There are things that defy analysis, because they are absurd in themselves. Nowadays there are more and more such things in any spheres of activity, and hockey, as a game of national importance and gaze, has long been among the leaders. The absurdity begins imperceptibly, gradually, in order to gain power after some time and march with drums and fanfare.
Of course, Roman Borisovich Rotenberg enters his new position not to thunderous applause. This is a stellar hockey servant, commenting on the appointment and explaining its meaning, with severe directness, looking into the eyes like a man, declares: «It's high time!»
Domestic hockey had to go a long way to celebrate its 75th anniversary with a friendly chorus, singing along, the list of which is too shameful. People do not regret simpler epithets.
40-year-old Roman Rotenberg has long wanted to do something epoch-making. He already had everything, I'm not even talking about money and business positions provided by a powerful clan, I'm talking about the unfortunate hockey that Roman Borisovich came to do good ten years ago. His career began with SKA, and five years later, a smart and restless functionary de facto ruled all Russian, and not only Russian, hockey. It was with his submission and with his active participation that the Red Machine brand found new life. It was he who went on the ice with the players of the Russian national team as a sparring partner. It was he who threatened from St. Petersburg not only the Swede, but the entire hockey world with total domination. It was he who made SKA the base club of the national team with all that it implies. It was he who came up with and implemented the idea of combining the posts of the head coach of SKA and the national team, replacing four mentors during the last Olympic cycle, including the freshly baked 2018 Olympic champion Oleg Znark. It was he who invented for himself the position of «head of staff of the Russian national teams», grew up to the first vice-president of the Russian Hockey Federation with de facto powers of the main person in Russian hockey.
But all this was not enough. He wanted recognition not only at the staff level, but at the level of the direct management of the game. Coaching laurels didn’t give Roman Borisovich peace for a long time, and he didn’t have enough of them. He graduated from the Higher School of Coaches in Omsk, and last season he even replaced on the SKA coaching bridge his last ill protégé, wise with experience of working with youth, Valery Bragin. To many it seemed eccentric, but Rothenberg Jr. thought strategically.
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Photo: Pyotr Kovalev/TASS
With clairvoyance it turned out worse. When the experiments of the indefatigable vice-president finally took on the features of a real failure last fall, the Moscow authorities seized power from the «Petersburg». Roman Rotenberg did not lose a single high position, but he was unobtrusively moved from the helm, including from the management of the Olympic team. It was then that the previous developments came in handy: while remaining the owner of SKA, he, obviously, decided that it would be best to recall his outstanding role from the coaching bridge. Valery Bragin has long been a «lame duck», after the removal from the national team, the resignation from the post of SKA head coach was inevitably to follow, and now, finally, this moment has come.