Brent Clements, Captain of the Canadian Amputee Hockey team.

The Amputee Hockey World Team with the players from Russia, USA, Canada, Finland, Belarus and Estonia played its first ever match in St. Petersburg, Russia, on November 28, 2001.

The amputees played against the able-bodied team "Baltika" and scored 7:6. The victorious Amputee World Team was greeted by Michael S. Klecheski, US Consul General, Vladimir Derbin, Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg, and Michael Brodsky, Member of the City Legislative Assembly. Dr. Mark Pitkin, Director of the IPRLS, initiator of the Amputee Hockey as a sport and organizer of the event, emphasized, that the match has been devoted to the Night of a Thousand Dinners and to the Landmine Victims' Assistance worldwide.

Scott Harrington, Captain of the US Amputee Hockey team.

The audience included 40 amputee patients from the St. Petersburg Albrecht Institute, and about 200 participants of the Sixth Russian National Rehabilitation Congress, November 27-30, St. Petersburg.

Russian Army Veterans, landmine survivors after Afghan and Chechen Wars, were invited by the IPRLS to establish a first ever team "St. Petersburg Elks" in September of 1999. Their performance in Boston, Washington, Helsinki and St. Petersburg ignited the enthusiasm of amputees in many countries, and resulted eventually in a formation of the World Team. The players now consider themselves as active ambassadors for the others in need, and say that the World Team should be seen as a symbol of a coalition against terrorism.

The next day after the match, the players participated at the Adaptive Sports Symposium of the Sixth Russian National Rehabilitation Congress. They discussed a new Paralympic Classification for the Amputee Hockey drafted by Professor Sergey Evseev, Dean of the St. Petersburg Lesgaft Academy of Physical Education.

During the intermission between to periods, Michael Klecheski, US Consul General, presented a laptop computer to Andrey Kazbanov, 10, bilateral above-knee amputee. The boy was enrolled into US-Russian Partnership Program in Prosthetics and Rehabilitation between the IPRLS, Tufts University School of Medicine, and the St. Petersburg Albrecht Institute of Prosthetics. After receiving a stump revision surgery and leg prostheses, Andrey became a first student of a newly established Computer Education Center for Children Amputees. "Computer education is a key element in socio-economical reintegration of amputees and we made it a priority in our US-Russian Partnership Program with IPRLS," said Dr. Konstantin Scherbina, Deputy Director of the St. Petersburg Albrecht Institute of Prosthetics.