The RIHF president has paid a visit to Kirov Region

The Russian Ice Hockey Federation president Vladislav Tretyak has paid a visit to Kirov Region to award the winners of the Vladislav Tretyak Cup. In the final, Soyuz Kirov defeated Olimpia 4:2.

RIHF president Vladislav Tretyak:

- This is the sixth time in a row that I have come to Kirov. I can with pleasure say, that the amount of the tournament's participants is constantly increasing. It's great that the Tretyak Cup is not only a tournament, but also a big sporting celebration which will stay in the participants' memory for a long time. This competition can find new talents, and help them refine their qualities. For the players themselves, this is very important. They can see for themselves see what they are capable of, and understand which road they are going down. It was especially great to see so many girls taking part. Today more and more girls are taking up the sport, and they are achieving excellent results. The proof is the Russian women's national team recent bronze at the World Championship.

Vladislav also met with student players who have just created a new ice hockey team VyatGU. The discussion lasted for more than two hours, and during that time the three time Olympic champion shared secrets of his success while recalling his sporting biography. Also, he noted that one of the RIHF's goals is to create a student's ice hockey league:

"We have a number of teams which have been played for two or three years, but there isn't very many of them. The main problem that we have, is that they don't have enough ice rinks. We need to create facilities for development of student's ice hockey. On the 22nd of April, we will speak about this at the president's council in Kazan. We need to create a program which will allow for more ice hockey rinks."

Russian Ice Hockey Federation