Underage girl banned to play ice hockey in Belarus ends up in Czech Republic

Хакеістку Кацю, якой забаранілі гуляць у хакей, запрасілі ў Чэхію

Belarusian officials banned Zhlobin girl Katsya Nikitsina from playing hockey out of lack of prospects: there is no women's hockey team in Belarus, and there is unlikely to be one. For  almost four years now Katsya Nikitsina has been seriously engaged in hockey and is not going to give it up.

The issue became known abroad, and Katsya Nikitsina got invited to train and play in the Czech Republic, Katya's coach Andrei Dobya told Euroradio.

Katsya is very pleased with this perspective - the girl wants to play in a hockey team.

"We are still thinking, but there start at 14 there, and it is too early to me still. But I would be happy to go!" said the girl in a cheerful mood.

Veranika, Katya's mother, told Euroradio that the family is still thinking over the offer, but the mother would not want to let her girl go so far and for so long.

Photo: onliner.by

Хакеістку Кацю, якой забаранілі гуляць у хакей, запрасілі ў Чэхію

"I prefer Hockey, also due to to my character -  I like to fight. Most of all subjects at school  I like the physical education, and then geography. It is difficult to combine it all, but I must."

Three years ago, the10-year-old Katsya Nikitsina took up hockey after his elder brother Maxim. And now she cannot play, because the government program for the development of women's hockey in Belarus stopped over a year ago.