Mikhail Sergachev: «My son brought a lot of happiness to our family»

Mikhail Sergachev, 2-time NHL Stanley Cup champion visited his native hockey school. He was invited by Forbes-Russia magazine’ YouTube channel.

A small surprise awaited Mikhail in front of the doors of Neftekhimik hockey school’s arena. Igor Viktorovich Larionov, General Director of HC Neftekhimik, presented Mikhail a silver wolf pendant like our team’s pendant for mvp of the game.

Igor Larionov thanked Mikhail Sergachev for his social projects that were implemented last season and discussed plans for cooperation in the future.

– Mikhail, last season the second section of the Neftekhim Arena was always full of fans. Tickets purchased by you were distributed to different categories of fans, and from the first home game of the season, all the fans knew about the Sergachev Section. What was the main reason you come up with this idea?

– First of all, I wanted to help those who love hockey, but do not have the opportunity to visit Neftekhimik games, primarily for financial reasons, and cheer for their favorite team. You know, poor families, large families, people with poor health, and etc. This is how I got this idea and HC Neftekhimik helped to accomplish it. Everything, I believe, turned out great. I am very happy that we did it.

– During each home game, your videos about Sergachev Section and wishes for our team were shown on arena’s videoboard, and the fans greeted it always with applause. Do you have any plans to continue this event?

– Certainly. I want the project to expand in order to help more people come to hockey games. There was a lot of interest in it from fan’s side. People came from the villages near Nizhnekamsk to visited home games as well as children's hockey teams. I am aware that there were plenty of applications. Sometimes we did not have enough time to process these applications.

Sure, I will film videos. I need to do this more often. I admit, sometimes I get so involved in my hockey process that I forget about the next video. We need new interesting topics. For example, last season there were months like - September is month of education, October is Cancer Awareness Month. In a word, for every month we can select the category of the fans who will join our section.

– Today, you and Igor Viktorovich Larionov discussed a gym…

– As a child, when I was part of Neftekhimik Hockey School, there was no gym. I remember that at that time Ak Bars, Nizhny Novgorod and many other clubs had gyms. The guys from these teams were stronger than us at the age of 12-13 because they had gym. We just ran up the stairs. Running all the time is also annoying.

I decided to donate a gym from the Sergachev Section, which will help the guys develop and become stronger. They have some kind of small gym here, but I would like it to be proper one. It is just better if you have enough room for the whole team, for their coach it would be more comfortable to work with these conditions. We want this gym be not only with sports equipment, but also beautiful and comfortable.

– Today is the day of the Russian language, the great Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky made a huge contribution to the development of Russian literature. We want to ask you how is your son Fyodor Mikhailovich doing?

– He lives his best life - sleeps, eats, goes to the toilet, everyone cleans up after him. In other words, he contributes to my life too. My son brought a lot of happiness to our family; even fans constantly write to me that they are happy when they see him, when my wife uploads his pictures. Cool!

– What feelings did you have when you became a father?

– I remember his first sound, you know, from that moment you clearly understand that this is our son, our child. This is an indescribable feeling; I tried to compare it to winning the Stanley Cup or something like that. It is not the same thing. There is an everyday happiness, just looking at him.

– Your Grandpa and Grandma must be happy?

– Sure, they spend all their time with him; there is plenty of love around Fyodor Mikhailovich.

– You live across the ocean; your son was born there. There is no doubts that you will continue to play in the NHL. Nevertheless, the son was given such a native Russian name. What is it for you to be a Russian human being?

– After we named our son Fyodor, it turned out that the Americans cannot pronounce this name. Somehow, I thought maybe we were wrong. On the other hand, I think that it was a right decision. It is very important for me that I am Russian and I want him to remember and know that he is Russian that he is from Russia. It is clear that Fyodor was born there, but he will always remember his roots. I hope that somehow, we will come here and he will play hockey here or tennis. He will constantly visit his grandmothers and know that he is from here, that he is Russian. I have this feeling. It would be great for him to have the same feeling; I want him to grow up here.