Penza, 8 September 2015. PenzaNews. Achieving the Supreme Hockey League play-offs is the main mission of the Penza hockey club “Diesel,” announced the team’s head coach Andrei Nikishov during the press conference on the beginning of the championship that took place on Tuesday, September 8, at the sports and entertainment complex “Diesel-Arena.”

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Nevertheless, the players will seek victory in every match, he added.

“Here and now is the most important. Victory is the main task for every match. As many points as possible in every game. Then we will be able to achieve the main mission,” Andrei Nikishov said.

The team coach expressed his belief that if the “Diesel” players will be performing “with hearts ablaze, the reward will come.”

“The team is still adjusting to each other – it may take years, but we have some forward motion. All of them are good, the team is forming, getting acquainted, no egotists here. The guys will feel the team and each other’s support in the first matches,” he stressed.

Moreover, “Diesel” will be looking for extra-budget funding, Andrei Nikishov added.

“There are various options in the sports business that we will try. Advertising, for example, or merchandise. I did that. Attracting money is really tough. In Russia, hockey is not a business but a social project that receives state funding,” the Penza team head coach pointed out.

Discussing the upcoming match with “Izhstal,” Andrei Nikishov refrained from making any forecasts and suggested that each team has equal chances to win.

“We did not see ‘Izhstal’ before the season. It will not be easy, of course,” he said.

He also announced that the coaching team named Alexei Kosoburov the captain for the upcoming match, with Alexander Gromov and Andrei Kuzmin as his assistants.

At the end of the press conference, “Diesel” players showed the journalists their new uniform that still follows their traditional colors, yellow and blue.