A Ukrainian girls’ hockey team is in Canada for a few days of peace and hockey in an arena that does not have a missile-sized hole in its roof.

After 56 hours of travel to Calgary, including a 24-hour bus ride from the Ukrainian city of Dnipro to Warsaw, Poland, that required an army escort for a portion of it, the Ukrainian Wings yesterday joined Wickfest, former Canadian hockey star Hayley Wickenheiser’s annual girls’ hockey festival.

The squad of players aged 11 to 13 was drawn from eight different cities in Ukraine, where sports facilities have been damaged or destroyed since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Sport Palace, which was home to multiple hockey teams, in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv is destroyed by Russian airstrikes on Sept. 1.

Photo: AFP

“They all have a personal story of something awful happening,” Wickenheiser said. “We give them a week of peace and joy here, and I hope they can carry that with them.

“We know full well they’re going back to difficult circumstances. It’s tough that way,” she said.

Nine players are from Kharkiv, where pictures show a large hole in the roof of the Saltovskiy Led arena where the girls’ team WHC Panthers once skated.

“It was our home ice arena, and we played all our national team championships in this ice arena,” said Kateryna Seredenko, who oversees the Panthers program and is the Wings general manager.

Ukraine’s Olympic Committee in a Facebook post on Sept. 1 wrote that Kharkiv’s Sport Palace, which was home to multiple hockey teams, was also destroyed in an attack on the city.

Seredenko said the Wings’ arduous journey to Calgary was worth it because it gives the girls hope.

“It’s not a good situation in Ukraine, but when they come here, they can believe that everything will be good, everything will be fine, of course we will win soon and we must play hockey. We can’t stop because we love these girls and we will do everything for them,” she said.

“So many girls on this Ukrainian team are future players of the national team.”

Wickenheiser, a Hockey Hall of Famer, is the assistant general manager of player development for the Toronto Maple Leafs and a doctor who works emergency room shifts in the Toronto area.

The six-time Olympian and four-time gold medalist organized her first Wickfest after the 2010 Winter Games.

She has had teams from India, Mexico and the Czech Republic attend over the past decade and a half, but never a team that ran the Ukrainians’ gauntlet of logistics.

The Canadian Partnership for Women and Children’s Health took on the task of arranging visas and paying for the team’s travel.

“We care about women and children’s health. Sport is such a symbol. When you see a group of girls coming off the ice all sweaty and having worked hard on the ice, it’s a symbol of a healthy girl,” chief executive officer Julia Anderson said.

“That’s a healthy kid that’s able to participate in sport. We really believe if we can get girls there, whether they’re in an active war zone, or here in Canada, those girls will change the world,” she added.

“It’s the first time in Ukrainian history where a girls’ team is coming to Canada to a very good tournament,” Seredenko said.

“They can see how they can play in their future. And they can see how it is to play hockey in Canada,” she added.

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