The Khanty-Mansiysk Ugra team includes both young and promising hockey players and experienced professionals. Among the latter is Anton Kuryanov, who during his long career managed to prove himself in all its glory on the ice of the KHL.
Road to the KHL
Kuryanov Anton Alekseevich was born on March 11, 1983 in the Kazakh city of Ust-Kamenogorsk. At an early age he began to play hockey at the Torpedo sports school, and in 1995, together with a group of young hockey players and his coach Sergei Gersonsky, he moved to Omsk. Since 1998, the Russian began to play in the Youth Hockey League as part of the Omsk Hawks. However, the forward did not manage to get into the Avangard main team immediately and in 2001 he moved to Mostovik on loan, having played one season at the Kurgan club.
Returning to Omsk a year later, Kuryanov played another season for the second squad of “Vanguard” and was brought to participate in 3 base games under his curtain of the season. But he failed to convince the coaching staff of the “hawks” and moved on to Siberia for a year. In the new club, Anton received playing time, but not enough enough to prove himself. As a result, for 26 meetings, the striker had only 5 points.
10 years in the "Vanguard"
Nevertheless, a year in Novosibirsk allowed him to reconsider his decision on the player from the “Vanguard”, and the next season, Anton Kuryanov, a hockey player brought up in the youth team of the Omsk club, spent as part of Omsk. The debut championship in the “hawks” turned out to be quite productive for the Russians - for 50 matches in the framework of the regular championship Anton was able to score 13 points and brought “Vanguard” to the playoffs.
A year later, the striker did not lower the bar, having played all the same 50 meetings, but having doubled the number of points scored. At the same time, he won the title of champion of Russia. Due to national success, “Vanguard” took part in the European Cup, where one of the goals was abandoned by Kuryanov and helped Omsk win the prestigious trophy. The player’s desire for development didn’t die out after international success - already in the 2006/07 season the striker reached a performance mark of 46 points, after which the player began to go out a little less often due to minor minor injuries on the ice.
Despite this, Kuryanov showed a consistently high ability to score, and in the championship 2011/12, when the Russian championship was reorganized into the Continental Hockey League, he became one of the key players in winning the “Vanguard” League title and holder of the Continent Cup. In the next two seasons, a series of injuries knocked out the hockey player from the rhythm of the game, and he began to lose ground in the team.
Return to Omsk
In 2013, having lost the title of the key player of “Vanguard”, the hockey player spent the beginning of the season as part of “Tractor”. In Chelyabinsk Kuryanov Anton did not manage to play - for 12 matches he was able to score only one successful pass. But the Omsk club, remembering the player’s past merits, agreed to bring him back. Returning to the “hawks”, the Russian did not have much playing time, but appeared on the ice regularly.
As a result, in Omsk, the hockey player spent three more successful seasons, which ended for the team without trophies, but the attacker himself received two pleasant gifts during the performance for Omsk. In June 2012, the wife of Anton Kuryanov, Eugene, gave birth to her husband a son, who was named Artyom, and two years later, in May 2014, the couple also had a daughter - Sophia.
Going to Ugra
After the end of the 2015/16 season, Kuryanov’s agreement with Avangard ended, and the hockey player, having received an offer from Ugra, quickly agreed. The experienced striker entered the club from Khanty-Mansiysk quite successfully - according to the results of the first 46 meetings, the player’s account has 13 points.
However, in general, the team is not so successful - at the end of the championship “Ugra” takes only the penultimate place in the Eastern Conference and has long lost its chance of a place in the playoffs. Nevertheless, for the next season, the coaching staff plans to retain an experienced hockey player.
The game in the Russian team
Since 2004, Anton Kuryanov was regularly called up for the training of the national team. The debut in the Russian national team for a talented striker took place at the Rosno Cup, which the Russians confidently won, a year later securing success. From 2006 to 2008, the hockey player’s piggy bank went the winner of several Euro Tours, as well as the Channel One Cup. And in 2009, Kuryanov was included in the composition for the World Cup in Switzerland.
Already in his first match at the world championship, Anton was able to distinguish himself with an abandoned goal - in a meeting against Germany, the hockey player scored one of the team's 5 goals. In the next round, the Russian was able to consolidate the successful performance by making an assist to Perezhogin in the game with France. As a result, the Russian team left the qualification group from first place, being the main contender for the “gold”.
At the group stage, Anton Kuryanov added two more programs to his asset. The attacker went out on the ice and in all the games "on the fly." Although he did not manage to be noted for effective actions, he helped the national team in a bitter struggle to win gold medals and become the world champion. After the triumph in Switzerland, Kuryanov was involved in the games of the national team for another three years, but he performed only as part of the hockey Euro Tour.