Aliaksandr Lukashenka described Dynama Minsk hockey club as an ideological project. He said the team, like the country’s entire sports sector, must deliver results.
“Let’s speak frankly — this is an important ideological project in our country. A people’s team, as it has been described. It is the main ideological project. But if it is an important project that we can rely on, then it must be developed. The fact that the team has clearly made progress is undeniable. No one disputes that. The fact that the team did not achieve what it was supposed to achieve and what was promised is also a fact,” Lukashenka said, according to his press service.
Lukashenka believes the team should win the main trophy of the Kontinental Hockey League.
“We need to keep moving forward and select people based on how we are going to move ahead. The system must also be built around that. The question is how to move forward and how not to lose what we already have. There is only one goal: we reached the quarter-finals, tomorrow we must win the cup,” he said.
It should be noted that hockey has carried ideological significance since Soviet times. It is enough to recall the regular series of matches between the national teams of the USSR and the United States, as well as games against Canada. Matches between Czechoslovakia and the USSR also carried special significance after the suppression of the Prague Spring by Soviet troops in 1968.
As in other sectors, Lukashenka said he would like to pursue import substitution in hockey.
“Where are our 23- to 25-year-olds? Zhenya, where are our people? Why does no one see that almost half the team is made up of imported players? Do you really have extra money to pay Americans, Russians and others? You are not taking into account that Russian hockey has a limit of five foreign players, while we have no such restriction. We have as many as 14 Russians and other foreign players. So how are we going to develop our own hockey, and how will the national team play later? I told you that they should be our own — homegrown players,” Lukashenka said, addressing national hockey team coach Yauhen Vorsin.
He then recounted a conversation with one of the coaches about adopting off-season training methods associated with Soviet specialist Anatoly Tarasov.
“He frankly told me: ‘Our players would not be able to handle that.’ Then why do we need such athletes and hockey players? Today, half of the off-season has already passed, and you have neither a team nor a coach. How are you going to prepare for the season? They should be physically prepared during ground training before the season. But you are not ready. Some are in Turkey, some in the Emirates, some elsewhere — resting,” Lukashenka said.
Formally, the meeting was devoted to the development of hockey, but Lukashenka suggested looking at sport more broadly.
“Today’s discussion, in a broader sense, is a discussion about the situation in sport in general. If we had sport developing across the board, as we did in Soviet times — and we had decent schools — handball, football, hockey and other sports… athletics. We are starting to fall behind in winter sports, and our skiers are nowhere to be seen. I am afraid that tomorrow our rowers will also be overtaken by events.
Results are needed! No results means no progress, and no progress means no work!” he demanded.
Lukashenka also criticised Belarusian footballers, who drew 2-2 in a friendly match against Burkina Faso after leading 2-0.
“The reason I turned to sport — not only hockey — is that people are already starting to criticise the president for paying more attention to hockey. If footballers played the way our hockey players do, I would be much more willing to pay attention to football as well. But at the moment there is nothing to watch there,” he said.
“Yes, Burkina Faso are not a bad team. We were leading 2-0. But then, at the finish, the usual thing happened. What does that tell us? It tells us that we are not preparing properly, that we are physically unable to play. Or that the coaching staff — although I cannot say they started badly — led by Hancharenka, did not prepare the team properly to hold on until the final minute and secure victory,” Lukashenka added.
He said he could not be accused of neglecting football, because attention in this context is understood as financial support.
“For us, ‘paying attention’ means giving money. Well, Dynama Minsk were given a minister and money. Did they start playing better? Did they achieve anything in cup competitions or elsewhere? So there is no need to be offended that I pay less attention to football. I pay no less attention — there is enough of it,” he said.
In conclusion, Lukashenka stated that hockey is Belarus’s number one sport.
“Football and hockey are the main sports everywhere because they are mass-participation sports, people’s sports. In my personal life, I have always acknowledged that I played football rather than hockey. Football in the summer, hockey in the winter. Since my school years,” he said.
