Dmitry Kvartalnov rolled into Minsk – Newspaper Kommersant No. 63 (7508) dated 04/12/2023

The famous Russian coach Dmitry Kvartalnov, after a break that lasted a year, returned to work at the elite level. Kvartalnov, whose career is full of successes with top clubs in the regular championships and misfires in the playoffs, led Dynamo Minsk, trying to get rid of the status of the middle peasants of the Continental Hockey League, and the Belarusian national team, like the Russian team, suspended from international competition.

Ice Hockey Federation of Belarus (FHB) and Dynamo Minsk announced on the appointment of the well-known Russian specialist Dmitry Kvartalnov to the post of head coach of the national Belarusian team and the club that is the base for it. Kvartalnov, 57, replaced Canadian Craig Woodcroft, who has held them since 2019, at both posts. IN interview official website of the FCB, Dmitry Kvartalnov confirmed that he considered the proposal he received “comprehensively”, that is, he wanted to “lead not only Dynamo, but also the national team”, specifying that it was “very interesting for him to enter the international level as a head coach national team”.

True, in the coming months, the “international level” that Dmitry Kvartalnov speaks of will be very specific. The Belarusian team, like the Russian team, after the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, was suspended from participation in tournaments of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), which recently extended the suspension for at least one more season. Thus, Belarusians and Russians will not be able to play again at the World Cup until 2025.

In the near future, they will have to limit themselves to semi-official or friendly matches, such as the tour of the Belarusian national team, which will be held from May 2 to 16, awaiting Dmitry Kvartalnov in a new role.

Within its framework, she will hold meetings with Russian and Kazakh teams in Chelyabinsk, Astana, Krasnoyarsk, Tula and Minsk. The Belarusians played against the same opponents last December at the First Channel Cup in Moscow. The Belarusians managed to win an unexpected victory on it, defeating the hosts of the tournament in the decisive match.

The tasks of Dmitry Kvartalnov in Dynamo Minsk are approximately clear. The management of the club, frozen in the status of an inconspicuous middle peasant in the Continental Hockey League (KHL), probably wants to at least slightly raise its ceiling. For now, they are left with the starting round of the Gagarin Cup. In the current season, as well as in the two preceding it, Dynamo made their way to the playoffs, but invariably immediately fell out of the race, colliding with one of the favorites – SKA St. Petersburg. True, this year they lost to him in the fight for the first time – in six matches.

To achieve the goals, Dynamo invited a coach with a rather paradoxical track record. Dmitry Kvartalnov worked with the KHL giants for a long time, but the results of his work look extremely ambiguous.

In 2014, he took over as CSKA coach. In three seasons, under the leadership of Dmitry Kvartalnov, the army team finished first in the regular season, but could not convert these figures into success in the playoffs. In 2015, they were eliminated in the semi-finals, managing to be defeated by SKA, leading the series 3-0. In 2016, CSKA failed to cope with Metallurg Magnitogorsk in the final, and in 2017, in the quarter-finals, they lost to Lokomotiv, which was quoted much lower.

Dmitry Kvartalnov left the capital club just for Yaroslavl, and then found himself in another top team – Ak Bars. There, history almost repeated itself. With Kvartalnov, Kazan twice in a row took the top line in the table of the Eastern Conference of the regular season, but did not get to the Gagarin Cup. In 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the KHL stopped the play-offs after the first round, and in 2021, Ak Bars cut off in the semi-finals at Avangard. Finally, in the third season of Dmitry Kvartalnov, something like a disaster happened to him at this club. Ak Bars played the regular season mediocrely, and the Gagarin Cup ended for him at the very start – a loss to the same Avangard, after which the coach was dismissed.

Alexey Dospekhov