The Ukrainian girls’ hockey team is in Canada for a few days of peace and playing hockey in an arena that doesn’t have a missile-sized hole in its roof.
After 56 hours of travel to Calgary, including a 24-hour bus ride from Dnipro to Warsaw, Poland, part of which required an Army escort, the Ukrainian Wings will join Wickfest, the annual girls’ hockey festival organized by Hayley Wickenheiser, on Thursday. .
The lineup of players aged between 11 and 13 was drawn from eight different cities in Ukraine, where sports facilities have been damaged or destroyed since Russia began its invasion in February 2022.
“They all have a personal story about something terrible happening,” Wickenheiser said. “We are giving them a week of peace and joy here and I hope they can carry that with them.
“We know very well that they will return to difficult circumstances. It is difficult that way.”
Nine players from Kharkiv, where photos show a large hole in the roof of the Saltovskiy Led arena where the WHC Panthers girls team once skated.
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“It was our home ice, and we played all of our national team championships on this ice,” said Katerina Seredenko, who oversees the Panthers program and serves as general manager of the Wings.
The Ukrainian Olympic Committee released photos and wrote in a Facebook post on September 1 that Kharkiv’s Sports Palace, which was home to several hockey teams, had also been destroyed in an attack on the city.
Seredenko says the Wings’ arduous trip to Calgary was worth it because it gives the girls hope.
“The situation is not good in Ukraine, but when they come here, they can believe that everything will be fine, everything will be fine, of course we will win soon and we must play hockey. We cannot stop because we love these girls and we will do everything,” she said. “Something for them.”
“Many of the girls in this Ukrainian team are future players of the national team.”
Wickenheiser, a Hockey Hall of Famer, is the Toronto Maple Leafs’ assistant general manager of player development and a doctor who works emergency room shifts in the Toronto area.
The six-time Olympian and four-time gold medalist organized her first Wickfest following the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia.
She has attended teams from India, Mexico and the Czechs over the past decade and a half, but never before has she faced a team that has managed the logistical challenge of the Ukrainians.
The Canadian Partnership for Women’s and Children’s Health arranged the visas and paid for the team’s travel costs.
“We care about the health of women and children. Sports are such a symbol. When you see a group of girls coming off the ice sweaty and they’ve worked hard on the ice, that’s a symbol of a healthy girl,” said CEO Julia Anderson.
“This is a healthy child who is able to participate in sports. We truly believe that if we can send girls out there, whether they are in an active war zone, or here in Canada, that these girls will change the world.”
The Wings are not the first Ukrainians to seek hockey haven in Canada since the war began.
The U25 men’s team played four matches against university teams in early 2023 to prepare for that year’s World University Games.
Ukrainian teams have also played twice in the Quebec City International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament.
“It’s the first time in the history of Ukraine that a girls’ team comes to Canada to participate in a very good tournament,” Seredenko said. “They can see what it’s like to play in their future. They can see what it’s like to play hockey in Canada.”
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
