"Non—hockey matters are not my responsibility"

The Russian national ice hockey team was not allowed to participate in the upcoming Olympic Games in Milan in February. Like our other teams, she is still suspended from international competitions. Nevertheless, four athletes competing for Russian clubs in the KHL will appear at the upcoming Games.

We are talking about Martin Gernat, defender of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, and two forwards, Adam Ruziczka from Spartak Moscow and Adam Lishka from Severstal Cherepovets, who were included in the final squad of the Slovak national team. In addition, Stefan Da Costa, a striker from Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg, will play for the French national team.

Meanwhile, after 2022, only Da Costa was regularly called up to the national team for major tournaments. All three Slovaks from the KHL missed the World Championships in 2023 and 2024 due to pressure on the local federation. But in 2024, they were returned to the national team on the eve of selection for the Olympics.

Adam Lishka, who has been playing for Severstal since 2019, became one of the leaders of the team in seven seasons in Cherepovets, with whom he reached the KHL playoffs six times in a row. In an interview with Izvestia, the 26-year-old hockey player spoke about his club's sensational leadership in the Western Conference, getting into the Slovak national team for the 2026 Olympics and the level of the Olympic tournament without the Russian national team.

"It's useless to discuss what other people think of me."

— When will you leave the club's location and join the national team?

— I have agreed with the management and the head coach that I will leave on the evening of January 30, immediately after the away match with Dynamo Moscow. I want to thank Severstal and head coach Andrey Kozyrev, they understood that they would not be able to use me in the middle of the season, for several weeks in February. Back in the summer, Andrei Leonidovich said that they were ready for my possible call-up to the Olympic team, and wished me a successful season to prove my right to get there. That's why I'm flying home from Moscow on January 30th. And already on February 2, we have a training camp in Slovakia.

— Did you expect to be included in the final squad of the Slovak national team for the Olympics?

— I knew that I would have a chance, that everything would depend on my hockey skills, on my form. I've had a very productive last month and a half in the KHL (13 goals in the last 13 matches. — Izvestia). The head coach of the Slovak national team, Vladimir Orsag, watched me and eventually invited me to join the team. Although, when he called me before the New Year and told me that he had applied for the Olympics, I thought it was a joke. But it turned out to be true, and I was very pleased. I can't say that the call was unexpected, but I also can't say that I was definitely waiting to be included in the squad. The probability of this for me was 50-50.

— In 2022-2023, there was a lot of pressure on the Slovak Hockey Federation, someone even demanded that the national team coaches be officially banned from summoning hockey players from KHL clubs, as was done in the Czech Republic, Sweden and Finland. Your federation held out, but eventually approved this ban. But she removed it after Robert Fico returned to the post of prime minister of the country, and Peter Pellegrini became president of Slovakia and publicly criticized such a "cancellation" policy. Before that, didn't you regret that you didn't leave Russia in 2022, following the example of most foreign players, and risked dropping out of the national team for a long time?

— To be honest, I don't want to talk about other people's work. As a hockey player, I focus on my game, on improving my athletic qualities. Whenever you are invited to the national team, it is very pleasant. I always give my best for my country. It will be the same this time.

— What do you mean by other people's work?

— Non—hockey matters are not my responsibility. I came to play in Russia because there is a strong league here that allows me to realize the hockey qualities that I have. I have time on the ice, a good position and a good team. I want to move forward in my hockey career. And it's useless to discuss what other people think about me.

"You can't play kickback — you have to push anyway"

Dynamo Moscow hockey player Artyom Sergeev — about the team's failures, ways out of the crisis and Shipachev's record in the KHL

— Can we say that these "other people" no longer influence the fate of Slovak hockey players in the KHL after the government changed in the country in 2023?

— To be honest, I don't think it's related. The Slovak Ice Hockey Federation must select people based on their playing qualities and athletic criteria. Since it was decided together with the coaching staff that Ruzichka, Gernat, and I were going to the Olympics, it means that the federation is guided by the sports component.

"It would be interesting to see Russia at the Olympics"

— Slovakia won the bronze medals at the last Olympic Games in Beijing, but then the NHL players did not participate in the tournament. Now that the national teams of Canada, Sweden, the USA, Finland and the Czech Republic are packed to the brim with stars from North America, does Slovakia have a chance to repeat the previous success?

— Given that there will be players from the NHL now, we are not going to this tournament as favorites, since our team does not have as many representatives of the strongest league in the world as the national teams listed by you. But we have a good team. We have a lot of high-quality hockey players playing in the NHL, KHL and good European championships in Sweden and the Czech Republic. That's why we can get hooked on any match. It is clear that we will face opponents of a different quality there, with a very large number of skilled players. But Slovakia can give them a fight and be an unpleasant team for any national team.

— Have you studied the compositions of Canada, the USA, Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic? Are there any people among their stars that you're particularly interested in playing against?

— Yes, there are a lot of world hockey stars there. Therefore, it will be interesting to play against all the good teams. But if we single out someone, we would like to play against Canada and the USA. I won't single out the players, but we really want to play against these two teams. To do this, we need to get out of the group, which also includes Sweden, Finland and Italy.

— You had the World Cup in Bratislava in 2019, and Finland won it, which then had almost no players from the NHL and KHL, although Russia and other national teams at that tournament had superstar squads. What should Slovakia do at the next Olympics in order to become a prize-winner in similar conditions?

— The main thing is that we create a good team, a good team. And they treated themselves like family — that's the only way to achieve a good result when you don't have as many stars as other national teams.

— Will the Olympics lose a lot from the absence of the Russian national team?

— If you look at the squad that Russia could have, then there are a lot of good players there. There are very high-quality hockey players in all the lines who play in the NHL. Therefore, it would be interesting for the fans to see your national team at the Olympics. But the solution is what it is. Let's see how it will be in the next tournaments. As an athlete, I always want to compete with the best. Therefore, it is a pity that Russia and Belarus are not currently participating in international tournaments. Unfortunately, it doesn't depend on me — I don't make such decisions.

— When Fico and Pellegrini came to power in your country in 2023-2024, setting a course to establish relations with Russia, rumors appeared in a number of sports media about possible friendly matches between our national teams. Can you imagine such meetings in the near future?

— I also read such information. I don't know if this is true or not. I think our federation always has a tournament schedule for the year ahead. It's hard to say if she discussed these matches. They would be interesting to me. And they are convenient, because you wouldn't have to fly far from Russia (smiles). But here the decision is not mine.

"Kozyrev does not forbid playing body games"

— What makes Severstal the leader in the Western Conference after two thirds of the KHL regular season?

— I think it's because we're always improving our game, looking at what aspects we can improve on. Even if something doesn't work out during the match, we find a way to turn the situation around. For example, in the recent game against Dynamo Moscow, we had two periods without success, we lost 1-4 in the middle of the third period. But we found a way to add and even the score. Yes, we lost 4-5 in the shootout. However, it is important that the team showed character and fought to the end.

— Andrey Kozyrev has been working as Severstal's head coach for the third season, and the team has been playing striking combination hockey. Is this the most interesting style of play in your entire career?

— I like Kozyrev's hockey. We are very active, we play a lot of passing, we work at high speeds. The training sessions are very intense. I'm enjoying this game.

"One should always strive for the ideal"

HC CSKA goalkeeper Alexander Samonov — about the goals for the season, the team's results in the KHL and the competition for the position of the main goalkeeper of the army

— So far, Severstal has been unable to advance further into the playoffs with this hockey - in the last two seasons there was a first—round elimination from Spartak (1-4), although before that, under Andrey Razin, you fought stronger opponents, leading to the seventh matches of the series, first with Dynamo Moscow."and then with the future Gagarin Cup winner CSKA. What should I do to compete for the second round this year?

— I missed the playoffs last season due to injury. But if you think about how I saw the series with Spartak back then and how I saw the confrontation with him from the ice a year before, it seemed to me that everything was solved by small details. When we had a lot of chances, we couldn't realize them. Most of the players in the match against Spartak played more actively, held the puck, but allowed either unnecessary clearances or several goals at once, as in the last match of last year's series, when the opponent scored twice in three minutes. In the playoffs, all the opponents are very high-quality, so they easily take advantage of your little loss of concentration and minor mistakes.

— Throughout Kozyrev's three seasons at Severstal, there are rumors that he forbids players from holding power moves and fights on the ice.

"That's not true. But we have an understanding that we want to play the stick right first, so that the puck doesn't get out from under us. If you can then play body games, then no one forbids it.

— You worked at Severstal for three years with Andrey Razin, who finally gained a foothold in the KHL and received an invitation to Metallurg. Are you surprised by his success there — his victory in the Gagarin Cup the season before last and his undisputed leadership in the current regular season?

— No, I'm not surprised. They have a good team, a lot of high-quality players showing good results. Including young players like Kanzerov and Silantiev. And there are experienced hockey players. The squad is well-chosen, they play well in the majority and generally score a lot of goals. And Razin himself is very good in terms of motivation, communication with the players — he perfectly conveys to the hockey players what it means to play for his team. No one ever goes out on the ice indifferent.

— There are always rumors about his complex nature and conflicts with the players. Have you felt it yourself?

— I wouldn't say that. I've always respected the coach. And I treat all coaches the same. I want to give my best on the ice for the team. And any coach, if he sees that I give my heart to the game, can forgive me if something doesn't work out for me.