Avangard Hockey Academy
Avangard Hockey Academy
November 7, 2019 is a significant day in the history of Omsk sports: the central complex of the Avangard Hockey Academy was opened. Today experts already call it unique and one of the best in Europe, and the President of the FHR Vladislav Tretyak friendly envies the conditions created for the education of young athletes. In addition, the new arena turned out to bring good luck - the first games of Avangard -2009 and Omsk Yastreby ended with confident wins.
About the project
Avangard Hockey Academy is an interregional social project of the Gazprom group of companies and Avangard hockey club aimed at building a qualitatively new modern system of training for young hockey players. The Academy will be the first stage of the Academy – JHL – MHL – VHL – KHL – national team pyramid.
The starting point of the story behind the Academy was October 2012 when Alexey Miller, Chairman of Gazprom Management Committee, initiated the launch of a large-scale program for supporting kids and youth hockey. The project is being implemented on the basis of one of the leading Russian hockey clubs - Avangard Omsk. The club has all the required infrastructure for training future hockey players, including its own kids and youth sports school.
The Academy will become a training center for hockey talents throughout Siberia and the Urals. A campus for out-of-town students will be built in Omsk as well as the central complex of the Academy, the branches of which are created in different regions where Gazprom Group enterprises operate.
Aims and goals
The Avangard Hockey Academy project is the creation of an interregional training system for kids and youth that has have no rival in Russia. The solution to this large-scale and complex task involves the development of sports infrastructure, also covering territories still unmarked on the hockey map of the country. Thus, new hockey development centers will appear, and the availability of this sport will be increased by the back yard – type infrastructure, system of supporting talented children from low-income and disadvantaged families, and scouting system.
In addition, the project of the Academy will allow to make up professional and competent coaching staff operating in youth hockey on the basis of modern training methods.
A multi-level competition system on regional and interregional levels will be an important element of training young hockey players. The creation of this system is also a large-scale task, which is to be solved within the framework of the Avangard Hockey Academy program.
Structure of Avangard Hockey Academy
The project of the Academy is being implemented on the basis of the leading Russian hockey club – Avangard Omsk. The Central Complex of the Academy is located in Omsk being home to the Ice Palace with two arenas and a campus for out-of-town Academy students.
The 1000-seat Ice Palace has two arenas – the main arena designed under the standards of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) and the practice arena, a medical center, two sport halls and a gym, press-center. There is a connecting passage from the Palace to the campus accommodating 150 out-of-town students, coaches, teachers, which also has classrooms, a recreational facility, and a canteen. The project of the Central Complex of the Academy is approved in full compliance with the requirements of Avangard Hockey Club.
In the coming years the structure of the Academy will also include the existing branches of Avangard sports school in 10 districts of Omsk Region, as well as branches in the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district. The first branch of the Academy was established in Tarko-Sale (Yamal-Nenets autonomous district) in December 2013 on the basis of a sports complex with an ice arena built by Gazprom Neft.
In December 2015, a new branch of the Academy was established in Noyabrsk.
On 13 March 2018, the official opening ceremony of the ice palace built by Gazprom Neft within the framework of Home Towns social investment program took place in Muravlenko city (Yamal-Nenets autonomous district). The event was attended by Alexander Dyukov (Chairman of the Management Board of Gazprom Neft) and Dmitri Kobylkin (Governor of the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district).
The sports complex with Olympic-size arena will become a base for Avangard Hockey Academy branch and will allow conducting year-round practices in hockey, figure skating and short track. In addition to the 400-seat ice rink, a two-level building with a total area of almost 6 thousand square meters, also houses a gym and a choreography class.
Another important element of the Academy infrastructure project is the construction of yard hockey grounds under the Gazprom for Children program. Currently, more than ten such grounds have already been built in Omsk and Omsk region, and the implementation of the program continues.
Development geography
Avangard Hockey Academy is a unique inter-regional project for Russia, covering a vast territory of the country from the Urals to Siberia. In the Academy key regions - Omsk Region and Yamal-Nenets autonomous district - a branch network is formed with the entire infrastructure required for training young athletes.
It is planned that the project scope will include other regions where Gazprom Group enterprises operate – Orenburg Region, Tyumen Region, Tomsk Region, and Krasnoyarsk Territory, where young talents will also be searched for.
In April 2019, the club launched the Academy franchise development program.
The first franchisee opened is based in Moscow, in Yuzhnoye Butovo district.
