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Reaction following the 2019 Russian Classic victory
15.12.2019
Following the tense 2:0 victory against Finland at the 2019 Russian Classic, which was a part of the Channel One Cup, Roman Rotenberg, Alexei Kudashov, Ilya Sorokin, Anton Slepyshev and Kirill Kaprizov shared their opinions.
General Manager of the senior national team, First Vice-President of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation Roman Rotenberg:
- We all felt the energy today, such events are very important for the popularisation of ice hockey. A part of this is the victory of the Russian national team. As a result, I think that we worked at our maximum today, but we are perfectionists so we're always searching for ways to improve. I would like to thank all of the participants and organisers, who put in a lot of work and managed to create a celebration for everybody. Thank you to the fans who came to the match, all of this work was undertaken for them. There were 67,877 supporters at stadium today, and it's important to have more of these events. On Thursday, the second Russian Classic will take place at the Gazprom Arena, and we invite everyone to this game. A lot of families with their children watched the match at the stadium today, there was a fantastic atmosphere. I think that these children, who came to an ice hockey game for the first time, will dream of playing in front of 68 thousand people.
When organising such an event, there are a lot of details which have to be considered. This concerns the calendar and the possibilities. I would like to thank Gazprom, Liga Stavok and all of our partners and sponsors who helped us organise this project. There are a million factors, starting from finances and ending with possibilities. It takes a lot of teamwork. It was very important to receive the agreement of the Finnish Ice Hockey Association which came here for the second consecutive year. There aren't many of these events because they're so hard to organise. This year, when choosing the matches, we took into account the Channel One Cup schedule and the KHL calendar, and we then made this a celebration for the fans. Both the Russia - Finland and SKA - CSKA match-ups are key. In theory, we can consider a Russia - Canada game, just like the match which we played against each other in the Olympic season. Of course, the audience differs here in comparison to club ice hockey, the entire country supports the national team so people go. A lot of people, who aren't even familiar with the KHL, go to watch Russia play. The Russian national team and the Red Machine are a brand which is associated with our victorious and our winning culture.
Nothing is impossible, and we work in accordance with this philosophy. However, in order to organise a match with an NHL club, we need to take a lot of factors into account. The first one is finances. If the NHL plays at the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki, Finland, we know the economical situation here. A different price needs to be put in place for such games in Russia. We need to look at the economics. Over this period, we held the World Hockey Forum in Moscow, and our colleagues from the USA and Canada were surprised with our high level. We want others to have to catch us up. The Red Machine program is the best in the world, something which experts from America and Canada said. Ideas which work in the USA, Finland, Canada and Sweden might not work in Russia. We have to suit everything in accordance with our culture. We have our own country, our own culture, we shouldn't be copying anyone.
If we speak about playing the Classic outdoors, then I, as a person who has spent his entire life in ice hockey, would like to organise this. We already held the first All-Star Game at Red Square. After that, it never happened again, because there are too many risks. You might wake up in the morning and it's -40 celsius outside. How can you play ice hockey in that weather? In that particular year, we were lucky with the weather, the sun came out and there was a rainbow which was then placed on the front cover of newspapers. We want to have the most amount of comfort possible for the fans. Even the outdoor games in the USA and Canada were played outdoors, but instead of creating a great ice hockey product, there as simply a goal of having the highest amount of people at the game: 100 thousand attended a match in Michigan. Matches in snow and water aren't ice hockey, but today we saw ice hockey.
Head coach Alexei Kudashov:
- I would like to thank the fans, there was a lot of them and they gave us great support. I thank the organisers for putting together this celebration. Also, I would like to thank our players, they played well today. The most important thing is that we won. It was a compact, tight game, just like they always are against Finland. We played better in defence and took advantage of our opportunities. However, we more of them in the second period, we needed to calmly see this game out.
Goalkeeper Ilya Sorokin:
- I have good impressions from this game, but there are a lot of things which we need to work on. Of course, it's a shame that we couldn't win the Channel One Cup, but it was fantastic playing at the football stadium. We tried to concentrate on the game itself. It won't help if you starting thinking about the fact that 70 thousand people are watching you inside the arena. There weren't a lot of shots from the Finns because we closed the close well. This is the main thing which we changed. For me, it was a good game.
Forward Anton Slepyshev:
- We were playing for the second day in a row, so not everything went our way. Nevertheless, we stood tall, hanging on to the victory. We only came second in the Channel One Cup because of the second period against Sweden. In defence, we do need to improve, and not everything went to plan in the attacking zone. It's great that I managed to score today, thank you to my teammates for helping me. The atmosphere was amazing! It's great for ice hockey. Thank you to everyone for the support!
Forward Kirill Kaprizov:
- It's good that we managed to win in such a difficult match. Now, we will all return to our respective clubs. We played on the smaller ice today, and there were moments in which we needed to play in a different manner. You can't always move into the attacking zone by passing. Ilya Sorokin was great, and Anton Slepyshev's second goal was excellent.
General Manager of the senior national team, First Vice-President of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation Roman Rotenberg:
- We all felt the energy today, such events are very important for the popularisation of ice hockey. A part of this is the victory of the Russian national team. As a result, I think that we worked at our maximum today, but we are perfectionists so we're always searching for ways to improve. I would like to thank all of the participants and organisers, who put in a lot of work and managed to create a celebration for everybody. Thank you to the fans who came to the match, all of this work was undertaken for them. There were 67,877 supporters at stadium today, and it's important to have more of these events. On Thursday, the second Russian Classic will take place at the Gazprom Arena, and we invite everyone to this game. A lot of families with their children watched the match at the stadium today, there was a fantastic atmosphere. I think that these children, who came to an ice hockey game for the first time, will dream of playing in front of 68 thousand people.
When organising such an event, there are a lot of details which have to be considered. This concerns the calendar and the possibilities. I would like to thank Gazprom, Liga Stavok and all of our partners and sponsors who helped us organise this project. There are a million factors, starting from finances and ending with possibilities. It takes a lot of teamwork. It was very important to receive the agreement of the Finnish Ice Hockey Association which came here for the second consecutive year. There aren't many of these events because they're so hard to organise. This year, when choosing the matches, we took into account the Channel One Cup schedule and the KHL calendar, and we then made this a celebration for the fans. Both the Russia - Finland and SKA - CSKA match-ups are key. In theory, we can consider a Russia - Canada game, just like the match which we played against each other in the Olympic season. Of course, the audience differs here in comparison to club ice hockey, the entire country supports the national team so people go. A lot of people, who aren't even familiar with the KHL, go to watch Russia play. The Russian national team and the Red Machine are a brand which is associated with our victorious and our winning culture.
Nothing is impossible, and we work in accordance with this philosophy. However, in order to organise a match with an NHL club, we need to take a lot of factors into account. The first one is finances. If the NHL plays at the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki, Finland, we know the economical situation here. A different price needs to be put in place for such games in Russia. We need to look at the economics. Over this period, we held the World Hockey Forum in Moscow, and our colleagues from the USA and Canada were surprised with our high level. We want others to have to catch us up. The Red Machine program is the best in the world, something which experts from America and Canada said. Ideas which work in the USA, Finland, Canada and Sweden might not work in Russia. We have to suit everything in accordance with our culture. We have our own country, our own culture, we shouldn't be copying anyone.
If we speak about playing the Classic outdoors, then I, as a person who has spent his entire life in ice hockey, would like to organise this. We already held the first All-Star Game at Red Square. After that, it never happened again, because there are too many risks. You might wake up in the morning and it's -40 celsius outside. How can you play ice hockey in that weather? In that particular year, we were lucky with the weather, the sun came out and there was a rainbow which was then placed on the front cover of newspapers. We want to have the most amount of comfort possible for the fans. Even the outdoor games in the USA and Canada were played outdoors, but instead of creating a great ice hockey product, there as simply a goal of having the highest amount of people at the game: 100 thousand attended a match in Michigan. Matches in snow and water aren't ice hockey, but today we saw ice hockey.
Head coach Alexei Kudashov:
- I would like to thank the fans, there was a lot of them and they gave us great support. I thank the organisers for putting together this celebration. Also, I would like to thank our players, they played well today. The most important thing is that we won. It was a compact, tight game, just like they always are against Finland. We played better in defence and took advantage of our opportunities. However, we more of them in the second period, we needed to calmly see this game out.
Goalkeeper Ilya Sorokin:
- I have good impressions from this game, but there are a lot of things which we need to work on. Of course, it's a shame that we couldn't win the Channel One Cup, but it was fantastic playing at the football stadium. We tried to concentrate on the game itself. It won't help if you starting thinking about the fact that 70 thousand people are watching you inside the arena. There weren't a lot of shots from the Finns because we closed the close well. This is the main thing which we changed. For me, it was a good game.
Forward Anton Slepyshev:
- We were playing for the second day in a row, so not everything went our way. Nevertheless, we stood tall, hanging on to the victory. We only came second in the Channel One Cup because of the second period against Sweden. In defence, we do need to improve, and not everything went to plan in the attacking zone. It's great that I managed to score today, thank you to my teammates for helping me. The atmosphere was amazing! It's great for ice hockey. Thank you to everyone for the support!
Forward Kirill Kaprizov:
- It's good that we managed to win in such a difficult match. Now, we will all return to our respective clubs. We played on the smaller ice today, and there were moments in which we needed to play in a different manner. You can't always move into the attacking zone by passing. Ilya Sorokin was great, and Anton Slepyshev's second goal was excellent.
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