"If I manage to compete at the World Cup, I will play until I am 45 years old"

This season, the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) may break the record among defensemen for goals in regular championships. The captain of the Omsk Avangard, Damir Sharipzyanov, is moving towards this. He scored 20 goals in the regular season, which is already a record for the club, and only Kevin Dallman, who scored 28 goals for Astana Barys in the 2008/09 season, the first in the history of the KHL, and Deron Quint, who scored 21 times in the 2010/11 season with Chelyabinsk, are higher in the league.Tractors".

Sharipzyanov has 17 games left in the regular season to score nine goals and surpass Dallman's record. Damir, who will turn 30 on February 17, has been one of the leaders of Omsk for many years. In 2021, he won the Gagarin Cup with them, and in February 2022, he traveled with the Russian national team to the Beijing Olympics, where he won silver medals. In an interview with Izvestia, he spoke about his attitude to a possible record, his emotions about Russia's absence from the upcoming 2026 Olympics in Italy, and shared his opinion on Avangard's prospects in the KHL spring playoffs.

"As soon as you start thinking about glasses, everything starts going wrong."

— Watch your own movement towards Dallman's record, see how many pucks you have left before him?

— No, I try not to think about it at all. The closer I get to the record, the more I try to ignore it. As soon as you start thinking about points, how many points you need to score, how many goals you need to score and how many assists you need to give, everything starts going wrong. The main thing is the team's victories. I really want to win. Especially now, when we are already approaching the crucial part of the season.

— So you don't like the fact that the media is making the same show out of this as last year's campaign by Joshua Livo, who broke Sergey Mozyakin's record for goals in one regular season among strikers as part of Salavat Yulaev?

— No, let them say it's good for the league, good for Avangard. It's great that there's a lot of talk about it. It's just that I personally haven't subscribed to anything for a long time, I don't watch anything. I try to ignore the hockey news and the news in the world in general. So it doesn't concern me exactly, only in the format of your questions and your colleagues.

"It only remains to throw"

— Your high performance in recent years is especially striking to those who remember what a defensive defender you were in your first seasons at Avangard, when you won the Gagarin Cup under Bob Hartley, being a player of more than one pair. Could you have imagined then that you would ever set a record for goals?

— I didn't think about it. What was the point of thinking about it then? It's like I'm going to think about what's going to happen in five years. I try to live in the moment, not think about "yesterday" and "tomorrow", but just enjoy today and make myself better every day.

— But still, what was the reason for your performance?

— I just try to work at my maximum in every training session and in every game. Many thanks to my teammates and coaches, who help me do what I do. For my part, I'm trying to help them and the club as a whole. I would also like to note that this year we have made a great throwing zone at the Omsk arena. I've been asking for three years to do it, but I didn't have the opportunity, there wasn't enough space to practice my shots. And now they've done it, and I'm not getting out of there (smiles). I try to take advantage of any moment in games when I can throw at someone else's goal from a convenient point, but I also don't forget when to pass to my teammates.

— Can we say that your performance is related to the system of play that the current head coach of the team, Guy Boucher, sets for Avangard?

— Yes, you can say that, I agree with this judgment. The defenders get involved, they throw a lot at the goal, but I must say that our forwards do a lot for this, too, who do a lot of work on the spot. I can only throw.

— Many people believe that Avangard and Metallurg are the main favorites for the upcoming playoffs, not only in the Eastern Conference, where you are second behind Magnitogorsk, but in the entire league. How would you rate Omsk's chances of winning the trophy?

— I will say that the two main favorites are those who will be in the finals. And before that, many more things can happen.

"We go out to play, but it's cool to piss off the opponent"

Nikita Kamalov, a hockey player from Severstal, talks about accusations of simulation by the CSKA coach, the team's results in the KHL and the departure of its Slovak legionnaire to the Olympics

"Most likely, I will see who will win the Olympics, who will take which places"

— Will you be following the Olympic Games starting this week in Italy?

— No more than yes, because our guys won't be there. Most likely, I'll just see who wins, who takes which places.

— Does it make your heart bleed that you don't have a second Olympics in your career, and many who could have played this year probably won't have a first one?

— Naturally, it's a shame. I would like to play for my national team. Not only at the Olympics, but also at the World Championships. I've already had the Olympics, but I've never played in the World Cup in my career. But it is what it is. I can't control it in any way. I'm just trying to show beautiful hockey in the KHL with my team.

— Do you believe that you will still have time to play at the World Cup?

- yes. I'm going to play until I'm 45.