English

Dinamo Minsk head coach on Belarusian hockey club's preparation for new Continental Hockey League season

Slovak veteran forward Jozef Stumpel will captain Dinamo Minsk in the Continental Hockey League's coming season, Marek Sikora, head coach of Belarus' flagship ice hockey team, told reporters on August 16, as quoted by BelaPAN.

The coach refused to speak about the strengths and weaknesses of each player of the squad, explaining that he did not want "the players to learn things about themselves from newspapers."

Mr. Sikora expressed satisfaction with the first stage of the team's preparation for the new season. "From July 25 to August 15 we had a two-week camp [in Switzerland] and spent a week in Kazakhstan's Astana, taking part in the Kazakhstan President Cup."

He praised a number of players, including defensemen Tomas Mojzis, David Petrasek and Viktar Kastsyuchonak and forwards Maksim Spiridonov and Konstantin Glazachev.

"Petrasek is a great player, he is a Swede who knows how to play," the coach said. "Kastsyuchonak has a good influence on the team. I also think that we were right to recruit the Spiridonov-Glazachev line - these are communicative and understanding players."

Alyaksey Torbin, acting director general of the club, announced that young forwards Pavel Razvadowski and Artsyom Dzyamkow and Russian player Andrei Stepanov would leave the team.