Lokomotiv for the first time in history won the Gagarin Cup

The list of Gagarin Cup holders on Wednesday was replenished by a club with the most difficult history among all who perform in the KHL. It contained the status of a domestic hockey flagship, obtained a quarter of a century ago, and a terrible plane crash of 14 years ago, and a difficult revival after it. Now a new very bright page has appeared in this story-with two consecutive exits to the final of the Play-OFF « Fonbet » of the KHL championship. In the second, the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv, who survived so many things, did not leave the Chelyabinsk “Tractor”, defeating him in five matches. He finished the series, having beaten rivals on his site in overtime – 2: 1.

After the fifth match of the final, the eighth appeared in the Continental Hockey League – after Ak Bars, Moscow Dynamo, Salavat Yulaev, SKA, CSKA, Avangard and Magnitogorsk Metallurg – a club that could become the owner of the most valuable among its trophies. And that was, of course, a very special champion. So special that the details of his long journey to the Gagarin Cup in the first minutes of the Yaroslavl triumph were probably remembered-maybe with tears that were dripping from his eyes-even those who, in general, are indifferent to the “locomotive”, because it is impossible to forget, no matter how you try.

This club has turned into an extremely noticeable sports brand at the junction of the past and present centuries, before the birth of the KHL, when in 1997, 2002 and 2003 he took three titles of Russia champion.

At that time, it was considered a kind of hockey standard-a bored, dense, disciplined, skilled in all aspects. When in 2008 the Russian championship replaced the new league, Lokomotiv and almost jumped to the top in it: he stumbled only in the final about Ak Bars. But no one doubted that soon he would get his way anyway – too systemic, “right”, too beloved in his city, his area. Such a club without the Gagarin Cup cannot be left. And at first no one believed the “lightning” of news agencies, which on the evening of September 7, 2011 reported that the Yak-42, flying to Minsk, crashed in the Yaroslavl airport at the rise, and that it was there for a match with the local Dynamo, this flight “Lokomotiv”, and that almost none of the passengers survived …

Then, after the main thing in history, not only for the KHL, but there was a lot of the whole Russian sport of the tragedy. The decision that, no matter how terrible it is, the team needs to be saved, created again, from scratch. Create immediately, overcoming the pain. Its difficult – through the highest hockey league, the second, in fact, division, is a revival. Return to the KHL is also difficult, of course. The difficult, through failures, searches for the way to return the status, the power that were zero. And it seems that the invitation in 2021, which turned out to be an ideal personnel, to the post of mentor calm and adore to think and analyze the coach Igor Nikitin, with whom Lokomotiv gradually gained everything that he once had abundant-the density, rigidity and amazing balanced, honed, as is usually the case with him: in the previous season with him in the final series The metallurgisted. But in the current season, to cope with the Yaroslavls, who had still hardened, strengthened the composition with cool and perfectly fitting hockey players – such as Alexander Radulov – nobody could. It was a fabulous season for them. They were best in the regular championship. They were the best in Play-off. And even the interesting and fearless Chelyabinsk team, desperately sought to prove to prove anything in the decisive series, could not oppose anything to this “Lokomotiv” that the outsider label was glued to her in vain.

“Tractor”, although 1: 3 in Play-off is almost a sentence, was not going to admit the defeated and played in the fifth match as if he had nothing to fear and there was no reason to reflect. He played confidently, brazenly. Hurder than the team to which he came to visit. From the side it might even seem that he was feeling the master of the situation – he was ready to own a puck, throw it.

But the peculiarity of the “locomotive” is that it adapts easily to any situation, that in any element it is like a fish in water. It is necessary – calmly at the arrogant and formally controlling the opponent’s game, be sure to find out in the end the opportunity to bite it. And after all, he bit when the “Tractor” in the middle of the starting period once again tried to delve into other people’s rear, not having time to react after the loss to the somehow fantastically quickly unfolding Yaroslavl attack: the puck just had a puck at the side, and it had to scratch it from there, but she was already at Arthur Kayumov, and before him, and before Zeo Fukal. The Chelyabinsk goalkeeper still resisted.

And in the second period, the “Tractor”, still stubbornly trying to seem like a team emitting confidence, first ran into removal, said Vladimir Tkachev. And here Fukal could not resist with his experience and reaction, because when the opponent hockey player who had gnawed at you to stand in front of you to stand in front of you, the puck could not make out the puck. Especially if she was sent exactly to the nine, like Martin Gernat.

Further, the severe test was already waiting for Lokomotiv.

Andrei Sergeyev received as many as four penalties for the game highly raised. But the harsh trials are the bread of the Yaroslavl. They overcame this, allowing the “tractor” to create for all this colossal segment by hockey standards of the duration only one moment – when Grigory Dronov hit the post. And so they fought off flawlessly, without trembling. But this “locomotive” in principle does not know how to tremble.

The Tractor did not sour in the final twenty -minute. He rolled and rolled into the Yaroslavl zone – and all the time rested on an absolutely impassable barrier. It is unlikely that there is at least one team in the KHL, which, when it leads, when it is impossible to skip in any case, is able to build one. Be sure to arise at least tiny gaps. And then not a single alkalus, everything is concerned tightly.

But water, as you know, sharpens the stone. And this match was an excellent illustration of this thesis, because for his suffering “Tractor” was rewarded with a throw by Stephen Campfer, who still pierced Daniil Isaev’s goalkeeper Lokomotiv. No, not everything in this match, in this finale it was as obvious as it had already seemed to be in vain rumbled by the festive hum of the Yaroslavl arena.

For the first time in this final, the match taxied to overtime. He lasted to the Yaroslavl attack with a pass from behind the gate to Maxim Shalunov and his throw into the far corner, after which all his partners poured onto the ice and a thermonuclear explosion of happiness occurred in the stands. You will not get away from fate.

Alexey Prepokhov