Ostrava 2021: Get to know RPC

The 2021 World Para Ice Hockey Championships will take place from 19-26 June in Ostrava, Czech Republic. The top eight teams from around the world will compete for five Paralympic qualification spots. Follow along as we break down what you need to know about each team.

Background: The RPC will be making its first World Championship appearance since winning bronze in 2015. Six athletes from that team remain on the RPC roster, including goaltender Andrei Kasatkin and defenseman Ilia Volkov. The team won bronze in their prior two appearances at the event and are strong podium contenders for the Beijing 2022 Paralympics after missing out on the PyeongChang 2018 Games.

World Ranking: 7th 

World Championships History: 
2015: 3rd place
2013: 3rd place

Athlete to Watch: Forward Dmitrii Lisov, one of the six returning players, has been the squad’s leading scorer for most of the past decade, taking the team from pretender to contender at the Sochi 2014 Games. He has now been playing Para ice hockey for 11 years and was named Best Forward at the 2015 World Championships.

Matchup to Watch: RPC vs. Norway on 22 June at 11:30 (CEST), the third day of preliminary round play, will be the first time the two square off on the international stage since the 2015 World Championships bronze-medal game. In that match, Ilia Volkov scored the game-winning goal in overtime to lead Russia to a 2-1 victory and a spot on the podium. It marked the RPC’s second straight bronze medal at a World Championships and solidified that their medal performance at the Sochi 2014 Games was no one-and-done.

RPC roster

Goaltenders
Andrei Kasatkin
Evgenii Plotnikov

Defensemen 
Stanislav Barykin
Aleksei Eremin
Dmitrii Galkin
Ivan Kuznetsov
Mihail Miachin
Ilia Volkov

Forwards
Airat Khamzin
Dmiitrii Lisov
Igo Maletskiy
Evgenii Petrov
Ilia Popov
Vladimir Rychkov
Konstantin Shikhov
Andrey Sokolov
Nikolai Terentev