Roman Rotenberg: Russian hockey edging back internationally
Rotenberg says junior teams are returning step by step, with a students' tournament in China set for January pending court cases.
Roman Rotenberg says Russian hockey is edging back onto the international stage step by step, pointing to a students' tournament in China in January as the next fixture on the way back.
The Russian Ice Hockey Federation's first vice-president and founder of the Red Machine academy set out where things stand in remarks carried by Sports.ru.
"We have already returned to the student games — in January we will take part in a tournament in China. We are going step by step, the junior national teams are coming back. I am sure this decision will soon be made official. We need to win the court cases, we will fight and battle on. We will sort this out together. Today we are paying a great deal of attention to developing sport inside Russia, developing our academies, holding tournaments. The Red Machine academy already has 35,000 children training across Russia. Our coaching methods build players step by step, I know this. Our boys already surpass their peers from Canada and the USA. At tournaments the Russians will certainly surpass them in skating, stickhandling technique and game intelligence. We have managed to direct all our efforts into developing sport inside Russia — that is a big plus. That is how things have turned out for us. For certain reasons we are not being allowed to play Canada right now. But we can develop sport inside Russia. Quite soon we will all return to the international arena, work goes on every day. We are fighting and battling for our teams to compete," Rotenberg said.
He linked the return to legal proceedings still under way, saying Russia needs to "win the court cases".
Rotenberg gave his own account of coming up through the sport, learning to skate on women's figure skates in Toksovo, in an interview published by Sports.ru earlier this month. He pointed to the academy’s 35,000 trainees to show scale: a programme now training 35,000 children nationwide, which he uses to claim Russian juniors now outclass their Canadian and American counterparts.
If the student tournament in China in January goes ahead as described, it would mark the first concrete step, though full readmission hinges on the appeals.
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