Humo Tashkent withdraws from the competition next season

19 Apr 2020Davide Tuniz»

Is the resurrection of hockey in Uzbekistan already over?

Last summer the Uzbek Hockey Federation announced the creation from zero of a new team, based in the newly built Humo Ice Dome in the capital Tashkent, taking part immediately in two competitive leagues: the main team in the Russian VHL and the reserve team in the Kazakhstan Premier League. The team was composed almost by Russian players. The only native Uzbek player, forward Zhavokhir Rasulov, played just 10 games without points in VHL. In the reserve team, beside Rasulov (35 games with 2 assists), performed other two Uzbek players, defender Abdumajid Nasirov (54 games, 1 assists) and almost homonymous forward Abdusamat Nosirov (8 games, no points). The club's performance can be rated positive in the debut season: finishing the regular season in seventh place in the strong conference one with a 26-19-9 record, Humo knocked out Toros Neftekamsk (runner-up of Conference 2) in the playoffs first round, in the quarter-finals, cancelled due to Covid-19 outbreak, Humo was down 1-3 in the series against Zvezda Moscow. During the season the club broke the record of attendance of the VHL season three times,

In the Kazakhstan League, the reserve team finished 10th out of 11 teams, missing the postseason, with a poor 14-36-10 record.

In the last days, with a short statement on the official site, the management of the club thanked the fans for the support, announcing the club won't partecipate in VHL and Kazakhstan League next season, citing the "the absence of an unambiguous understanding of the timing of the start of pre-season preparation and the VHL itself, as well as the format in which it will be held" due to the Covid-19 emergency. The club assures that it will only be a "short break" and the project of Humo "will definitely be continued"