"Real men play hockey." The lines from this song, created during the Soviet era, are well known to millions of people. Indeed, ice hockey is one of the toughest, potentially dangerous, but also the most spectacular, exciting sports. And the USSR national team, whose successor was the Russian national team, became famous for victories at the highest level competitions. Therefore, many Russians painfully perceived her defeat against the Canadian national team at the last Olympics in Vancouver. They are waiting for revenge in Sochi. And who will be part of our hockey squad?
Preliminary list of candidates
Of course, the final composition of the hockey team is out of the question. Nevertheless, the head coach of the national team Zinetula Bilyaletdinov included a preliminary list of 35 players, including 5 goalkeepers, 12 defenders and 18 forwards.
The following athletes can become the goalkeepers of the Russian national team: Konstantin Barulin, playing for the Ak Bars club, Vasily Koshechkin from Metallurg Magnitogorsk, Semyon Varlamov (Colorado Avalanche), Sergey Bobrovsky (Columbus Blue Jackets), Evgeny Nabokov (New York Islanders ).
The list of defenders includes: Evgeny Biryukov, Anton Volchenkov, Sergei Gonchar, Vyacheslav Voinov, Alexey Emelin, Denis Denisov, Andrei Markov, Ilya Nikulin, Evgeny Ryasensky, Evgeny Medvedev, Fedor Tyutin and Nikita Nikitin. 5 players play in the KHL clubs, 7 - in the NHL teams.
List of forwards: Mikhail Varnakov, Alexey Tereshchenko, Pavel Datsyuk, Artem Anisimov, Viktor Tikhonov, Ilya Kovalchuk, Denis Kokarev, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Vadim Shchipachev, Evgeny Malkin, Alexander Ovechkin, Nikolai Kulemin, Alexander Popov, Alexander Perezhogin, Alexander Radulov, Vladimir Tarasenko, Alexander Semin, Nail Yakupov. 10 hockey players play for the KHL clubs, 8 - for the NHL clubs.
Possible changes in the list
Many hockey fans have probably noticed that Ilya Bryzgalov, the former main goalkeeper of the Russian national team, as well as the best KHL scorer Alexei Morozov, is not on the list. Most likely, this is due to their not very successful game at the previous Olympics. But it cannot be ruled out that they will still be part of the national team.
In addition, given the possible injuries of leading players (from which no one is safe, especially in such a tough sport as ice hockey), the coaches of the Russian national team probably have a reserve list of candidates.
