Sergei Golubovich: "The team chose the captain"

The under 18 Russian national team are continuing to prepare for the World Championship, which will begin on April 13th. The players trained in these following lines:

Goalkeepers: Ustimenko, Zhukov, Rayko;

Samorukov, Perelyaev - Chekhovich, Lipanov, Svechnikov;

Rubinchik, Galenyuk - Alexeev, Koltygin, Bitsadze;

Baranov, Kalabushkin - Slepets, Klisunov, Maximov;

Dedov, Muranov - Marushev, Shashkov, Toropchenko.

Russia U18 head coach Sergei Golubovich:

- In our team, we have the players which we planned on registering for the World Championship. The other guys have already flown back to Russia. Technically, we can register players until the end of the group stage, but we aren't waiting on anyone else. If a player arrives here at the last minute, physically he will be in a worse condition than other players. We decided not to replace the injured Daniil Lobanov.

Alexei Lipanov will be the captain, while his assistants are Dmitry Samorukov and Mark Rubinchik. The players made the decision before the coaches gave their agreement. These three players are among the most experienced on our roster. They will have extra responsibility.

You will see how ready the team are when we play Sweden.

Russia U18 defenseman Dmitry Samorukov:

- We have had a good training camp, the coaches have given us an excellent program. We have worked over mutual understanding and our tactics.

The friendly games against Latvia and Canada were different. We didn't badly with the Latvians, but we couldn't score. It was a good match against Canada, we had a strong start. Confidence? That win helped build it up. It's good that we can go into the World Championship with a positive mindset. All of the players understand why we are here, we know our goal. We won't divide opponents up between strong and weak. 

Being an assistant captain brings huge responsibilty. Mark Rubinchik and I have been here in the team for a long time, we should support the other guys. It's an added motivation that they chose us to lead them. 

Russian Ice Hockey Federation