The current winner of the Gagarin Cup, the CSKA hockey club, announced the appointment of Ilya Vorobyov to the position of head coach of the team. 49-year-old Vorobyov will lead the “red-blues” starting next season. This was reported by Sport Express with reference to the press service of the army club.
CSKA decided not to renew the 3-year contract with the team’s current head coach Sergei Fedorov, which expires on April 30. In three years under the leadership of Fedorov, the “red-blues” won two Gagarin Cups, and this season they were eliminated in the first round of the tournament, losing in the series to Yaroslavl “Lokomotiv” with a score of 4:1.
“Ilya Petrovich has extensive coaching experience, as evidenced by his successful work in the Russian national and Olympic teams, as well as at the club level in the Kontinental Hockey League championship”– noted in the statement of CSKA.
Previously, Vorobyov headed Metallurg Magnitogorsk, whose head coach he was from 2019 to 2023 and from 2015 to 2017. During this time, under his leadership, the Magnitogorsk club won the Gagarin Cup in the 2015/16 season, and reached the KHL playoff finals in the 2016/17 season. Ilya Vorobyov also won the Gagarin Cup with Metallurg as an assistant to head coach Mike Keenan.
In addition, Vorobiev was the head coach of SKA from St. Petersburg and the Russian national team.
