"What difference does it make to us who we play against"

At the Channel One Hockey Cup in Novosibirsk, the Russian national team won against Belarus (3:1) and Kazakhstan (9:0). Shortly before this tournament, the staff of Roman Rotenberg, the assistant coach of our team, was joined by the legendary striker Alexei Kovalev, the Olympic champion in 1992, the first Russian Stanley Cup winner (1994 with the New York Rangers), who scored more than 1,000 points in the NHL regular season in the 1990s and 2000s.

Since 2018, he has coached in the KHL with a break of one season — in 2018-2022 at Kunlun in China (in the 2020/21 season as head coach), and from the summer of 2023 to November 2025, he assisted Alexei Zhamnov at Spartak Moscow. In an interview with Izvestia, Kovalev shared his impressions of working for the Russian national team and explained how Alexander Ovechkin was able to break Wayne Gretzky's record for goals in the NHL.

"At Dynamo, Yurzinov practiced going to the cinema and theater"

— Did you work at the Russian national team headquarters for the first time at the Channel One Cup? Is there a special specificity in this compared to club activities?

— No, I wouldn't say that there is a big difference here from working in a club. When I worked at Kunlun and Spartak, I said more than once that it was nice to be on the ice in any capacity, to help work with hockey players, to help them progress. I can repeat this now, when I worked in the national team. I was still a kid and dreamed of getting into the national team. And I had a special feeling when I succeeded as a player, when I put on the uniform of the national team. I had similar feelings now, after I joined it as a coach.

— How do you like the level of the players you worked with at the Channel One Cup?

— All the guys gathered in Novosibirsk are the main players in their teams in the KHL. So it's obvious that the national team has a high score — it's nice to see it up close, being inside the team. It's very interesting to work with these players and give them tips in training. It's clear that my vision of hockey was a little different when I was playing, so I can show the guys in training and convey certain things that they might not have seen before. That's the interest of working at such a tournament. Answering your first question, what is the specifics of the national team, I will say that the work is as interesting as in the clubs, but at the same time the best players of the country are in the national team. And the approach to them should be slightly different.

— The campaign of the entire team initiated by the head coach of the national team to the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater for the production of "Don Quixote" was widely discussed in the media. Roman Rotenberg referred to the experience of Anatoly Tarasov, who tried to enrich the players of the USSR national team culturally. When you joined the national team in the early 1990s, did Viktor Tikhonov practice something similar?

— I didn't find this in the national team — we didn't have the opportunity to go to the theater then. Although under Viktor Vasilyevich we had joint trips to the Red Square. But in the Moscow Dynamo, Vladimir Vladimirovich Yurzinov practiced going to the cinema and theater. It was a tradition. And now the national team is trying to maintain this tradition. Maybe it was just that there was more time for it then, because the national team players trained together longer than they do now before the Channel One Cup. But in any case, such events are useful, because each of us needs to develop — not only to play hockey, but also to go to ballet, theater, cinema, no matter where. As far as I've seen now, it was interesting for everyone in Novosibirsk to attend a similar production. In addition, it is useful in terms of a certain team cohesion.

— Did any of the coaches practice this in the NHL?

— No, mostly the players and I were going to sit together somewhere. Sometimes the club management organized team events in honor of some holidays like New Year, but I can't say that this was constantly practiced in the clubs where I played.

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The Channel One Cup was held so far from the capital for the first time.

"The main thing is that the guys who never got to the MFM should not give up"

— Not so long ago, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommended that international sports federations begin admitting Russians to youth and junior tournaments. Do you believe that this will soon affect hockey players?

— I haven't really read the news about it yet — I've just heard it. Many people are discussing this topic. And it would be great if our guys and our teams would be allowed to participate in the World Championships soon.

— As a person who won the World Youth Championship in 1992, do you feel special emotions from the fact that the guys who turned 20 years old, for reasons beyond their control, did not get the chance to play in such a tournament?

— Of course, it's very bad that many guys have lost the opportunity to play at this level. But they still grow up playing in the KHL, in the national team at the same Channel One Cup, someone has already reached the NHL. And if not at the youth level, then at the adult level they will have the opportunity to get into the national team and play at the World Cup, where, I hope, we will be admitted sooner or later. Therefore, the main thing is that the guys who never got to the World Cup do not give up and do everything to get to the adult World Cup in the future, when the IIHF allows us to play there. But I hope that the Russian youth and junior national teams will be allowed to play at the World Championships according to their age in the near future, and our current younger generation will use this chance.

— Will it be difficult for our national teams to play at their first World Cups after the ban, to get used to this level again?

- no. What's there to get used to? What difference does it make to us who we play against? The most important thing is to focus on yourself, and then you don't have to adjust to anyone. You just go out and, on the contrary, enjoy the process, from the fact that you finally have the opportunity to face off with the national teams of other countries, as before.

— Less than a month has passed since your dismissal from Spartak. Are there any employment options in the KHL?

— I am waiting for suggestions, but there are none yet.

"There are things that Kuznetsov needs to fix."

Evgeny Biryukov, Metallurg's sports director, talks about the non—inclusion of the team's star striker, the necessary reinforcement before the KHL deadline, and the goalkeeper issue.

"In his youth, Ovechkin was stubborn — he pushed through"

— One of the main events in the sports world in the year ending 2025 was Alexander Ovechkin's record for the number of goals scored in the regular NHL championships. Do you have an explanation for how he did it?

— At the expense of my work. A man has spent his whole life playing hockey, practicing his shots, his moments. How else could this be possible (smiles)?

— When you saw him for the first time 20 years ago, crossed paths with him for the first time in the national team, did you feel that he could make such a great career?

— He already had a lot of potential back then, a very good shot. Maybe Sasha wasn't technically very developed at that time, but he had good speed. Plus, he was stubborn — he went ahead, he could create a moment out of nothing.

— You played in the NHL when Wayne Gretzky broke the previous record, played with him for three years with the New York Rangers, but you also found that period in the history of the league when Ovechkin started there. When was it more difficult to score, under Gretzky or Ovechkin?

— With all the changes in the game that have taken place over the past decades, it is always difficult to score, so I would not compare here. The rules are changing, but the players are also adapting to them. So I can't answer the question of which of the NHL was more difficult for forwards — Gretzky's time or Ovechkin's time.

— When Gretzky broke Gordie Howe's record in 1994...

— I was a little kid then, I just looked at it from the side (smiles).

— Were there any thoughts then that someone might surpass him in your lifetime?

— Nothing happens for a long time. Something new is always happening. It's just that none of us knows when it will happen. But with Gretzky's record, it happened, and we happened to witness it.