17th anniversary of Traktor`s coming back to the Superleague

The Traktor Chelyabinsk left the Russian Superleague after the 1998/1999 season and later played in the Supreme League next 6 seasons.

The coming back to the Superleague began in summer of 2006 when the team was coached by Gennady Tsygurov.

During the season the team showed solid hockey and managed to clinch the playoffs from the first place of the Eastern Zone.

In the first playoff round of the 2006 Traktor defeated the Neftyanik Leninogorsk in 3 games and in the second one the team from Chelyabinsk won all three games against the Khimik and later won over the Dizel in three games as well.

The final game of April 11 against the Krylya Sovetov was more than crucial for the Traktor Chelyabinsk. After the SO losses in first two games in Moscow (1:2 SO and 1:2 SO) Traktor swept their apponent in three games in a row (3:0 and 7:2 in Chelyabinsk and 7:0 in the fifth game in Moscow)

Roster of the team

Goaltenders
Mike Fountain
Mikhail Yemelyanov

Defensemen
Ivan Savin
Alexander Sazonov
Marat Askarov
Sergei Filin
Alexander Dolishnya
Alexei Plotnikov\
Valery Dydykin
Alexei Chikalin
Vladislav Kolesnikov
Andrei Lopatin
Vladimir Gaponov
Alexander Shinin
Ilya Demidov
Artyom Nosov
Dmitry Loptev
Vladimir Malevich

Forwards
Mikhail Sarmatin
Konstantin Kasyanchuk
Dmitry Tsyrul
Konstantin Panov
Igor Kamayev
Vladimir Vorontsov
Yuri Petrov
Alexander Chernikov
Maxim Krivonozhkin
Vyacheslav Fandul
Andrei Popov
Alexei Zavarukhin
Valery Karpov
Oleg Smirnov
Vladimir Krechin
Yevgeny Galkin
Maxim Bets
Maxim Yevseyev
Anatoly Rayenko
Denis Abdullin
Yevgeny Dadonov
Vitaly Bogdashkin
Maxim Chernikov
Matvei Belousov

Head coach
Gennady Tsygurov

Тренеры
Denis Tsygurov
Sergei Khrushchev

CEO of the Traktor Ice Hockey Club
Andrei Balandin