MOSCOW Thirty kilometers from Russias border with China and 3,300 from the nearest opponent Khabarovsks hockey has long existed in a vacuum. But after years of under-achievement, Amur currently find itself among the early leaders of the KHL.
Head coach Hannu Jortikka, who arrived from Finland after the 2010-11 campaign ended with Amur falling well short of play-off contention, was given the task of extending the teams season for only the second time in its history. Arriving in the Far East well aware of the unique difficulties facing a team so remote, Jortikka agreed to put his Midas reputation on the line when he inherited a squad which took just 50 points from 58 games in the regular season last time.
And the turnaround has been striking already: with 20 points and seven victories in 11 outings, Amur stands among the early frontrunners, level with Avangard Omsk and four points ahead of Ak Bars Kazan and Salavat Yulayev Ufa. Moreover, this has been achieved, in part, by victories over that illustrious pair, while claims that the team cannot handle its grueling away schedule were eased with a victory over Lev Poprad in Slovakia 7,490 km and nine time zones from home.
Little wonder, then, that Amurs fans are in raucous voice. Thursdays game at CSKA Moscow saw close to 100 followers, bringing banners which read Attack + Power + Fortune = KHL Play-offs, or 60 minutes to victory on a Czech flag bearing the face of the KHLs top point-scorer, Jakub Petruzalek. In the event, it took a little bit longer to see off CSKA, but Petruzaleks twin successes in a penalty shoot-out set up another Amur win after an absorbing 2-2 tie in regulation time.
Our fans are just crazy, Jortikka smiled. They must be some of the best fans in the whole league. When we play at home its always so loud. This is nothing new even in the teams poorest seasons, Amur regularly fills its 7,100-capacity Platinum Arena. But now there is belief. Previously at Moscow games, supporters arrived in hope rather than expectation, drawn mostly from Khabarovsk natives who had relocated to the capital. This time their numbers were swelled by tourists enjoying the three-game trek to Poprad, Minsk and Moscow and growing belief in the team sparked a crescendo from the away sector.
That faith was justified: CSKA struggled last season, but this time incoming coach Julius Supler has shaped a younger squad and seasoned it with the class of Alexei Yashin and Sergei Shirokov. The sides met knowing that a regulation time win could take either to the top of the table, and Amur played a far more aggressive attacking game than in previous seasons, fearlessly seeking to control the centre of the ice. Moreover, with Jan Lasaks impressive form in goal, defenceman Mikko Menp impressing at the back and Petruzalek giving a focal point to the offence, the team has the tools to win games at last.
But Jortikka himself remains cautious. Last season teams needed 75 points to reach the play-offs. Thats 25 more than we got so its a very, very tough task for us. This league is very different [from others in Europe]. The road trips are unbelievable. In Finland or Switzerland an away game was maybe two or three hours, and youd be back at home recovering and preparing for the next one. Here its like an international tour every time, and that means every point you win in this league is very, very hard to get.
When you look at the top teams, Omsk, Ufa, Kazan of course, St. Petersburg, theyve got very good players. Weve beaten Salavat Yulayev and Ak Bars, but we have to remember this is only the start of the season.
Nonetheless, its hard to shake the suspicion that behind his self-effacing public comments, Jortikka has high expectations for his team. Six championship wins in Finland as head coach of TPS, medal-winning stints as Finnish U20 head coach and on the coaching staff of the senior national team, it all adds up to a man used to being somewhere near the top of the pile. Despite his assertion that every point in the KHL is a hard-won reason to rejoice, he admitted that conceding an equalizer at CSKA with barely two minutes to play felt very bad. And for all the talk of a long campaign to come and warnings against getting carried away, there is more strength in depth for this Khabarovsk team. The win at CSKA came despite the absence of Menp, a frequent contributor to the teams goal tally this season while 2010 World Championship winner Martin Ruzicka is yet to make his debut after suffering injury problems since moving from Czech side Trinec. Ruzicka, who racked up a record-breaking 30 points in the Czech Extraliga play-offs last season, could join his fellow countrymen Petruzalek and Petr Vrana among the leading scorers for Amur in this campaign.
While Jortikka might not thank you for saying it, Amur look set for a better season than ever.
Khabarovsk facts
The city of Khabarovsk, in Russias Far East, lies at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri rivers, close to the Chinese border. It has a population of about 570,000. The surrounding district is home to the few remaining Amur Tigers living in the wild, and the MHL team is known as Amurskie Tigry.
It is famously remote, even by Russian standards: the nearest major city, Vladivostok, is 800 km away on the Pacific coast; Moscow is more than 6,000 km distant by air and over 8,000km along the clankingly slow Trans-Siberian railway. The nearest rival hockey team, Metallurg Novokuznetsk, is 3,300 km distant, Slovakias Lev Poprad is 7,490 km; by contrast the longest NHL trip is around 4,500 km (Vancouver to Miami).
Hockey was first played in 1969 by the Army-backed SKA Khabarovsk team. There was little success until 1989s Soviet Division 3 title win, and a further promotion to the Russian Superleague in 1996. In the top flight the team became known as SKA-Amur, finally dropping the military label in 1999. The team has never finished higher than ninth in the regular season table, and only once before reached an end-of-season play-off (in 2008, when a 15th-placed finish saw Amur scrape into the extended 16-team format, only to go out in the first phase).
ANDY POTTS
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