Ukraine's hockey Juniors fly home... finally (01/14/96)

Ukraine's hockey Juniors fly home... finally

by Yarema A. Bachynsky

NEW YORK - As if lacerated spleens, missed rendezvous and fierce relentless competition were not enough, the weather gods deemed it' proper to curse Ukraine's Junior Hockey Team with another small inconvenience, namely, three feet of snow and a three day- delay in their departure for Kyiv and home.

The Juniors, having completed their tournament schedule, were packed aboard a bus on Saturday, January 6, to make their way from Boston to John F. Kennedy International Airport on the outskirts of New York City. A squad described by their traveling physician as both physically and mentally drained arrived at the airport in the wee morning hours of Sunday, January 7, hoping to see the city's sights-for at least a' short time prior to their flight on Lot Polish Airlines, scheduled for 6:45 that evening. It was not to be.

The blizzard which deposited up to three feet of snow in the space of two days over the New York metropolitan area resulted in closure of all three city airports. Snowdrifts of 20 feet were reported at JFK, which closed early Sunday afternoon. When the Juniors heard the bad news that their flight had been canceled, some hoped to take a trip into Manhattan, perhaps see the Statue of Liberty (which at that time was still closed due to the partial federal government shutdown, something which, when explained to the athletes, left them befuddled). Others, completely drained from the trip's tribulations, became more anxious about just getting home.

The fact that the Lot Airlines check in area at the American Airlines terminal was empty of Lot representatives' until late afternoon that day, sowing further uncertainty in the team's midst, reflected poorly on an airline that has recently become a popular carrier to Ukraine.

As the day wore on with no information available from Lot about alternate flight arrangements, the only bits of good news were the delivery of food and good cheer by Basil Tarasko, coach of Ukraine's national baseball team, courtesy of the East Village and Kurowycky meat markets; and the arrival on the scene of Yevhen Komiychuk from the Ukrainian Consulate, who managed to arrange a bus transfer to Newark International Airport, where the Lot plane on which the team was to fly home had been rerouted.

Consul Korniychuk also checked up on defenseman Oleksander Mukhanov, who had spent several days in a Boston area hospital after taking a hard check during a game and suffering a lacerated spleen. Although nursing his injury, Mr. Mukhanov was in good spirits.

Sunday evening, with the snow coming down with a ferocity last observed, according to meteorologists, in 1888, the Juniors were moved, along with the hundreds of other passengers stranded in the American Airlines terminal, to a secure gate area, where they were to spend one night, prior to their transfer to Newark International. At this point, the local security personnel, barred the team passage through the security checkpoint. Only after special intervention by American Airlines officials and Consul Korniychuk was the problem resolved satisfactorily.

All through Monday, January 8, the Juniors waited at JFK. Naturally, the bus transfer did not take place as scheduled and the team wound up spending another night sleeping, literally on their hockey bags and in the gate area seats. The seemingly endless wait unnerved some on the support staff and at one point, the team was booked on a Miami-Warsaw flight by a travel agent friend-of-a-friend whom the staff had contacted.

Finally, on Tuesday afternoon, January 9, Andrew Lastowecky from the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council informed this writer that the Juniors were on their way to Newark International Airport and had been properly re-booked on a Lot flight the following evening, with connections from Warsaw to Kyiv on Thursday, January 11.

As fate would have it, Newark International opened up on January 9 and, owing to many empty spaces on the evening Lot flight, all but three of Ukraine's Juniors and their coaching and support staff were packed off and sent on their way one day "early." The three unfortunates, among them star goalie Ihor Karpenko, had stopped off in Brooklyn to visit some acquaintances and now must make their own way home.

The Ukrainian Juniors unexpectedly lengthened stay in the New York metropolitan area (perhaps, more accurately, their extensive familiarization with two area airports) highlights the recurring problem of cooperation between official Ukrainian structures and the diaspora. In this case, other than a few words dropped to Coach Tarasko several months ago about the upcoming trip, the Ukrainian hockey authorities made no formal request for assistance from the diaspora, to their athlete's serious detriment.

Coach Tarasko had even made preliminary arrangements for a series of exhibition games to be held at West Point (United States Military Academy) and metropolitan area schools. Unfortunately nothing could come of this without reciprocity, which was sorely lacking.

Community organizations, among them the Ukrainian Sports Federation of the United States and Canada (USCAK) and the Ukrainian Sports Club of New York (USK) and the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council lent a helping hand financially and in ensuring that the Juniors would be met at their departure point. However, all this was done on a last-minute ad-hoc basis, with virtually no prior notice of the Junior's arrival.

The January 3 Middlesex News, a Boston-area newspaper, carried a story about the Juniors and their non-attendance at a party thrown for them by local Ukrainian community members. The writer, Sara Hammel, ascribed the no-show to possible language difficulties, politics and/or "a clash of cultures." Yet from this writer's conversations with the Juniors and their coaches, it became apparent that language could not have been the problem, as most members of the team and their accompanying staff speak more than enough Ukrainian to communicate with the Rondiak family and other Ukrainian Americans in the Boston area.

What then exactly happened that prevented the Ukrainian communities of Boston and New York from ensuring that Ukraine's Junior hockey talent were properly taken care of?

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