Former head coach of the Russian national team Vladimir Pluschev told that sports officials do not pay attention to the problem of development of young hockey players in the country.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin asked Russian Hockey Federation (RFH) President Vladislav Tretyak and the Russian Sports Ministry to address the situation in which Russian hockey players go to play in foreign leagues at a very young age. . The head of state said that “hockey businessmen take children from sports schools and drag them abroad”, “there is a lot of money, the damage is obvious to us”, it’s “a business, and not always regulated and not always noble.”
— In the 1990s, entire teams of young children were exported from Kazakhstan and Siberia. Now, I haven’t heard of such widespread cases. This is probably about preserving your genetic heritage. But we have to think about keeping the guys here, and for that we have to create the conditions for growth. I don’t really see anything being done by our hockey officials to ensure that our youth are well-rounded members of the KHL and VHL teams. They rely mainly on veterans, NHL veterans, and not always very high quality.
The ones who leave are the ones who believe they can’t find fulfillment here – that’s the problem. Parents play an important role in the departure of young children, I do not remember any scandals with the departure of large groups of young children. We need to look deeper into the coaching education system, which is also virtually non-existent. Coaches are people who played yesterday, but today they think they know and can do anything. It’s good that the president focused on hockey – it’s a geopolitical sport, you have to preserve your genetic heritage, but the problem is broader. Officials do not pay much attention to this, they report that they are building rinks, but the rinks themselves do not prepare players, they need specialists.
— When a hockey player leaves the MHL for other leagues, like Zadorov for example, and later becomes a national team player, is this a plus for national hockey?
— If a player leaves and starts to grow, it’s a plus for him. If here they could not create the conditions and did not believe in him, but there he was able to prove… Nobody wants to bother young people. And if there is no possibility of realizing itself, then other ways are always sought,” Pliushchev told .
Source : MatchTV
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