Scroll Specialist
The resignation from the post of president of the Leningrad Region Hockey Federation Andrei Tochitsky made people in the topic remember his ambiguous biography: there was a “recommendation” coming to St. Petersburg, strange transfers from SKA, the promotion of his son to this team, incomprehensible decisions on the “Night League” in the 47th region, as well as recovery through the court from the federation of 1.5 million rubles, which disappeared somewhere.
Andrey Tochitsky headed the Leningrad Region Hockey Federation for 12 years, but in September he decided to leave. He was replaced by former SKA defender Valery Pokrovsky. However, Tochitsky already has enough to do – at the end of last year he became the KHL vice-president for sports operations. The main thing is that from the founding of the KHL, Andrei Tochitsky worked for SKA as a general manager, executive, sports, manager and general director. Wow – “he’s Yura, he’s Zhora, he’s Goga.”
With a recommendation from Sushinsky
Andrei Tochitsky is a real, hardened functionary. He appeared at SKA in 2007 (or December 2006). This coincided with the arrival of Gazprom structures to the club. The army men, then, and like their entire history since 1949, eked out a miserable existence and were still tied to the Leningrad Military District. The best hockey players certainly left. Moreover, in market times it was difficult to retain an athlete with officer’s shoulder straps. So, the main star left SKA Maxim Sushinskybut when Gazprom appeared in St. Petersburg, it was he who recommended Andrei Tochitsky to his home club. The fact is that Sushinsky played for Avangard Omsk, and the Siberian club was also sponsored by gas structures. Tochitsky was involved in agency affairs. Did you treat Sushinsky as a client? There is no such open data, but such cooperation was often not documented at that time. As soon as Tochitsky’s position in SKA was not named, however, in general, he was involved in transfers, establishing cooperation with teams of lower leagues, using them as farm clubs, conducting operations during hockey transfer windows, of which there are four in the KHL.
Gazprom came to SKA and Zenit in the fall of 2006. Easy to compare results. Hockey players won their first trophy – the Gagarin Cup – only in 2015, and football players immediately became the first in 2007. In total, during this period, SKA took two Gagarin Cups and won one regular season. And “Zenith” – 10 gold medals, 4 Russian Cups, and “little things” – the UEFA Cup and the European Super Cup. All this time until the end of 2023, Andrei Tochitsky was in HC SKA in one or another managerial role. This is not to say that he is to blame for the “successes” of the army team with a huge budget, just a statement of fact.
Yes, the selection work of SKA managers has long been a source of irony in hockey circles. In the 2015-2017 seasons, SKA constantly tried out a forward Nikita Tochitsky – son of Andrei Valeryanovich. Given the stellar composition of the army team, it looked strange, even funny. Subsequently, Tochitsky Jr. settled in HC Sochi, which many call SKA farm. And Tochitsky was definitely responsible for these connections with Sochi.
But such open lobbying of a relative did not shake the position of Tochitsky Sr. Although in his time such club legends as Alexey Kasatonov and Alexey Gusarov, Olympic champions, by the way, were miserably thrown out of SKA’s top managers. It is curious that Tochitsky’s departure occurred a week after returning to the post of SKA president Alexandra Medvedevawho was already the head of the red-blues in 2007-2011 (chairman of the board of directors). It’s curious, because it was Medvedev who then hired Tochitsky. The circle is closed.
Regional hockey is not the same anymore
Now to the social activities of Andrei Tochitsky in the Leningrad region. He headed the local hockey federation (FHLO) for 12 years, without re-elections, which should occur every four years. In the region they say one good thing about him, and three not so good things. Good – during his work in the region he managed to attract investors for the construction of six indoor ice rinks. That is, the “glades” were not even built at state expense. This is not cheap – a “box” with a roof can now cost up to twenty million rubles. Hockey under a roof is an expensive pleasure.
The first stone in the garden – according to some FHLO members who do not want to introduce themselves, Tochitsky “ruined” regional amateur hockey in the “Night League” because he made it… professional. He introduced the “Flagman” team into the participants, which is staffed by former professional hockey players. And supposedly now ordinary hard workers are not interested in playing with her after their work; they will endure it anyway, which “violates the spirit of socialist competition,” as they would have said half a century ago.
Maybe so, but there is a nuance – the telegrammers mention that Tochitsky, with the assistance of Tochitsky, began organizing games in the Night Hockey League (NHL) Yaroslav Malkov.
Previously, he developed the NHL in St. Petersburg. We won’t say anything, but in certain circles they say that he had to move to the region from the city after a number of unpleasant stories related to finances.
The second point of criticism is the ban from the 2018-2019 season. teams playing in the championship of the Leningrad region enter out of competition into the stronger championship of St. Petersburg.
Allegedly, in this way Tochitsky cut down children’s and youth hockey in the region – but only specialists can figure this out. Thus, member of the Presidium of the Leningrad Region Hockey Federation Denis Zakharov On this score he succinctly remarked:
Much more interesting is the third circumstance, which is now being widely discussed on telegram channels: “The Federation did not publish reports on financial activities, there was no wage fund and an audit commission for the expenditure of funds, and there is no Federation office at the registration address in the city of Vsevolozhsk. Recently it turned out that FHLO acted as a guarantor for the activities of the Federation of Technical Sports of the Gatchina District and, by a court decision, 1.5 million rubles were recovered from it. How many other financial episodes there were under Tochitsky, taking into account the complete lack of control and reporting in the organization – one can only guess“
Of course, information from anonymous sources must be viewed critically; anyone can write anything there. The correspondent of “Our Version” came to check – it was not possible to find documentation on the finances of the FHLO’s work on the official website of the federation. But we managed to find it on the official website of the Committee on Physical Culture of the Leningrad Region government, but it was “buried” deep.
Now we will take a closer look at the activities of Andrei Tochitsky at the level of the entire KHL.
It’s interesting that the former head of the St. Petersburg Hockey Federation also got into certain “sweaty stories” at one time Alexander Evstrakhinbetter known as the father of showwoman Alla Dovlatova. He had a rich career in the 90s, with prominent acquaintances: the head of the secretariat of the mayor’s office, the chairman of the improvement committee, the head of the Vasileostrovsky district… In particular, his name appeared in the media when the investigation had claims against Promstroibank. But for Evstrakhin everything ended well.
