Berazhkou: National team's performance revealed Belarusian hockey's problem

After defeat from the French, the Belarusian national hockey team left the struggle for medals in the World Ice Hockey Championship in Slovakia. Our countrymen scored 3 goals in 3 games of the preliminary stage, against 10 goals of Canada, Switzerland and France. Euroradio has asked the editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Pressball" Uladzimir Berazhkou why our national team fails to win a single game at this championship.

Uladzimir Berazhkou: I cannot give you a short and precise answer to this. In the first place, I am convinced that we do not deserve victory because of our attitude to hockey, and this does not let us win.

There was a period in the late 1990s and in the beginning of the new century when big money came to Belarusian hockey. Unfortunately, it did not come to professionals, but, let me say, instead of professionals. Managers who could say "no" and had their own opinion were washed off our hockey's administration. They were replaced by money. It is difficult to do something without money. But it is impossible to do anything with just money.

Euroradio: So, you think that this is a problem of a system and goes deeper than the current national team?

Uladzimir Berazhkou: The way the national team performs at the World Championship is the problem of the whole Belarusian hockey. A national team is a peak of all achievements. However, I would like to continue the money topic. When there is an uncontrolled investment of money with no limits, when you cannot see the balance - what results can we speak of? How can we see effectiveness?

I was touched by an interview of the French goalkeeper Cristobal Huet who defeated out team practically by himself on May 3. He said that there were players in the French team who had to work somewhere else in order to feed their families. While our hockey players, who do not surpass the French by class very much, write letters and protest against salary limits, like, pay me 8 thousand dollars, not 7...They argue upon which rate they should be paid. We have lost real cost of our hockey, as the whole sport system is not transparent. Football, hockey and other kinds of sports turned into a toy.

In the photo: Uladzimir Berazhkou (left) with a hockey player Andrej Kavaliou.

Photo: news.date.bs.