogova scored 2-0-2, and both Shtaryova and Belyakova finished up at 1-1-2; 14 points in total for the players from Dmitrov.  Mariya Sorokina, of Dynamo St. Petersburg, picked up the win in net by stopping 18 of 20 shots.

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So, the best of all possible starts to the series for the players of Team Russia and for Head Coach Alexei Chistyakov.  Any worries that the significant absences from this year’s tour roster would make the team uncompetitive have been firmly put away, and the trick now will be to keep it going through the next four games.  Most encouraging has been the fact that the big guns — Sosina, Shokhina and her Tornado team-mates, et al. — have been firing at will, and with effect.  The series will continue on Tuesday night with a re-match against the Whale, before Team Russia ships up to Boston for games against the Pride on Wednesday and Saturday.  The series will wrap up on Sunday back where it began, in New Jersey against the Riveters.

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Action between Grad-1 Moscow (in blue) and Sobol Irkutsk at last season’s national championship tournament of the League of Women’s Hockey.  (Image Source)

The national team’s trip to North America is obviously the big news in Russian women’s hockey news at the moment, but it is not the only news.  The country’s amateur women’s league, the League of Women’s Hockey, is set to begin its third season at the end of this month, and for the first time will include an Under-18 division.  The U18 league, known as the “Olimpiiskie Nadezhdy” or “Olympic Hopes” division, will start on October 28th with eight teams:

• Forvard Kazan
• Grizli-3 Novosibirsk
• Orsa Yaroslavl
• Pantery St. Petersburg
• Pantery Tatarsk
• Pervomaiskie Lvitsy Korkino
• Rubin Tyumen
• Severyanka Cherepovets

The opening tournament for the U18 amateurs will take place in Kurganovo, Sverdlovsk Oblast (not far from Yekaterinburg).

As for the senior division (the “Amazonki” or “Amazons” Division), restricted to players 18 and over, that will feature once again 21 teams divided into four groups.  Last season saw the four group-winners and the two best second-place teams advance to the national championship, which was won for the second straight year by Grad-1 Moscow.  This year’s roster of teams is as follows (new teams marked by an asterisk):

• Amazonki Moscow
• Angely Kirov
• Forvard Kazan
• Grad-1 Moscow
• Grad-2 Moscow
• Grizli-1 Novosibirsk
• Grizli-2 Novosibirsk
• Groza-1 St. Petersburg
• Groza-2 St. Petersburg
• Kuznechanka Novokuznetsk
• Malakhit Yekaterinburg
• Orsa Yaroslavl*
• Pantery St. Petersburg*
• Rost-Khimik Nizhny Novgorod*
• Sibirskie Khaski Novosibirsk
• Shturm Pskov
• Sobol Irkutsk
• Soyuz Penza
• Spartanki Moscow
• Tigritsy Amura Khabarovsk
• Yugorchanka Surgut

Amazonki Moscow’s logo. (Image Source)

Missing from last season’s list of teams are HK Atlant Moscow Oblast, Tyumenskie Lisitsy (Tyumen), and — sad to say — the Nikolai Liu Hockey Club from Ukhta.  The Nikolai Liu team (named after the founder of the first women’s team in Ukhta), were surprise qualifiers for the national final last season, and it is to be hoped that we will see them again in the future.  The other five finalists from last season (Grizli-1, Groza-1, Sobol, Malakhit, and eventual champions Grad-1) all return.  And there are three new clubs in Orsa, Pantery, and Rost-Khimik.  Readers who have followed this league here at the blog or elsewhere will remember Valkiriya Moscow from last season; they are still around, but have changed their club name to Amazonki.

The senior league will get underway on the 10th of November, when Group A (Grad-1, Grad-2, Amazonki, Spartanki, and Tigritsy Amura) meet in Ozyory, south of Moscow.  And we will once again keep you updated here on the doings of this league through the 2017-18 season!

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Next Monday, full recaps of the rest of Team Russia’s games against the NWHL teams plus thoughts on the series as a whole, and a look ahead to the resumption of Women’s Hockey League action.  Thank you for reading!