Scrolling Specialist
The departure of Andrey Tochitsky from the post of the President of the Leningrad Region Hockey Federation made people in the thread recall his controversial biography: here is the “recommended” arrival in St. Petersburg, strange transfers to SKA, the promotion of his son to this team, incomprehensible decisions regarding the “Night League” in the 47th region, as well as the collection of 1.5 million rubles from the federation through the court, which disappeared somewhere.
Andrey Tochitsky headed the Leningrad Region Hockey Federation for 12 years, but in September he decided to leave. He was replaced by a former SKA defenseman Valery Pokrovsky. However, Tochitsky has enough to do anyway – at the end of last year he became Vice President of KHL for Sports Operations. The main thing is that since the founding of the KHL, Andrei Tochitsky worked in SKA as a general manager, executive, sports, managing and general director. Wow – “aka Yura, aka Zhora, aka Goga.”
With a recommendation from Sushinsky
Andrei Tochitsky is a real, hardened functionary. He joined SKA in 2007 (or December 2006). This coincided with the arrival of Gazprom structures to the club. The army men, then, however, and as throughout their history since 1949, were dragging out a miserable existence, still tied to the Leningrad Military District. The best hockey players inevitably left. Moreover, in market times it was difficult to retain an athlete with officer’s shoulder straps. Thus, SKA’s main star left Maxim Sushinskybut when Gazprom appeared in St. Petersburg, it was he who recommended Andrei Tochitsky to his native club. The fact is that Sushinsky played for Omsk Avangard, and the Siberian club was also sponsored by gas structures. Tochitsky was engaged in agent affairs. Did he manage Sushinsky as a client? There is no such open data, but such cooperation was often not formalized in documents at that time. Tochitsky’s position in SKA was called in many ways, but, generally speaking, he was engaged in transfers, establishing cooperation with teams in the lower leagues, using them as farm clubs, conducting operations during hockey transfer windows, of which there are four in the KHL.
Gazprom came to SKA and Zenit in the fall of 2006. It is easy to compare the results. The hockey players won their first trophy, the Gagarin Cup, only in 2015, while the football players immediately became the first in 2007. In total, during this period, SKA took two Gagarin Cups and won one regular championship. And Zenit – 10 gold medals, 4 Russian Cups, and “small things” – the UEFA Cup and the European Super Cup. All this time until the end of 2023, Andrei Tochitsky was in one role or another as a manager at SKA HC. This does not mean that he is to blame for the “successes” of the army men with a huge budget, it is just a statement of fact.
Yes, the selection work of SKA managers has long been the subject of irony in hockey circles. In the 2015-2017 seasons, SKA constantly tried out a forward Nikita Tochitsky – Andrey Valerianovich’s son. With the star-studded army team, this looked strange, even funny. Later, Tochitsky Jr. settled in HC Sochi, which many call SKA’s farm. And Tochitsky was definitely responsible for these connections with Sochi.
But such open lobbying by a relative did not shake the position of Tochitsky Sr. Although in his time, such legends of the club as Alexey Kasatonov and Alexey Gusarov, Olympic champions, by the way, were thrown out of SKA’s top management with a bang. It is curious that Tochitsky’s departure occurred a week after returns for the post of SKA President Alexandra Medvedevawho was already the head of the red-blues in 2007-2011 (chairman of the board of directors). It is curious, because it was Medvedev (*criminal) who hired Tochitsky then. The circle is closed.
Regional hockey is not the same anymore
Now about Andrey Tochitsky’s public activities in the Leningrad Region. He headed the local hockey federation (FHLO) for 12 years, and without re-elections, which should happen every four years. In the region, they say one good thing about him, and three – not so good. The good thing is that during his work in the region, he managed to attract investors for the construction of six indoor ice rinks. That is, the “glades” were not even built at government expense. This is not cheap – a “box” with a roof can now cost up to twenty million rubles. Hockey under a roof is an expensive pleasure.
The first stone in the garden – according to some members of the HFLO, who do not want to introduce themselves, Tochitsky “spoiled” regional amateur hockey in the “Night League” because he made it… professional. He introduced the “Flagman” team, which is made up of former professional hockey players, into the composition of the participants. And supposedly now it is not interesting for ordinary workers to play with it after their work, they will still bring it out that “it violates the spirit of socialist competition”, as they would have said half a century ago.
This may be so, but there is a nuance – Telegram users mention that the organization of games in the “Night Hockey League” (NHL) was taken up by Tochitsky with the assistance of Yaroslav Malkov.
Previously, he developed the NHL in St. Petersburg. We will not confirm anything, but in certain circles they say that he had to move from the city to the region after a number of unpleasant stories related to finances.
The second point of criticism is the ban, starting in the 2018-2019 season, on teams playing in the Leningrad Region championship from entering the stronger St. Petersburg championship out of competition.
Allegedly, Tochitsky thus cut off children’s and youth hockey in the region – but only experts can figure this out. Thus, a member of the presidium of the Leningrad Region Hockey Federation Denis Zakharov on this matter he succinctly noted:
Much more interesting is the third circumstance, which is now being widely discussed on Telegram channels: “The Federation did not publish financial activity reports, there was no payroll fund or audit committee for spending funds, and there is no Federation office at the registered address in the city of Vsevolozhsk. It was recently revealed that the FHLO acted as a guarantor for the activities of the Technical Sports Federation of the Gatchina District and a court decision was made to collect 1.5 million rubles from it. How many more financial episodes there were under Tochitsky, given the complete lack of control and reporting in the organization – one can only guess“.
Of course, information from anonymous sources should be treated critically, anyone can write whatever they want there. The correspondent of “Nasha Versiya” went to check – it was not possible to find documentation on the finances of the FHLO work on the official website of the federation. But it was possible to find it on the official website of the Committee on Physical Culture of the Leningrad Region Government, but it was “buried” deep.
Now we will take a closer look at the activities of Andrei Tochitsky at the level of the entire KHL.
It is interesting that the former head of the St. Petersburg Hockey Federation also got into certain “sweaty stories” at one time. Alexander Evstrakhinbetter known as the father of showwoman Alla Dovlatova. He had a rich career in the 90s, with prominent connections: head of the mayor’s office secretariat, chairman of the improvement committee, head of the Vasileostrovsky district… In particular, his name was mentioned in the media when the investigation had claims against Promstroibank. But for Evstrakhin, everything ended well.