Tuomas Määttä plans to play in the Russian iceball league next season as well.
Ice ball player Tuomas Määtä will return to Russia next season. Head coach of SKA-Neftjanik Mihail Paskin confirm the matter on the club’s website.
Määtta already represented the Russian iceball club last season.
– The manure has not arrived yet. He will join the team before our second training camp in Irkutsk, Paškin said.
The club’s training camp is scheduled to begin on July 19. SKA-Neftjanik is waiting for Määtti to get stronger at that stage.
Määttä has represented Neftjanik from Khabarovsk already since 2020. He has continued to play in the colors of the Russian club despite the fact that Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022.
Määttä received questionable publicity in March 2022, when he participated in his team’s rally supporting the war in Ukraine. He was involved in the Z formation before his team’s match. The letter Z is known in Russia as a symbol supporting the war.
Määttä, one of the best players in his sport in the world, has been excluded from the Finnish national team. He did not play in the spring-winter World Cup in Sweden. The Ice Hockey Federation ruled that Finns who signed a contract with Russian clubs may not represent the national team.