One day before the opening of the world championship

Press Center Opening, Hockey Book Presentation, Results of the Contest for the Best Song

The press center of the XXXIVth World Bandy Championship was opened today. Press center began its work on the 23d of January, with the accreditation. By the way 211 reporters received their accreditation for the work on the Championship. And 45-50 more persons will receive their accreditation during the Championship.

Journalistic representation is the most extensive. It’s almost the whole Russia — Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Ulyanovsk, Khabarovsk, Krasnoyarsk (the last was marked by the massive journalistic groups). Besides traditionally hockey cities as Sweden and Finland, the Championship evoked the interest of the BBC company which sent its group to Irkutsk for making a film about the Somalia team and also of Al Jazeera channel which often shows Bandy matches.

Of course Russian TV channels will not pass over the matches. Group A matches will be shown on the «Sport»-1 channel and «Russia»-2 will show the final match in live. Besides the matches for the third place and final will be shown on «Eurosport» (that’s why these matches start earlier).

Press center is located on the West stand of the «Trud» stadium in the table-tennis hall. Here the journalists worked on the Russian Government gifts tournament in 2006.

Today’s press center is greatly located functionally and includes everything what is needed for the work. There’re places for the press conferences and interviews, the journalists’ work zone with computers and internet and TV screens access. There’s also a snack bar where the journalists who work at the Championship matches can have a sandwich and warm themselves with a cup of tea or coffee.

Boris Skrynnik , the President of the FIB, Bo Nyman, FIB General Secreatry, Olga Aksamentova, Head of the culture department of Irkutsk administration, Vladimir Matienko, Head of the XXXIVth World Championship Direction.

There were two pleasant moments on the opening: presentation of the book «Russian Hockey. Irkutsk story» and results of the contest for the best song devoted to the World Championship.

The book, to be more precise- luxurious gift edition of a solid format, pleased the participants. Not surprisingly, as the publication is not only richly illustrated with photographs that reflect the entire 90-years history of Irkutsk bandy, but also accommodates a whole scattering of unique historical, statistical, documentary facts and materials. Without a doubt, the book will be a great gift for any bandy fan.

Boris Skrynnik, President of FIB:

— I want to say thank you to those people who saves our history, supports historical traditions of Russian Hockey, keep our Russian kind of sport, show great love and support to a national team «Sibskana», which nowadays is in the leaders of the Russian Super league and delegated 2 players into our National team.

Vladimir Matienko, Head of the XXXIVth World Championship Direction:

—The idea came when it was announced that the Championship would take place in Irkutsk. We can say that the Championship made the publication possible. The authors of the project with the supervision of Mikhail Klimov managed to form the real soul-mates journalists, pass the words of the book necessity and the idea got the complete approval from the Organizing Committee. The work on the book continued in a tense regime for about a year, took much strength and expense from journalists’ side which is estimated as 2 million rubles. But this project is not commercial, but mostly social, that’s why the edition will be sold at the price of 2000 rubles what is less than the net cost.

Мikhail Klimov, author of the idea and the manager of the journalist group:

— It was easy and hard at the same time to work on the book. Hard- as there’re so many white spots in our Hockey history and our beloved sport was not so famous in press and on TV. And easy because all the journalists involved in the project worked with a great wish and put parts of their soul into the book.

The second pleasant moment of the Saturday was the announce of the results for the best song devoted to the world championship. Even the organizing committee was surprised by the participants’ activity — more than 20 complete songs were received. After the first round the jury representatives from Philarmonic, Writers societies and organizing committee chose 8 songs, as a result the prize places are the following:

• 1st place: «Whole country supports you». Composer — Andrey Lyakhov, Lyrics by Natalya Kalinina.
• 2d place: «Russian Hockey». Composer and author of the lyrics — Andrey Kolganov.
• 3d place: «Prosperity to hockey with a ball». Composer — Leonid Bender, Lyrics by Ella Gerasimenko.

All participants listened to the prize-winning songs which were rewarded by the applauses. There was also a good material motivation: money pries were set for the winner — 100 000 rubles and 50 000 rubles for the 2 and 3 place. Also Boris Ivanovich Skrynnik presented luxurious gift watches, produced for the 100 anniversary of the Bandy Federation.

FIB President awarded Olga Aksamentova, Head of the culture department of Irkutsk administration and head of the jury, with the wonderful hat with hockey symbols which suits her very much.

Olga Aksamentova:

— The idea was to create a song, not an anthem, which can be used within the frames of the World Championship. 20 songs of different styles were received — from shanson to opera and rock. 8 songs passed the first round among which the best were chosen.

Boris Skrynnik:

— Russian Bandy Federation will take 8 songs from the contest to make a disk which will be spread among hockey clubs. Perhaps we’ll arrange one of the famous music groups to perform them.

Bo Nyman, FIB General Secretary:

— It’s my first time in Irkutsk and I’ve already seen that people here not only like hockey, can play it and also create very good music. I was born and grew up in the most hockey devoted region in Sweden. But our regions are simply incomparable to each other. Judging by the book you’ve got more deep and rich history.

As FIB General Secretary I feel calm and I’m sure that the championship which is a record for the number of participants will pass on the very high organizing level.

Besides, Boris Skrynnik answered a row of journalists’ questions:

— What can you say about the Olympic perspectives of Bandy?

— Very huge though unseen work is constantly being performed in this direction. Managing the relations with IOC takes time and continuous work. Now Bandy is a recognized sport with Olympic status, we are in full compliance with all the requirements for the Olympic kinds of sport as for the number of participating countries and for the WADA conditions, and now the final decision requires political resolving and financial side.

Additionally we can say that the Olympic perspectives are interesting mostly for Russia, Sweden is quite self-sufficient and are mostly concentrated on the inner competitions.

— How do you think why Irkutsk was given the right to hold the World Championship?

— Firstly it’s because people here like bandy, because of interest to this kind of sport and Irkutsk Bandy Team. This was the major factor. Besides Irkutsk arranged everything according the conditions applied for such events and very initiative and hockey supporting people like Vladimir Matienko live here. Thanks to his initiative the work concerning the Championship in Irkutsk started and he managed to convince the regional leaders that Irkutsk really needs the Championship.

Next World Championship (in 2015) will be out of plan — in Khabarovsk. Initially it was planned in Finland but they didn’t realize the promise to build a covered stadium for Bandy. Khabarovsk took the initiative and send the request to FIB from their Governor as at this time they opened a covered ice house and received the right to hold the World Championship. By the way the final match of the Russian Championship of the season 2013/2014 will take place there.

— And how Irkutsk received the right to hold World Championship if there’s no covered ice stadium and what are the plans for its building?

— Yes, the World Championship matches passes into covered ice stadiums. But nowadays it’s not an obligatory condition and it’s not signed anywhere. Though in future there’re plans to hold group A matches in covered stadiums and in this case the Championship will be moved to the end of March- beginning of April. From the other side covered stadiums is a double-edged weapon. For example in Ulyanovsk there is a covered ice stadium, but the main matches teams plan to play o the open stadiums. And the IOC Heads say that it’s important to play in the fresh air.

As for Irkutsk, we met with Sergey Eroshenko, Governor of Irkutsk region, yesterday and he promised that the covered stadiums for bandy in Irkutsk will be built in Akademgorodok.

Alexander Aleshin, «NS»
photos by Tatiana Gluck