Talent and his fans: Olympic champion 2018 ended his career with a gala match
On July 29, Cherepovets hosted a gala match dedicated to the end of the career of 2018 Olympic champion Bogdan Kiselevich. It became a highlight of the summer off-season. One of the best defenders of the KHL over the past 15 years hung up his skates in his hometown in front of 5.5 thousand spectators and most of his star teammates — Severstal, CSKA, Lokomotiv and the Russian national team.
Bogdan Kiselevich's career
The 36-year-old has been without a club since last summer, when his contract with Lokomotiv Yaroslavl expired. But he announced his retirement only in June of this year. Kiselyevich, who was born in Cherepovets, is a graduate of the local Severstal. He made his adult debut in her main team, and began playing in the KHL in 2009. Over the next five years, he became the leader of his hometown club and one of the best defenders in the league.
This did not go unnoticed. In 2014, the hockey player joined CSKA. There he quickly became a player of the main clip, gained a foothold in the Russian national team. Kiselyevich has demonstrated decent performance in the goal+pass system for several seasons in a row.
This helped the Army team reach the Gagarin Cup finals twice (in 2016 and 2018), the highest achievements of the club in the post—Soviet period at that time. During the same period, the Red-Blues dominated the regular season, winning it five times with Kiselevich in the squad.
In 2017, the defender went with the national team to the World Championships in Cologne and Paris, where he won the bronze medal. And a little less than a year later, Bogdan won the Olympics in South Korea with the national team — it was our first Olympic hockey gold in 26 years.
That Russian national team was led by Oleg Znarok, and Igor Nikitin, who combined this with the position of head coach of CSKA, was responsible for working with defenders and special teams of the minority in his headquarters. Bogdan has always been highly regarded by one of the best specialists in the history of the KHL.
"The fact that we've been through so much with him shows that he was able to meet the demands of hockey and us as a coaching staff,— Nikitin told Izvestia. — Those tasks that turned out to be on Bogdan's shoulder cannot be solved without character, skill and human qualities. He had it all and still has it. Being a complete person, he always gave himself to the game and worked for the team.
In the same year, 2018, Kiselyevich decided to try himself in the NHL, first with the Florida Panthers, then with the Winnipeg Jets. At the end of that season, Winnipeg wanted to extend the contract with the Russian defender, but he preferred a guaranteed place in the squad and returned to CSKA. By this point, the Army team had won their first Gagarin Cup without him. Kiselyovich avoided this trophy for a long time.
In the following 2019/20 season, CSKA dominated the KHL regular season and was considered the clear favorite for the playoffs, but it was not played due to covid. After that, the Army lost a number of leading players, including future NHL stars striker Kirill Kaprizov and goalkeeper Ilya Sorokin.
But even without them, Kiselyevich helped Nikitin and the team reach the Gagarin Cup final. However, there they lost in the series to Omsk Avangard (2:4). Two months later, Nikitin was unexpectedly fired. As a result, the coveted trophy was awarded to the defender in 2022 already under Sergei Fedorov.
Six months later, he was traded to Avangard. Then there was a decline in his career, a transfer to Nizhnekamsk Neftekhimik, and in January 2025 Kiselyevich again found himself under Nikitin's command at Yaroslavl Locomotive. He hardly played there, being signed for the depth of the squad and safety net in case of injury to one of the main defenders.
Six months later, the railroad workers won the Gagarin Cup for the first time in history. According to Nikitin, Kiselyevich, being an experienced player, made a significant contribution to the atmosphere in the locker room and was a great help in winning the long-awaited trophy by the club.
— His qualities as an intelligent person allowed him to understand the situation in which he was invited to join the team, — explained Igor Nikitin. — He coped with the goals that were assigned to him as a player who does not play. And he became an important part of the team that won the Gagarin Cup. It is very difficult to maintain a positive, sincere attitude and focus on the result when you are not playing. Not everyone can stand it. But Bogdan was able to.
How was the gala match in Cherepovets?
After winning the Gagarin Cup, Kiselyevich left the Yaroslavl club and began to pay more attention to studying at the Higher School of Economics and the Olympic University. He also joined the Athletes' Commission of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC). But only a year later he announced that he was ending his career as a player.
Kiselevich's farewell gala match in Cherepovets gathered full stands of the local "Ice Palace" - they can accommodate 5.5 thousand spectators. All proceeds — more than 2 million rubles — will go to charity. In June and July, when it's the KHL offseason and the teams don't even hold exhibition matches (their preseason starts in August and the new season starts in September), it's rare to see bright hockey events with the participation of stars.
In Cherepovets, where, perhaps, such a large number of high-status hockey players have never been seen at the same time, especially on a warm summer evening. Besides Bogdan himself, his partners from all the teams participated in the gala match. Pavel Buchnevich, Ilya Koshechkin, Vadim Shipachev, who played with him at Severstal, Ilya Sorokin, Alexander Romanov, Pavel Karnaukhov, Maxim Sorkin, Prokhor Poltapov, who briefly crossed paths with Kiselyovich in Yaroslavl, Daniil Tesanov, Egor Surin, Dmitry Simashev, Daniil Booth and many others. In addition, Ilya Lyubushkin and Anton Belov, who played with the hero of the occasion in the national team, came to Cherepovets.
In the match itself, the players were divided into two teams — red and gold, according to the color of their shirts. Significant specialists in Kiselevich's career were involved as coaches. The Reds were led by Igor Nikitin, his long—term assistant at CSKA and Lokomotiv, Dmitry Yushkevich, and Igor Petrov, who worked for Severstal for many years, with whom young Kiselyevich rose to the main team.
Evgeny Mikhalkevich (another specialist who worked with young men in Cherepovets at the beginning of Kiselevich's career), Dmitry Kvartalnov (he headed Severstal and CSKA when Bogdan played there) and Vladimir Vorobyov (he played with him in Cherepovets and began his coaching career there) stood on the side of the golden ones.
Bogdan's father Alexander Kiselyevich, a veteran of combat operations in Afghanistan, who was twice awarded the Order of the Red Star, made the opening throw in the gala match. In addition, the name banner of the player with the number 55, under which he performed during his career, was raised in the arena. The game itself ended with a score of 8:7 in favor of the Reds, for whom Kiselyevich played. Almost all the participants of the event spoke admiringly about the joint playing years with the hero of the evening.
"He always took care of the young ones, including me," Alexander Romanov, defender of the New York Islanders, who started at CSKA under Kiselyovich, told Izvestia. — He explained to me how to approach business, how to move from the youth level to the adult level, how to prepare for games and training, gave me a lot of advice as a defender. And he always supported us, lightened the atmosphere with his jokes and always a positive mood. I hope he will be able to apply all his skills in hockey in another capacity — as a coach or manager.
Most of the players will start preparing for the season three days after the match in Cherepovets — according to the regulations, the training camps of the teams will start on August 1.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
