Weekend Read: The Russian Debrecen

Everyone probably remembers and those who don’t heard this story from their fathers that at the time of the fall of the Soviet Union a hand full of imports ended up playing a little bit of hockey in Jászberény Hungary. Legend has it that these Russians would spend 50 out of the 60 minutes of regulation on the ice, this might have been exaggerated over time, but every legend has some truth to it. Nine years after the first non-Budapest team took the Hungarian title it happened again as Lehel won game four 6-0 defeating Ferencváro. The following year they lost in the finals and again two years after that, in the mean time they had been semi finalists and also won a Hungarian Cup. This great team had a legendary six players who were Anatoli Donika, Alexander Kulikov Pavel Mihonik, Boris Pusharov, Oleg Vasuinin and Alexander Vlasov.

Finishing in front of Fradi and Újpest

Now there is a team in Hungary with names like Savva Borodin, Artur Gart, Yevgeni Demeshin, Andrei Yemelyanov, Danil Kaskov, Artur Kurlyuk, Valeri Sadikov, Vitali Sychov, Alexei Voronov and Artyom Vaszunyin. Yes there is a connection between the Jászberény team from the 1990 and the current Debrecen team, Oleg Vasuinin’s son Artyom, who grew up in Hungary and was a member of the Division 1A world championship team is a member of this DHK squad and is also the in house translator between not only the Russian players and coaches but also the coaching staff, as Yevgeni Muhin and Igor Razov are both Russian as well.

The Russian influence can be felt, being crowned champions is still off in the future for the Debrecen expansion team. However DHK did make it into the playoffs in their first season with a regular season record of 16-3-4-19 which was good enough for fifth place in the standings and finishing ahead of 13x champion Újpest and and 25x champion FTC as well. Debrecen did not have a player finish in the top 10 in scoring in the MOL League, the highest scorer was Danil Kaskov who finished 12th, one place head of Hungarian national team player Tyler Metcalfe (Ákos Berta was 14th and Balázs Ladányi was 21st from DHK) Looking at the goalie position Savva Borodin finished third in save percentage, proving that these Russians were good signing by the management.

They asked me and I said sure

How did Russians end up in Debrecen almost a quarter century after the Russians in Jászberény? “Coach Muhin asked me during the summer and told me there is an opportunity to play in Hungary, I didn’t really know that much about Hungarian hockey or what the MOL League is like. To my surprise the league is a lot stronger than I had expected. I’m having a great time in Debrecen and also in the team, we have a great group of guys and I’m happy to be playing here” said team leading scorer Kaskov. Muhin wasn’t the one who had the original idea of bring the Russians to Debrecen, “my assistant coach Igor Razov told me about the opportunity in Debrecen, I wanted to try my self coaching in another country, without thinking I accepted the offer to coach. Honestly the MOL League is stronger than I had expected there are a number of skilled and fast player in all of the teams” said Muhin.

Quarter finals on Tuesday

The part of the legend that talks of the Russians playing the tail end of their careers here is somewhat false as Mihonik was 24, Donika 30, Vasiunin 31, Kulikov, Pushkarov and Vlasov were 35. In the current Debrecen team on Voronov sticks out with his 38 years of age, the rest of the players are around the age of 26 but there is a 19 year old in the group as well. There are similarities and also differences between the Lehel and the DHK teams.

“As far as I know in Jászberény there was a large gap in the hockey knowledge of the Russians and the Hungarian players. For us the two forwards Kaskov and Sychov are the ones that could be considered better, but you have to also see that the other teams have also signed excellent imports as well. Our team does not play in a distinct Russian style just because we have a number of Russians” said the link, Artyom Vaszjunyin, jokingly he continued on “not only do I have to translate for the coach but also for the Russian boys, they are not exactly men of the world, the team will learn to speak Russian before they learn Hungarian”