"It's too early to think about the third Gagarin Cup — I would like to celebrate the second one"

Yaroslavl "Locomotive" won the Gagarin Cup for the second year in a row. For the defender of the "railwaymen" Alexei Bereglazov, this trophy was already the fourth in his career. Previously, the 32-year-old hockey player won the KHL grand prize with Metallurg Magnitogorsk in 2016, Avangard Omsk in 2021 and last season with Yaroslavl. In terms of the number of victories in the Gagarin Cup, he is now second only to Danis Zaripov, who lifted the trophy five times.

In an interview with Izvestia, Bereglazov assessed the prospects of Lokomotiv defending the championship title and spoke about the adaptation of head coach Bob Hartley. Last summer, the Canadian specialist replaced Igor Nikitin, who created the championship team, but soon after the triumph unexpectedly left Yaroslavl and took over CSKA Moscow.

— Aren't you tired of winning the Gagarin Cup in such numbers?

— 100% no (smiles). Our work is evaluated by trophies. And when you achieve a goal, it's hard to put into words the feeling of joy from it.

— What are the next goals? Is there a task to surpass the record of Danis Zaripov, who won the Gagarin Cup five times?

— The goals now are to spend time with my family, recover from a difficult season, relax and just sit down and remember how all this was achieved, how we went to this. And then start preparing for the next season.

— You won the Gagarin Cup with Avangard five years ago under the leadership of Bob Hartley. Did you expect that after three seasons out of work, he would be able to handle the champion Lokomotiv so well after Nikitin's departure?

— This situation was not easy for him either, because he joined the championship team. He did not need to destroy what works, what was created before him, but at the same time to introduce some of his own ideas, to implement them individually into the existing system. But on the other hand, if a person has won in many leagues before, then why not do it now?

— Has Hartley changed his working methods in any way compared to his days at Avangard?

— Bob didn't change any points to how he sees things. We were working in about the same mode as before. And Hartley tried to be very careful about where to leave it as it is, and where to change something.

— Last summer, when Hartley was just appointed to Lokomotiv, Alexander Krylov, the former chairman of the board of directors of the Omsk club, who worked with him at Avangard, noted that Bob was going to Yaroslavl without his long-term assistant Jacques Cloutier, who did a lot of work at the Omsk headquarters. How did Bob cope without Jacques?

— It was not easy for him without the usual staff, of which only Sergey Evgenievich Zvyagin spent the full season with him. Everyone remembers that we had troubles in the first half of the season, and Dmitry Anatolyevich Ryabykin, who was responsible for the majority of the game, left the club. That's why we all had to come together during the season, including to help Bob with our game.

Closer to the playoffs, we managed to get to what we wanted. Hartley worked with Cloutier for a long time and invited him to Yaroslavl. His absence, as well as Ryabykin's departure in the fall, created difficulties, but we found the right way to finish the regular season well and already show our best side in the playoffs. Then we went from round to round.

— Lokomotiv is unique as a club in that more than a dozen local students who have known each other since childhood play in the main team at the KHL level. How does it feel to fit into such a team from the outside?

— I knew where I was going when I signed a contract with the club in 2023. Before that, I talked in detail with Igor Valeryevich Nikitin about the goals of the team, about the role I was seen in it. And it's very nice that it so happened that we won the Gagarin Cup, which the guys have been striving for for a long time. The main thing is that everything in this club is subordinated to the sports component and the team always sets itself only the highest goals.

— Is Lokomotiv capable of winning the Gagarin Cup for the third time in a row, which no one else has been able to do?

— Of course, he is capable. Never say never. We don't know how long the current line-up will last. But it's too early to think about the third Gagarin Cup — I would like to celebrate the second one.