Konstyantyn Shevchenko

[der meister 3,197]

Kostyantyn Shevchenko was born in Rokhmaniv, Ukraine, a small village in the western part of the country, in Ternopil Oblast. It's a tiny town of fewer than 1,000 citizens, and a town where Shevchenko always stood out. Standing almost exactly 2 meters in height and weighing in at 97 kilos, Shevchenko was always highly athletic and physically capable. It was as a young child on a field trip to Kremenets, the nearest city of comparatively substantial size, where Shevchenko first witnessed hockey, though in this case it was a group of slightly older boys playing a variation of street hockey. Shevchenko slipped away from his group to join the boys, who provided him with a battered old stick. The young Kostyantyn, despite not understanding the rules, proved to be a fast study and dominated the impromptu game, using his size and strength to gain control of the ratty ball they used as a puck.

Several years passed before Shevchenko had another opportunity to grab a stick, though this time it was on ice, skating on a lake west of Rokhmaniv. Although only a passable skater, his size led to a traveling scout who happened to be in the area, Volodymyr Andrichuk, to ask the young Shevchenko if he had ever played hockey before. Shevchenko told of the trip to Kremenets, and the scout gave him a stick and a handful of pucks to "show what he's got." The scout appeared impressed and asked the youth his age. When Kostyantyn revealed he had just turned 12, the scout's eyes went wide, as even at that age, Shevchenko was over 1.7m tall. Due to his rapid growth, most of his clothing was too small, so his musculature was plainly evident as well.

Within a month, the 12-year-old Shevchenko was offered an opportunity to relocate to Kalush, nearly 4 hours southwest of Rokhmaniv, to play for the Legion Kalush youth team. After a series of discussions with his parents, Kostyantyn finally accepted the offer, conditional on being provided an apartment in Kalush for himself and his mother.

Playing for the 16u Legion Kalush squad, Kostyantyn Shevchenko registered 13 goals and 4 assists in his first 9 games, mostly as a power play specialist. Within a month, he was being recruited by several different teams in Slovenia, Poland, and Belarus. His loyalty remained with Legion Kalush, however, and his skills grew rapidly. While Legion u16 did not win their league championship, the now 13-year-old Shevchenko was clearly the star of the team and often drew double-coverage. Learning to play through adversity of that nature proved to be an extraordinary development tool, and in 36 games the following season, Kostyantyn set a league record with 103 goals and added 35 assists, en route to a team mark of 34-1-1.

Not everything was positive for the young Shevchenko, however. Rumors swirled that the Russian Federation was planning an invasion, likely launched from the illegally-annexed Crimea region of Ukraine. While Crimea is nearly all the way across the country from Kalush, Shevchenko could sense the anxiety from both his coaches and his mother. On one particular weekend, Shevchenko overheard his parents speaking from the living room in their apartment, and heard his father, not yet 40, express concern that he may be conscripted to fight against the Russians should a full-scale invasion take place. Secretly, Kostyantyn wondered if he should use his ice hockey talents to get himself and his family across the border into Poland or Slovenia, having fully discounted Belarus as an option due to their political closeness with Russia.

Before he had the opportunity to broach the subject with his mother, a representative of a team located in Vienna, Austria, reached out to the coaching staff of Legion Kalush. To this day, Kostyantyn is unaware of all of the details of that conversation, but what it led to was his head coach, Roman Levchuk, encouraging his family to sell their home in Rokhmaniv and move to Vienna. Levchuk had negotiated on behalf of his star player, concerned that Russian grandstanding could lead to outright violence and war. Levchuk had arranged, if the Shevchenko family accepted the offer, for Kostyantyn to play for the 15u UPS Vienna Caps, and between UPS Vienna and Legion Kalush, would provide the family with the funds necessary to relocate and secure housing.

 

 

 

Fast-forwarding a few years, Shevchenko has become a promising blue chip prospect in the International Central European Hockey League, or ICE Hockey League, playing for the Vienna Capitals. The league consists of 8 teams in Austria, 3 in Italy, 1 in Hungary, and 1 in Slovenia, and while Vienna hasn't won the league championship since 2017, before Shevchenko joined them, he has proven to be a stalwart left winger who projects as a top line scorer at the highest levels.

With the VHLM Entry Draft on the horizon, Kostyantyn Shevchenko has declared himself eligible, despite the fact that he would be once again asked to uproot his life, this time to move to North America to play for one of the 10 teams that make up that league. As for his parents, they have grown accustomed to life in Austria, and as Russian aggression did indeed escalate into war, they began working to secure evacuation for fellow Ukrainian civilians, having started a foundation within Austria to aid refugees. Kostyantyn's biggest reason for declaring for the VHLM Entry Draft is one he has kept secret from his parents: he wishes to provide them with the money they need to continue their foundation and grow it as much as possible. 

Edited April 15 by der meister