With an idea of that unique game for the Ukrainian ice-hockey to memorize the 25-th anniversery of Chornobyl tragedy Donbass has got a good rival and a nice opportunity for coaching staff to check team rookies before transfer campaign starts. Also there was a social theme, as such charity games are really rare for the Ukrainian sports, especially when it comes to Chornobyl tragedy. By the way, one of the inspirers who made a good job to bring the best junior players of Russia to Donetsk was an ex-employee of FC Shakhtar top-management now Managing Director of MHL Dmitri Yefimov.
When it came to see the teams on the ice someone could be really surprised with Donbass roster - there were not few guys from the champions team, but a couple of newcomers from the national Ukrainian team - forwards Vitaliy Donika and Dmytro Nimenko and also Sokil center Artem Bondaryev. There was a golie Ievhen Napnenko (who was in the roster in the World division 1 championship in Kyiv, but was never dressed for a game) and yet Donetsk winger Pavlo Borysenko's brother and a defenseman Ruslan and a son of the head coach Aleksander Kulikov Vitaly.
Red Stars had been in good shape with their Noth American tour. Fighting with Canadian juniors gave them a positive view to the unknown Ukrainian champion. Although Donbass started strong with a couple of good hits and shots. But there wasn't enough as Stars scored shortly. It was Ivanov, who put the stick into a slap shot of Feoktistov. Donetsk squad didn't fall down, but continued attacking. Still their opponents had a good argument with a goalie Roman Smiryagin, who turned each rival shot into a nice save. His counterpart Stepan Goryachevskikh also played well, but that no good of that. Two fast goals in the second period by Tochitskyi and Feoktistov and Bobikov's efffective fast break at the start of the third made Donetsk crowd disappointed.
Even with an empty net and powerplay Donbass didn't manage to score. So there was a shoot-out for both Smiryagin and his partner Ivannikov, who substituted him at 42:51...
Donbass - Red Stars - 0:4 (0:1, 0:2, 0:1)
