Against all odds, Ukrainian hockey team hopes to make it to Quebec City peewee tournament

Quebec City's Sean Bérubé has spent dozens of hours over the past three months helping a Ukrainian hockey team.

It all started back in March 2022, not long after the Russian invasion.

At the time, Bérubé, who played hockey in Ukraine for four years in the 90s, was back there trying to get his former coach out of the country.

With the help of an old teammate, Yevhenii Pysarenko, Bérubé managed to get the coach and his family out of Ukraine and to Quebec — where they have been staying with him.

To thank Pysarenko for his aid, Bérubé offered to buy him a beer.

Instead, he says Pysarenko asked for a slightly bigger favour — support in getting a Ukrainian hockey team to Canada for the Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament.

"I kind of joked it off and I said if you want to bring a team, it's going to have to be a team of refugees," recalled Bérubé.

"I didn't think he was that serious … but I think the project grew in him and at some point he started to organize camps over there during the summer just for Ukrainians."

Three months ago, the dream started to come true when the tournament authorized the Ukrainian team's participation.

Since then it's been a rush of paperwork, visa applications and getting parental consent for a group of 17 Ukrainian 12-year-old boys who are scattered across Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Germany and Canada.

Pysarenko first had the idea of forming a hockey team when the war broke out in Ukraine in February 2022.

"I tried to help as much as possible, kids and former colleagues," said Pysarenko. "That gave me an idea to bring them together to play some tournaments."

Pysarenko had his sights set specifically on Quebec City's peewee tournament, an internationally