CANADA UNDER SURVEILLANCE

Yesterday in Novogorsk the KHL part of the Russian Olympic hockey team started its preparation to the tournament in Vancouver.


The 14 players of KHL trained yesterday in Novogorsk. Nine of whom are included into the 23-men list:

Defencemen – Nikulin (Ak Bars), Kalinin (Salavat Yulaev), Korneev (CSKA); forwards – Zinoviev, Radulov, Kozlov (all – Salavat Yulaev), Zaripov, Morozov (both – Ak Bars), Sergey Fedorov (Metallurg Magnitogorsk).

And five more reserves with them: goalkeepers – Koshechkin (Metallurg Magnitogorsk), Eremenko (Salavat Yulaev); defencemen – Atyushov (Metallurg Magnitogorsk), Proshkin (Salavat Yulaev) and forward Tereschenko (Ak Bars).

This mini training camp is to last for two days. On Wednesday the team has two training sessions – in the gym in the morning and on the ice in the evening. And on Thursday they take a charter flight to Vancouver from Sheremetyevo (SVO) Airport.

"At the very day of our arrival to Vancouver we will have an ice training", said the senior coach of the Russian squad Igor Zakharkin. "That is important in order to keep up the form".

"At the Olympic tournament physical preparedness and team mobility will be imperative. Speeds will be very high. And taking all this into account we are to build our training process".

"We thought over the possible consequences of acclimatization on the players and that is why we are flying to Vancouver in advance. A group of physiologists will visit the team and thoroughly examine the players".

"There can be no minorities in such thing as the Olympics. We have a huge video-archive that helps us study our opponents and not only those we are to meet at the group stage. We analyze strong sides of the leaders, actions of the teams in powerplays or on the contrary shorthanded".

After these words it becomes clear that all our opponents in Canada are under surveillance of our head coaches - Vyacheslav Bykov and Igor Zakharkin.