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“НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ВЕРЕСЕНЬ 201 2 WWW. UNWLA.ORG 31 Hot Arizona Summers Don’t Scare Off Visitors Students of the Kyiv Hockey Academy with their coaches at the Arcadia Ice Arena in Phoenix, AZ. Even many Arizonans try to make sure they are not here in the summer, but some guests from faraway places found their way here for some amazing a ctivities. While sitting in a M cD o- nald’s Restaurant on Thursday, July 21 st , with the leader of a group of students from Vladivostok, Russia (some of whom I was hosting through People to People International), who d id I see but a group of about fourteen boys who definitely looked Slavic! It was noisy in the room, s o I wasn’t sure of the language but only knew it was Slavic. I rushed over and asked, “Wh ere are you from?” I n nearly fluent English, one of them r e- sponded, “We are all from Kyi v, and most of us are from Kharkhiv.” So they were speaking Ukra i- nian. I asked why they were here in hot Phoenix. They answered that they all play hockey at the ice arena nearby where we were eating. The boys had already been in Phoenix for th ree weeks and were soon going home. Well, I called my husband, who was born in Kharkhiv, and told him about this astonishing discovery. The next day, Friday, he went there to watch them, and I did, too. They pl ayed a fer o- cious game! It turned out that all the boys were in Phoenix for a mo nth - long hockey camp with the world - renowned coach Boris Dorozhenko, who taught them how to “power - play.” He travels to other camps around the world, but lives here. He was a star athlete himself. The boys cam e with their Ukra inian coach, Vadim, from the Kyiv Hockey Academy, where they live all year and o n- ly make visits home on weekends. Many of the boys also spoke English quite well. They looked very healthy and were exceptionally polite. One boy came over to where I was sitting at the resta u- rant with my stunned guest from Vladivostok just to talk some more with me. I was very excited as I called Chrystia Boyko, the President of our local UNWLA branch , and asked her if she thought it was too crazy to try to pu t a greeting luncheon together for the Ukra i- nian boys’ hockey team. She said, “Oh, definitely, we can do it. I’ll notify our women and see what they can bring.” It was decided that we should have the luncheon after church at the Ukrainian Orthodox Church i n Phoenix. We have a Ukra i- nian Cultural Hall where both Orthodox and Catholic Ukrainians get together, or anyone who loves things Ukrainian, but in the summer it is very expensive to cool it. In addition, she said she would send out emails to everyone to c ome to the boys’ last hockey game and wave Ukrainian flags. About 10 Ukrainians came to the game and cheered the boys on. The next day was Sunday , and the lu n- cheon was impressive. A good number of local Ukrainians were there and met fourteen of the
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