Sports Career
My name is Ilya Apasov. I am 30 years old, originally from St. Petersburg. As a child, I was very active and lively. I climbed everywhere, on walls and cabinets, and jumped down from them. It wasn’t very safe. My parents decided to channel my energy into something useful and took me to acrobatics classes. I was maybe four or five years old at the time. I am very grateful to my parents for introducing me to sports and physical activity – acrobatics was a good foundation for other sports, and it was my first sports hobby. As a child, I tried all kinds of sports – football and other ball games, skiing, martial arts, and more.
We moved to Finland in 2004 when I was about nine years old. We ended up in Kalajoki, Northern Ostrobothnia, because we had family ties there. A classmate invited me to watch a local team’s ice hockey game. I saw the ice hockey goalie in full gear, and it struck me like a bolt of lightning. I knew I wanted to be an ice hockey goalie. Starting ice hockey at nine years old might be a bit late, and my parents thought so too, but it didn’t stop me.
I joined the ice hockey team and started training. The other sports I practiced supported my ice hockey skills. In ice hockey, even if you want to be a goalie, you have to train as a field player first. I also practiced martial arts to improve my checking skills and deficiencies in one-on-one battles.
As I developed in ice hockey, we moved to Helsinki for sporting reasons. As a young player, I also attended goalie camps in St. Petersburg and Moscow and traveled around Europe and North America because of ice hockey. Perhaps the best achievement of my junior years was winning bronze in the U20 Mestis league. After the army, I went to try my luck in North America and Europe, and through that, I secured a professional contract in France.
But my actual sports career ended soon after. Early in the season, I suffered a severe hip injury. I didn’t recover properly, and my contract was terminated after a few months. It was a tough time for me. My dream had been to become a top goalie, and when that couldn’t be realized, I had to change my plans. I decided to become an ice hockey coach because I felt I had a lot to offer to young ice hockey players. Partly, I was inspired by the fact that during my junior years, goalkeeper coaching wasn’t necessarily as high-quality or knowledgeable as it is today, especially in the Helsinki metropolitan area. Nowadays, I am the goalie coaching coordinator at Kiekko-Tiikerit Helsinki in Salmisaari ice hall. I am responsible for the club’s goalie coaching for age groups from U7 to U15. I create season plans, and actively work on the ice weekly. Moreover, I lead off-ice training, and organize and develop camps for goalies.
What is the significance of sports in your life? What experiences have you had in the sports world in your home country and in Finland?
Sports is a huge part of my identity and life. It’s not just a hobby or a job, but a way of life. It has had and still has a very significant impact on my life. Through sports, I have learned discipline, goal setting, and perseverance. It has also helped me meet people, create extensive networks, and form friendships. I have learned these skills in sports even more than in school.
The ice rink has always felt like a second home to me. It is a place where I can express myself, find a community, and feel like I belong to somewhere. Ice hockey and sports in general have given me a clear direction and the opportunity to grow both as a person and as an athlete.
The biggest difference between the sports cultures of Finland and Russia is the mindset. In Finland, the emphasis is on overall well-being, while in Russia, the most important thing is fierce competition and winning at all costs. That is the most striking difference to me.
As a Russian, I have sometimes faced suspicions in Finland, which is understandable. There have been positive and negative experiences; sometimes I haven’t been treated fairly or have been sidelined from the team. But I don’t want to complain. I think these things are always individual – throughout my career, I have also encountered many good people, about whom I have nothing bad to say.
How would you like to make sports better and more equal? What challenges do you currently face, and what challenges do you see in the future?
I feel that I am still in the early stages of my career; I am quite a new face in the coaching circles. But I have already had the opportunity to develop and lead goalie coaching at Kiekko-Tiikerit Helsinki. I have built a clear coaching model for the club and tried to bring new perspectives and practices to coaching. It has been a very educational and valuable experience for me. The club has juniors from very diverse backgrounds; it is a multicultural environment. On the ice, we speak Finnish, English, Russian. Through this, I have become a better coach – by learning about the backgrounds of young players, I have found ways to motivate them and create common goals with them.
I haven’t thought very far about my coaching career and goals yet, but everyone always wants to move forward in their career to the best possible environments. I am very competitive, and I want to do my job in the best possible way, and then we’ll see where it leads. This also applies to equality issues. I can’t change the entire sports world, but I can do my part as well as possible. I want players to be able to operate with their strengths and be valued for who they are. In an ideal situation, sports would be free from politics and focus purely on what it is really about – sports, community, and growth.
It is also important to me that everyone can participate in sports regardless of their background and financial situation, so that it is not dependent on wealth. When I was a child in St. Petersburg, playing ice hockey was practically impossible for me – it was so expensive, and the ice rinks were so far away. The ice rinks were located 30 kilometers from the center of St. Petersburg, which is a completely different distance than what 30 kilometers is in Helsinki. When we moved to Kalajoki, starting ice hockey was very easy. The ice rink was nearby, equipment was available – they weren’t necessarily of the best quality, but at least you could use them.
In Russia, ice hockey has always been an expensive sport, but also in Finland, its costs have risen recently. Goalie equipment is particularly expensive, and sometimes parents hope that their child chooses a different position than goalie due to the cost of the equipment. But in society, everything is getting more expensive, and there’s no way around it. In that sense, ice hockey is no exception. Surely those making decisions are trying their best to solve the problems – even the Finnish Ice Hockey Association may not be able to do anything about it. Nowadays, there are also more and more companies offering expensive private coaching for juniors. On one hand, they raise prices, which is bad for the sport, but at the same time, they are necessary for the development of the sport. Private coaching is already a huge business in North America.
But one of the biggest challenges affecting everyone is the decrease in physical activity among children and young people. Quick dopamine, constant screen time, and electric vehicles have negatively impacted the development of children’s basic skills and physical activity levels. This is visible on the ice as physical challenges and lack of motivation. In the future, it is important to find ways to get children and young people to move more and be motivated for long-term training. This requires a new approach from both coaches and parents and an understanding of how today’s young people are motivated and committed to sports.
This ice hockey goalie helmet, made by the Finnish company Wall Mask, is designed by Ilya Apasov himself. Apasov wanted the helmet to reflect his dual identity between Finland and Russia. The helmet has been in use since 2008 to this day, as evidenced by the puck marks on the chin of the mask.