Fierce battles broke out during the match between Turkey’s Buz Adam and Spain’s FC Barcelona (9:4). 12 Russians played for the Turkish team, including Alexey Kajgorodov, who has gold medals from the under-18 and under-20 WCs, as well as the Gagarin Cup. On the other hand, Ukrainians Artěm Ponomarenko and Stanislav Didkovskyj, whose father Daniil coaches the team, played in the Barcelona jersey.
The first brawl broke out after Kajgorodov brutally attacked a Barcelona player from behind (time 1:12 on the video) and drew a penalty until the end of the game.
Then, according to the server global.espreso, the situation escalated even more after one of the Russian players went to provoke the Ukrainians to the Barcelona substitute.
“I heard how one of the Russian players came to threaten Didkovski senior: ‘I will kill you and your family.’ He came to our changing room and humiliated us: ‘Hey, you’re from Ukraine, so you deserve this. It’s good that we’re bombing you,'” Barcelona hockey player Ponomarenko described what happened during the match.
“Why is it necessary to provoke the opponent with the topic of war? I had to answer it personally, so I jumped on the ice and told the guys to support me and stand up for Ukraine against the Russian horde. A big battle broke out and I hit myself at least three times,” Ponomarenko continued.
Referee Philip Metzinger had a lot to do to manage the situation. He handed out a total of 124 penalty minutes, 91 of which were wasted by the Turkish team with a large Russian column.
“Russian aggression against Ukraine is not limited to the battlefields in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions. It is disgusting wherever the enemy breathes, it provokes aggression even where few would expect it – in an international sports match. In this case, the Russian hockey players showed all their inner corruption even in the Continental Cup,” the Ukrainian hockey union commented on the incident.
