VALDEMORO, Spain – Serbian hockey is enjoying something of a boom this season. The national team is enjoying its best Olympic Qualification performance as an independent nation while the country’s top league is growing.
Last season just five teams contested the national championship, with Partizan Belgrade taking the honours after winning the play-off final against city rival Beostar. But this time round, despite the demise of Beostar, there are seven teams competing at home. The Red Team is playing in the senior Serbian league after competing in recent junior competitions while the city of Novi Sad is back on the hockey map. Vojvodina returns after a three-year absence and faces a new local rival, the NS Stars.
It means first and foremost more hockey. Last year’s regular season featured just 12 games for each team compared with a planned 42 this time out. Better still, Crvena Zvezda Belgrade has entered a team in Slovenia’s Slohokej league, a move that has led to some members of the national roster returning home. Defenceman Robert Sabados and forwards Andrej Zwick and Pavel Popravka are all back in Belgrade this season.
That’s already helping the national team, which has recorded its best ever results in an Olympic Qualification in Group L. Two wins in two games mean Serbia could progress to the second phase with a further success against the Spanish host on Sunday night – a good return for a nation that had previously won just one of six games in qualification events for Vancouver or Sochi.
Marko Milovanovic, who is tied as Group L’s leading goal scorer, is excited about the new-look national league, even though it means greater competition for his Partizan Belgrade team as it defends its title.
“Our league is getting bigger, we’re playing more hockey and all our players are trying to give our best throughout the regular season, into the play-offs and then in the World Championship,” he said. “Red Star [Crvena Zvezda] playing in the Slovenian League is going to be very good for our hockey in Serbia as well.”
Later on Sunday Milovanovic will lead his nation into battle against Spain with the prospect of a place in the next Olympic Qualification round at stake. That would see Serbia taking on stronger opponents such as Italy or Poland in one of the groups in February – a big step up in class, but something the captain believes would be a huge boost for the game back home... if it happens.
“It would be great to go there but first we have to work hard, analyse the Spanish team and focus on everything in every shift,” he said. “We didn’t learn much from [Spain’s first] game against China, but the game against Iceland was perfect for us to see their qualities.”
Milovanovic has spent his whole career playing in Serbia for Partizan, but other Serbian players have sought opportunities abroad. In the current roster, two former Beostar men, goalie Arsenije Rankovic and promising forward Ivan Glavonjic are now playing in Latvia, while Stefan Ilic is continuing with Italy’s HC Valpellice.
And some players travel further than others. Popravka, one of the players who returned to play in Serbia, spent last season on the island of Sakhalin, off Russia’s Pacific coast. He joined Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk’s newly-formed Asia League team for its debut season – blazing a trail to a new hockey outpost.
“They’ve got a new team but they’re doing well out there,” he said. “They are setting things up nicely.”
In sporting terms, playing Asia League hockey against opponents from China, Japan and Korea was a fresh challenge after a career spent in the Serbian and Russian leagues. “They play a different kind of hockey in that league, especially compared with our Serbian championship. The game is much faster. Maybe the experience helped me against the Chinese here in Spain.”
And as for life on the island? Well, Popravka is a Serbian-Russian dual national, born in Novosibirsk, so the culture shock was not so great. “There’s nothing wrong with life on Sakhalin, it was an interesting place to be,” he said. “They’ve got everything you need there.”
Based in Belgrade once again, he’s welcoming the challenge of an expanded domestic campaign but added that any benefits for the national team will be more apparent as the season continues.
“We didn’t have much time to prepare for this tournament,” he said. “We were literally together for a couple of days before the first game. It’s a fairly weak preparation but like all the teams here we’ll just have to do what we can.”
So far, it seems that the current crop of Serbian players can do quite a lot.
ANDY POTTS |
