OREANDA-NEWS. December 24, 2012. Rosneft opened a hockey rink in Moscow on 16 December as part of the first Russian amateur ice hockey championship that began at the beginning of 2012. CSKA hockey players Maxim Kondratiev, Vladimir Zharkov, Ilya Zubov and Alexei Marchenko took part in the opening ceremony. The pro players led a master class for the hockey amateurs, as well as an autograph signing session.

Rosneft will support the opening of a total of 12 hockey rinks in 7 cities across Russia in December 2012. Re-equipped hockey rinks will be opened in the home cities of amateur hockey teams that made it to the semi finals of the Big Game.

Rosneft organised the amateur ice hockey championship as part of its support of sport and a healthy lifestyle. The aim of the campaign is to preserve the great tradition of backyard hockey and generate more interest around one of the most popular sports in Russia. 150 registered teams took to the ice under the watchful eye of professional coaches at open rinks and ice hockey stadiums in the qualifying round of the Big Game. Amateur players aged between 10 and 60 from 8 cities across the country (Moscow, St Petersburg, Samara, Penza, Togliatti, Irkutsk, Barnaul and Voronezh) played in 100 teams that took part in the championship. As a prize, teams that made it into the final will see their “backyard” hockey rinks re-equipped. Six winning teams were awarded Big Game cups and won trips to the 2012 Ice Hockey World Championship. The Big Support fan movement is an important part of the Big Game. Fans who came up with the two most original hockey chants using the words Rosneft and Big Game also went to the Ice Hockey World Championship along with the winning teams.