Photo: sports.ru
On June 1st, Washington Capitals rookie forward Evgeny Kuznetsov traveled to the city of Kopeysk, located in the region of Chelyabinsk, to play a friendly. Every Children’s Day, Kopeysk hosts a charity soccer game. This year’s pitted hockey players against the city’s district administration.
Kuznetsov, joined by KHL players Georgy Gelashvili, Danis Zaripov, Anton Burdasov, defeated the city officials, but it took an extraordinary effort by the Caps young gun.
(Yes, we’re writing seriously about a soccer game right now. Summer can’t end soon enough.)
With the hockey players down 6-5, Kuznetsov dribbled the ball down the field and scored on booming shot from a bad angle.

Look at that two-sport superstar right there.
In the shootout, Kuznetsov switched positions and played goalie. The hockey players won 7-3.
“Coming back to Chelyabinsk was a secret, so no fans met me at the airport,” Kuznetsov explained to kopeysk-okrug.ru and translated by Fedor Fedin. “So it’s very pleasant to be met that well in Kopeysk. It’s the third year we play soccer at Khimik stadium. And the changes are easy to notice. I liked the new soccer field. It’s good to see Kopeysk developing, new sports venues getting built. I liked everything. I’ll sure come next year to congratulate the kids!”
Photos
Photos via SMI Kopeysk’s Google Plus page. See the full gallery here.
Video
Additional reporting by Fedor Fedin.







