MOSCOW, July 1 Oleg Znarok appointed head coach of Ak Bars «, according to the website of the Kazan hockey club.
The contract with the coach is for one year. Znarok's assistants at Ak Bars will be Yuri Babenko and Alexander Boykov, Alexander Agopeev will continue to work as a goalkeeping coach, and Denis Korotyshev joined the headquarters as a physical training coach. Znarok replaced Dmitry Kvartalnov, whose contract was not renewed at the end of last season .Znarka's last club was Spartak Moscow, which he led from 2019 to 2021. Then the 59-year-old specialist became a coach-consultant of the Russian youth team.
Under the leadership of Znark, the Russian national ice hockey team became the 2014 world champion and won gold medals at the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang. He is also a three-time winner of the Gagarin Cup — with Dynamo Moscow (2012, 2013) and SKA St. Petersburg (2017).
Ak Bars in the 2021/22 season took fourth place in the KHL Eastern Conference table. In the first round of the playoffs, the team lost to Avangard Omsk with a score of 2-4 in the series.