Two Ukrainian hockey players, who last year became 2nd at the U20 World Cup, ended their careers

Goalkeeper Andriy Malikhin and attacker Klymentii Lysaktwo 20-year-old Ukrainian hockey players who last year played for the youth national team of Ukraine at the world championship in division 1B, decided to end their careers. Both boys, who are pupils of Kharkiv hockey, do not see their future prospects in the game. They told about this in the comments of Sport.ua.

Malikhin left Ukraine at the age of 15 and in 2019-2021 played and trained in the system of the Finnish club HAKI. In 2021-2023, Andriy tried his hand at North American hockey: he played for Motor City in the USPHL Premier and the Boston Hockey Academy in 18U AAA. During this time, Malikhin represented Ukraine at the U18 and U20 world championships in the 1B division, where the Ukrainians took second place. The Youth World Cup turned out to be very successful for Andrii: being nominally a substitute, he twice came on as a substitute in critical moments of meetings with Italy and Croatia and helped the team to break the course of matches and snatch victories. Returning to Europe in the 2023/24 season, Malikhin played for Gronov, a club in the third division of the Czech Republic. And now I decided to play hockey.

“I believe that one can imagine the future in hockey before the age of 20,” says Andriy. – For those who cannot make a decision to end their career at an early age and later cannot realize themselves in hockey, this can be a big problem in the future. I’m going I currently live, study and work in Spain. I’m getting used to life outside of hockey.”

Klymentii Lysak is a pupil of Kharkiv SDYUSSHOR. At the age of 15, he moved to the Lviv Region and during the year played for the “Halytskyi Levs” from Novoyavorivsk. Klym spent another year in the ranks of Sokol Kyiv, and then moved abroad: he played for the youth teams of the Swedish “Nasshe”, he even managed to make his debut for an adult team that plays in the second division, in the Baltic League he represented “Energy” from Elektrenai, and spent most of the last season in the youth Czech Extraliga for “Ocelary” from Tršinets. A year ago, Klym played for the youth national team of Ukraine at the world championship in division 1B.

“Of course, it was possible to get a job somewhere for the next season, but I thought about the future,” Lysak comments on his decision. – I decided that the sooner I finish, the better. I decided that I will not play for pennies in some league, but will think about the future. Because you can play until you are 30, and then face the fact that you can’t do anything else except hockey. A good half of the representatives of Ukrainian hockey would have to go to tax. And so I finished earlier – earlier everything will be normal, without hockey. For myself, I still ride with amateurs once a week, but I already have a profitable job in the USA.”

We will remind that a little earlier Sport.ua informed about the end of the career of goalkeeper Hleb Artsatbanov, his agent Svyatoslav Kiselyov.