Russian Hockey Federation on Friday morning announced that they have hired a new head coach for senior men’s team. Hours later SKA St.Petersburg followed the path – Valeri Bragin now holds two of the most prominent coaching jobs in Russian hockey.
It has been a wild ride for SKA and Russian Men’s team as they have been doing lots of switching between the coaches. First, it was Oleg Znarok who led both teams to success – an Olympic gold, multiple World Championship titles, and a Gagarin Cup victory. In 2018 Znarok stepped away and both teams hired Ilya Vorobyov to take over. Vorobyov’s tenure wasn’t long as in the summer of 2019 Alexei Kudashov was named the new head coach. Now he’s gone too.
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Bragin was an assistant coach with SKA this season. The 64-year-old coach has been known for leading the Russian u-20 teams for the last decade.
Bragin has also previously worked with Moscow Spartak and CSKA Moscow, another prominent name in Russian hockey.
It is no coincidence that the job with the SKA also means a bench job with the Russian National Team as Roman Rotenberg is the General Manager of both teams.
