Kirill Petrov: 20 is the very beginning of a hockey career16.07.2010

But before leaving for Canada he gave an interview to kazan2013.com and recalled how he had celebrated victory at the Winter Universiade last year playing for the Russian student national team. He ended up in the national team as…
- …a 3rd year student of the Academy of Physical Education in Naberezhnye Chelny. But I’m a distance learner as you understand I practically do not have any time for studying. They send me tests, assignments that I’m to do. I’ve been coping with it so far. As for the Universiade I can say that we had been preparing for it for more than a month. First in Kazan there were not so many hockey players here then we assembled in full completion in Moscow. Our initial task was to win! As a result we fulfilled our goal and we were all pleased: the managers and especially the hockey players as there were a few aged players to whom the participation in the Universiade was the last chance. The title is the title, all the more so as we took it by defeating the Canadian team in the final.

- I reckon it was a meet of principle for you as you had two figures printed on your memory: 0 and 8. You dropped the match 0-8 in the Junior Championship in Kazan in 2008.
- Not at all. It was a completely different tournament with a completely different opponent. The Canadian student national team had no players that participated in the Junior Championship. What was most important of all is that I’ve never been in such complex competitions where the entrants contest in several sports all at once. It was really interesting and enjoyable. Don’t forget that the Russian national team was assembled on the basis of the Tatarstan clubs from Kazan, Nizhnekamsk and it was guided by local coaches.
As for the defeat we suffered from the Canadian players in the final we knocked them off in the group stage 4-2. Maybe it was this win that affected us? Or the the Palace of Sport at full capacity? The game didn’t turn out well. Errors and bad luck, all together led to such a bitter defeat. It took me about a month to recover myself after that massacre.

- Of course, it was easier for your partners to overcome it. They took a recess and you stayed in the city to face the fans that either saw the match in Tatneft-Arena or watched it on TV. And they all had the same question to you, «Kirill, how come?»
- Exactly. That’s the way it was. We shouldn’t have lost with such a score. Particularly at home! Particularly to Canada! People started to invent that we had gotten drunk the day before the match. There was nothing like that.

- Ok, to tell the truth you were implicitly accused too. Allegedly the hockey players were celebrating your birthday.
- You can celebrate birthday in different ways. The reality is we had a team dinner, and it fell on our two-day holiday at the Championship. In what way did we offend?

- I agree. Then maybe you will let us into a secret how your performance was that day? I was in charge of the press centre in the Palace of Sports where the second group teams from the USA, Sweden, Finland played. And I heard talks of the hockey specialists who had no confidence in our national team’s ability to win. They reasoned it with the fact that there were two fivesomes that actually played and two fivesomes that had gotten in the team through the back door.
- It’s a common gossip after each tournament. We had the backbone of the team that was made of three links. Surely it was strange that several players that had been competing for the national team at different international championships had been ousted from the team just before the tournament. What can say? The coaches know better. Don’t forget that three key players were ruled out of the final because of their injuries. On the other hand you never know what may turn up. We played against Canada in the final at that time and two years later earlier this year it was the US national team that won the World U20 Championship. Though they had failed to advance to the final when they were 18.

- And the grown-up Russian team finished in the sixth place…
- We had problems before the Championship because eight leading players missed the Championship for various reasons. At present we don’t have enough talented players like the Canadian team for instance. But we struggled, fought to the bitter end but we lost to Switzerland in the quaterfinal. We failed to follow the coach’s directive. People started finger-pointing again, even the coaches. I should be mentioned that Vladimir Plyushchev is an excellent man and a splendid coach, it so happened. We also failed for the reason that most young players didn’t understand where they were. But everything is before us, 20 is the very beginning of a hockey career.

Photo from nhlentrydraft2008.com