At the end of October, two coaches of the Tatneft ice hockey vertical, Andrey Kazennykh and Andrey Makarov, went on a working visit to Iran. Throughout the month, specialists conducted training camps for ice hockey players of all ages.

In an interview with the ADIHIC media, Andrey Vyacheslavovich Kazennykh, a specialist at the Player Development Center of the Ak Bars Ice Hockey Academy, spoke about our training camps in Iran, the level and prospects of local ice hockey players, as well as adaptation to life and work in Tehran.

– How do you feel now? It must be nice to return to Russia after a month.
– The flight from Tehran to Moscow was more difficult than the flight in that direction. After all, we worked for several weeks on a busy schedule. In general, everything is fine. Iran is an interesting and amazing country, there is a lot of different information about it, but it is not the most reliable. The airport in Iran is very colorful and beautiful in an oriental way.

– How do you like the level of hockey in Iran?

– Many of the players there are self-taught, they haven’t had their own academy for a long time, but there is some kind of basis. Almost all the players came from roller hockey, and we visited their local Olympic base. Everything looks very interesting, a lot of children and women are engaged. It is difficult to assess the level of local players compared to ours. If we compare with Russia, the most gifted players from Iran can now pull to the level of the third line in VHL teams from the second part of the standings. Several people are trying to find worthy championships. One guy is trying to go to Hungary, for example. Specifically, he is now the best player of the Iranian national team, he is only 19 years old.

– Is it possible to compare your work schedule in Iran with the training camps of professional hockey players?

– The Iranian Ice Hockey Federation has planned the calendar very competently for us. Our day was divided into three parts: in the morning we worked with professionals, in the afternoon there was a pause, and in the evening we worked with the academy. Rather, it is a school where many children study from scratch. For us, these evening practices turned out to be much more difficult than the morning ones. The only problem was the level of general technical skill that affects the exercises. But over time, we figured out the reception and transmissions, and paid a lot of attention to these aspects. In the evening, everyone came: from 6 to 20 years old, both girls and boys. Unfortunately, either one goalkeeper could come to training, or there was no goalkeeper at all. I had to plan the training very seriously in order to give game exercises. In addition, we had assistants from the Iranian side, and they are all active players of the national teams of the country of different ages. It should be noted that there is a very high level of desire to play hockey in Iran. Their motivation is very strong. We noticed that Iranian children are ready to do exercises for hours, which will be boring for ours. They are very motivated and want to play ice hockey.

– You also paid a lot of attention to tactical exercises. What were you working on?

– We worked tactically with the teams on getting out of the zone, passing the blue line, and talked a lot with the coaches. For the last five days of the trip, we have worked a lot with the coaching staff of the national teams. The local federation cooperates with the IIHF and regularly participates in the LTP (Learn to play) program, but this is a fairly basic thing. It is suitable only for the first year of kids’ education. Basically, this program only describes the exercises, but there are no methodological guidelines and explanations. Therefore, in our tactical exercises, we tried to convey to the local coaches the essence of how to organize these exercises, what to pay attention to. They told us about skating and about the elements of technology. I would especially like to mention the coaches of the Iranian women’s national ice hockey team, they have already achieved impressive results at the start of their performances. There is a sufficiently thoughtful and consistent female coach there. We shared what we could with her, and we worked very well individually. The Iranian side is interested in continuing cooperation in coaching trainers. We are waiting for our friends from Iran to visit us!

– Are you still ready for trips of this type along the ADIHIC line?

– Now I remember how, as a player, I went to such training camps during pre-season training. We have been preparing for each practice for a long time and responsibly. During the day, we somehow managed to rest, recover, nothing complicated. We were involved in the first week, but a month passed normally in this mode. 

– After a month of working in this mode, is it possible to go out on the ice to play?

– It’s no question at all. Fatigue is an illusion. As my coach said, rest is a change of occupation.