Intersessional Standing Committees Metting

Press release

International Institute for Prosthetic Rehabilitation of Landmine Survivors (IPRLS)

Boston, MA 02111

April 25, 2003

Seven landmine survivor leg amputees, who were the delegates of the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines (ICBL) Intersessional Standing Committees Meeting in Geneva , came from St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 1, 2003 two days before the meeting started.

They rushed to the Skating rink of Vernets to be in time for the Genève-Servette - Rapperswil (Bern). They have been there not as spectators, but rather as participants in a unique demonstration.


After the game: April 1, 2003

For the first time on Swiss ice, an amputee team played regular up-right ice hockey. Hosted by the Genève-Servette and its coach Chris McSorley and manager Anthony Ulrich, the demonstration lasted only 5 minutes, but it grabbed the attention of citizens of Geneva, people with disability, and specialists in prosthetics and rehabilitation. The demonstration has been also seen by diplomats, representatives of the UN, WHO, ICBL, and other international organizations as a live example of successful rehabilitation and socio-economical reintegration of victims of land mines. The players are members of the "St. Petersburg Elks," the first ever Amputee Hockey team, organized in 1999 as a result of a partnership program between the St. Petersburg Albrecht Center for Occupational Expertise, Prosthetics and Rehabilitation, and the International Institute for Prosthetic Rehabilitation of Landmine Survivors (IPRLS), Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA.

Dr. Mark Pitkin, Director of the IPRLS, introduced the players, their head coach, world champion Nikolai Maslov, and Dr. Konstantin Scherbina, Deputy Director of the St. Petersburg Center. Nikolai Knyazev, landmine survivors during Afghan War, delivered his team's motto: "Landmine survivors helping the world." The Russian amputee players along with the teams from Canada, USA and Finland will participate at the First Amputee Hockey World Championship in Lohja/Helsinki, Finland, April 28-30, 2003.

Nikolai Knyazev's presentation to the ICBL Intersessional Standing Committee on Victim Assistance Meeting, February 4, 2003:

Good afternoon.

My name is Nikolai Knyazev. I have come with my hockey teammates from St. Petersburg, Russia.

In 1985, when I served in the Soviet military in Afghanistan, I stepped on a landmine and lost my right leg.

In September of 1999 Alexei Balakhontsev, another Afghan war veteran and landmine survivor, called me and asked if I would be interested in playing ice hockey again. He did not mean sled hockey, but the real one, the ice hockey that I used to play as a boy. It seemed impossible at that moment, not only in Russia, but anywhere in the world.

Now, we in Russia have a National Amputee Hockey Federation. We have initiated amputee hockey in the United States, Canada, Finland, Belarus, and Estonia. Maybe some of you in this hall even saw us playing against the members of the Geneva Hockey Club last Saturday.

Dozens of amputees who now enjoy standing ice hockey in many countries are not victims of land mines. Most of them may not know even that this sport's origin is the U.S.-Russian landmine victim assistance program. And that is okay. We know how this great sport started and we are proud of it. We are landmine survivors, helping the world.

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