December 1, 1999 Article

This proud little city - Stanleytown East? - 55 miles southeast of Moscow,
was bursting with pride as thousands gathered at Khimik Arena,
its spiritual center since 1953.

Keith Gave, Free Press Sports Writer, August 20, 1997

Last year the club celebrated its 45 anniversary. Nickolay Epstein, 79, considered the grandfather of hockey in Voskresensk is the founder of what has become a legendary program. He himself built the Voskresensk hockey rink with the stained-glass windows in 1953, and with his own hands poured the water to make the ice. Three years later, his team already had earned the right to play in the big leagues. For six years "Khimik" was a rival worthy enough to compete with the acknowledged leaders of Soviet hockey such as "Dynamo" Moscow, CSKA Moscow, "Spartak" Moscow and "Krilya Sovietov" Moscow.

In the 1964/65 and 1969/70 seasons Epstein’s team won the bronze medal in the Soviet Championships. It was a great success for the only provincial club. This success could be considered equal to the Soviet champion title. After this succes, there was a long period of bad luck, which included a high turnover of coaches.

In 1982/83 ambitious Vladimir Vasilyev (the best "Khimik" sniper of the1959/60 season), pupil of Nickolay Epstein, had been appointed head coach of the club. With his coming a new era in the history of the legenday team near Moscow began. He worked hard with his players and the next year was a great success. They got the bronze once again. It was a kind of epic heroism. Among those who won medals in the 1983/84 season were well-known NHL players Valery Kamensky and Andrei Lomakin (Philadelphia/Florida 1991/92-94/95) and some players drafted by NHL teams such as Alexander Chernyh (New Jersey’s 8^th round selection 192^nd overall, in the 1983 Entry Draft). All hockey specialists noticed the new manner of the team’s skating. There was something unfettered about the constant change of direction in the newly invented manner of skating.

In the 1984/85 season Vladimir Vasilyev was looking for something new in his team’s play. For four years he went on experimenting with the roster of the club and he lately commented that he was looking for players who were destined to become full members of "Khimik" Voskresensk. The transfer of such gifted players as Valery Kamensky to CSKA Moscow 1985/86 and Andrei Lomakin to "Dynamo" Moscow 1985/86 was a hard loss for him. This couldn’t but influence the team’s style of play.

In the 1988/89 season, he made another great sensation in Voskresensk. His team won three games in a row against the legendary CSKA Moscow with the famous and invincible KLM line (Krutov –Larionov-Makarov) and defensive pair Fetisov-Kasatonov on the roster. Moreover, his guys managed a tie in the fourth game. Vasilyev’s life dream came true. He did what he had been hoping for to do in many years. He won the silver medal in the Soviet Championships. Later he commented on his success by saying that he specially prepared his team for the game against the Red Army club according to the coaching system worked out by him.

He used his own principles in the team’s play when he realized that it was impossible to compete with CSKA by means of the players’ best abilities. According to his system, he selected the strongest and biggest players to absorb the play of the rival’s skillful leaders. It was called "the sack of Voskresensk," which greatly resembles today’s famous New Jersey traps. Vasilyev had created a well-balanced team. There were both gifted veterans Bragin, Schurenko, Basalgin and the young guns such as Kozlov and Oksyuta. And, of course there were some players who had already seen plenty of action such as Dimitri Kvartalnov, Sasha Chernykh and Sergey Vostrikov.

What really distinguished Vasilyev as a coach was his great ambition. He went on constantly inspiring his players to believe that they were equals to the legendary CSKA players and even much stronger. They believed his words and repeated them before stepping onto the ice: We are the best! And as a result that season "Khimik" nearly won the Soviet championship title. It was only the silver but with a pleasant glitter of gold. The result of the season was magnificent: 36 games played, 19 wins, 8 games ended in a tie, 9 losses. The team collected 46 points, only 5 behind CSKA.

At the same time. the talent of a young player named Vyacheslav Kozlov started to shine. At the start of the season Vasilyev got a heap of excellent players at his service who were hungry for wins, and he went on experimenting with the abilities of his team. He managed to introduce a unique idea into his team’s play.The players’ individual skill was most important and an assist in fact could be considered as unproductive because it only proved a players’ narrow-mindedness and increased the possibility of a loose puck. He worked according to the principle of "answering reaction" as he named it later. He was constantly on the lookout for new an innovative ideas for his team. Earlier, Tikhonov had been considered an innovator when he introduced the equal time four line play. To understand Vasilyev’s greatness, one must compare the amount of innovation introduced by him and by Tikhonov’s taking into consideration the great difference in the potential of CSKA and "Khimik" to accomplish new ideas.

In the 1989/90 Soviet championships, the team of Voskresensk led by 10 points but two exhausting winter tours to North America interfered with its champion hopes. So at the end of the season this ambitious team had to be content only with the bronze. The final result was 48 games played, 32 wins, 7 tie matches and 9 games lost. They missed only one point to reach the famed Red Army with 72 points. Nevertheless, the Voskresensk attacking line consisted of Valery Zelepukin- German Titov-Dimitry Kvartalnov demonstrated a clever way of playing. At the end of the season Dimitri Kvartalnov was acknowledged as the best scorer of the Soviet Hockey Championships, the first from his club to reach that level. He scored 25 goals and made 28 assists, collecting 53 points.

The next season of this legendary club turned out to be an unfortunate one. Nevertheless Vasilyev had not lost heart and he went on looking for new prospects to develop and enlist to his team in the near future. Among them were young guns Alexander Cherbayev, Sergey Berezin and Igor Aleksandrov. He was not afraid of including the prospects into the roster for the club’s superseries held in Canada and USA when "Khimik" Voskresensk played against the Calgary Flames, St. Louis Blues, Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres, Los Angeles Kings and Montreal Canadiens.

The last Soviet Championships were held in 1991/92 and could have been the winning one for the club but unfortunately young talented forward Vyacheslav Kozlov was required by CSKA to fulfill his mandatory military service. Valery Zelepukin left for North America to join the NHL’s New Jersey Devils. Sergei Vostrikov left for Italy to play for the Boltsano club. Then a well-known current NHL defenseman Igor Ulanov made up his mind to stay in Canada after the superseries. Vasiliev released him without any traditional Soviet scandal caused by the departures of numerous players who craved to join NHL clubs. It was he who informed Ulanov that the representatives of the Winnipeg Jets were interested in him.

Vasilyev was a rare Soviet coach who could understand the players’ souls and desires. For example when he was the head coach of the second USSR national team he invited half of his team to play for the national team allowing all the players to earn some money. It is called concern for people’s welfare. It was the last season of his coaching career in Voskresensk. He got a financially profitable invitation to work in Germany as the head coach of the Koln Sharks club. Since then, the winning epoch of the team near Moscow was over.

New head coach Genady Syrtsov had to use the skills of such young players as Alexander Cherbayev, Sergey Berezin, Igor Aleksandrov and Andrei Vasilyev. Luckily he still had a great chance to use the service of such an experienced player and future NHLer as Roman Oksyuta for some time. Further he went on living with a constant fear of the players’ departure to the NHL.

Moreover the same year when a new owner bought the chemical plant in the town of Voskresensk, which had been the main sponsor of the club since the early days of the league, he declared that he had not the slightest desire to support any team. So the legendary club had to make ends meet and survive on its own for many years.

With the break-up of the USSR, a lot of great changes followed, including new economic relations. Of course all this couldn’t but influence Russian hockey.

The league was reinvented in 1993 and became the Inter State Hockey League (ISHL) under the direction of Robert Cherenkov, the man allegedly responsible for the death of Russian Hockey Federation president Valentin Sych. But Sych repealed the ISHL two years later, which some allege infuriated Cherenkov, in favor of the RHSL (Russian Hockey Super League). Alexander Steblin, the club president of Moscow Dynamo, was elected as the new president.

For six years the "Khimik" Voskresensk had to fight for its rights to stay among the best teams of the Russian Hockey Super League, but last year it stumbled. The team had to start the new season in the relegation tournament, which pits the four teams of the Russian Hockey Super League that did not qualify for the second round and the top four teams from the second division to determine the teams that will be a part of the RHSL.

The explanation of the team’s recent failure is simple - the lack of financial support and mass departure of hockey experts and young talented players abroad or in prosperous industrial provincial hockey teams.

Last year Vladimir Vasilyev returned to Voskresensk to save the situation, but his second coming was too late. Nevertheless his come-back inspired all the natives of the hockey town and current bosses of the club as well. All of them have the strong belief in his ability as a hockey professional and correspondingly he has been immediately appointed head coach of the club. The team found good financial support in the person of the Moscow region governor and Vasilyev started to built a new team. He promised that everything will be fine in a year and the legendary club will be again a full member of Russian Hockey Super League.

Team Photo of the Voskeresensk Khimik

First of all, he started actively experimenting with the roster of the team and looking for players who were destined to become full members of "Khimik" Voskresensk. He immediately dismissed some players and invited very familiar ones to hockey fans of Voskresensk who had already seen plenty of action and had been playing for this club during its glorious past. Among them are Pittsburgh draftee Leonid Toropchenko, former NHLer Roman Oksyuta and Andrei Galkin who has been playing for the famous Czech Republic club named Vsetin. It is worth noting that he had been a captain there and had won several champion titles with his club. Vasilyev also selected and included in the team’s roster some young prospects who had great physical strength and endurance. Among them are forwards Andrei Ponomarev, Alexander Popov, Yevgeny Pasternatsky, Alexander Romanov, Alexander Evstigneyev and excellent defenseman Homitsky. Moreover, the team recently got a rare magnificient product of its own goaltending school in the person of Valeri Yemelyanov who was named to the Russian junior team of players born in 1980. Vasilyev is sure that nearly all of the players have a chance of becoming NHLers within three years. Two forwards, Alexander Romanov who was selected to the Russian squad for the 1999/2000 Junior World Championships, and Andrei Ponomarev, will appear on the NHL draft list this year. The skillful and speedy skating of Andrei Ponomarev greatly resembles Sergei Fedorov’s. Moreover he has an exceptionally good wrist-shot and constantly appears where the puck is. Vasilyev goes on working hard with his players and is still creating an efficient team. He considers himself an adherent of a lot of physical work because it is the basis of contemporary hockey. His guys work a lot and fulfill the demands of the head coach. He is sure that his club will qualify for the Russian Hockey Super League with this caliber of players who are real workaholics and will achieve great success like that of the old glorious memorable times at the end of the ‘80s. It seems this is not idle talk because his team destroys their rival and demonstrates spectacular plays.

The team's achievements at the very start of the season have been magnificient. To see the proof, one has to look at the tournament standings and make a note of the difference between the goals scored for and against.

Go KHIMIK! Go! May success be with you!

Denis Neznanov
HockeyZone's Russian Correspondent