Sergi Viter has been the head coach of Ukrainian top club HC Donbass for the past three years.
photo: Romans Koksarovs
At a board meeting the Ice Hockey Federation of Ukraine named Sergi Viter new head coach of the Ukrainian national team. He will continue to coach Ukrainian champion HC Donbass.
Sergi Viter previously assisted then-head coach Andrei Nazarov at the 2014 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group A. Since then the Ukrainian national team moved down to the Division I Group B where it finished in fifth place this year.
The 44-year-old has been working with Ukraine’s top team HC Donbass in the Ukrainian league and partly during the era the team played in the Russian-based Kontinental Hockey League. He started as an assistant coach in 2010 and was promoted to head coach in March 2017. With him as head coach HC Donbass won the last three Ukrainian championships.
Viter was born in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv during Soviet times but spent most of his career as a player in Belarus.
He will double up as club coach and national team coach in the upcoming season and thus participate in several IIHF events. While HC Donbass qualified for the IIHF Continental Cup as Ukrainian champion, the Ukrainian national team will have its first big event in February.
In the Olympic Pre-Qualification Round 3 Group H the Ukrainians will play host Kazakhstan, Poland and a qualifier from a previous round from 6-9 February 2020 in Nur-Sultan. The winner gets a ticket to the Final Olympic Qualification.
At the 2020 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group B, to be held in Katowice from 26 April to 2 May 2020, Ukraine will play against Lithuania, host Poland, Japan, Estonia and Serbia.
Sergi Viter previously assisted then-head coach Andrei Nazarov at the 2014 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group A. Since then the Ukrainian national team moved down to the Division I Group B where it finished in fifth place this year.
The 44-year-old has been working with Ukraine’s top team HC Donbass in the Ukrainian league and partly during the era the team played in the Russian-based Kontinental Hockey League. He started as an assistant coach in 2010 and was promoted to head coach in March 2017. With him as head coach HC Donbass won the last three Ukrainian championships.
Viter was born in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv during Soviet times but spent most of his career as a player in Belarus.
He will double up as club coach and national team coach in the upcoming season and thus participate in several IIHF events. While HC Donbass qualified for the IIHF Continental Cup as Ukrainian champion, the Ukrainian national team will have its first big event in February.
In the Olympic Pre-Qualification Round 3 Group H the Ukrainians will play host Kazakhstan, Poland and a qualifier from a previous round from 6-9 February 2020 in Nur-Sultan. The winner gets a ticket to the Final Olympic Qualification.
At the 2020 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group B, to be held in Katowice from 26 April to 2 May 2020, Ukraine will play against Lithuania, host Poland, Japan, Estonia and Serbia.