Torpedo beat Ak Bars in VOLGA Arena's opening match

Torpedo beat Ak Bars 3-2 in the first match played at the new VOLGA Arena in Nizhny Novgorod, and the visitors' goal came from Yegor Sokolov, scoring against the club he had left only days earlier.

Sokolov signed for Torpedo in late July and prepared for the season with the club, before being traded to Ak Bars on 8 September. His goal on Sunday, his first for his new side, went in against his old one.

"The emotions aren't the best – we lost. If you score but the team loses, it's not the same feeling at all. This goal can only add to my confidence. It's a shame the team lost," Sokolov said, quoted by Sports.ru.

"It was great, Nizhny Novgorod deserved this. The city lives for hockey, the atmosphere is superb. I'm very glad I opened this arena, even scoring for the other team," he added.

Nizhny Novgorod governor Gleb Nikitin addressed the Torpedo players in the dressing room after the win. "Lads, this really is a completely unique moment for us. I think I was more nervous than you were, hoping the first match at this arena would be a happy one. If it hadn't gone that way, we'd have found plenty of arguments about not being superstitious and all that. But there's no need to think about that now. The win came. We put our hearts into this arena. There were an enormous number of difficulties. We'll still be fine-tuning it, we'll be polishing the ice, adjusting the air conditioning so the humidity is right. It will all work," Nikitin said.

The VOLGA Arena was laid down in 2022 and holds more than 13,000 spectators.

Russian Hockey Federation president Vladislav Tretyak, asked whether the arena could help turn Torpedo into an elite club, pointed instead to coaching. "The most important thing is that there's ice here. And the governor is already saying they don't have enough of it. Can you imagine? The stadium has only just appeared, and already they're saying there isn't enough ice. That shows how great hockey's popularity is here. There's an opportunity to develop talent, to produce good players. People are going into hockey, the conditions are good. Now the most important thing is the coaching staff. We need coaches capable of making great players. Both the federation and the institutes need to work on this, so that we get professional coaches. You can build a million rinks, but without a good coaching staff you won't raise hockey players," Tretyak said.

Tretyak also credited the governor directly for the project, saying much had depended on him and that Nikitin understood hockey's role in raising patriots, adding that the arena could in future host a World Championship or an All-Star match. Ak Bars's Gatiyatulin, despite the win going to the hosts, called it "a superb new arena" and congratulated Torpedo on the opening.

The arena's early creases, by the governor's own account, are still being worked out. Whether that stretches to the ice Sokolov beat on his return, or to the coaching pipeline Tretyak wants built, will only be answered over a season, not one opening night.