When this site launched, as more and more boxscores (which now number over 700 on this site, and is continually growing) were added, a noticeable trend was noticed among scores featuring teams from the Soviet Union, and the states formed in the former’s dispersal after 1991, such as Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus. As the sources would vary for where the boxscore information was coming from, so to were different variations and spellings of names from one game to the next: Aleksander to Alexander, Myshkin or Mishkin, Valeri, Valery or Valeriy, and so on.

So, for the sake of consistency, and keeping in line with the IIHF’s 2011 changes to Cyrillic spelling across their tournaments and players, the International Hockey Lineal Championship site has undergone a full review of all Soviet, Russian, Kazakh, Belarusian and Ukrainian players (both men’s and women’s), updating where necessary per the IIHF guidelines, to ensure all names remain both consistent and correct. Per the guide, changes were made to ensure that spelling with Latin characters correctly represented the proper translation and pronunciation of names in Russian or Ukrainian, respectively.

Therefore, you will see some common North American player spellings slightly different on this site, such as Vladislav Tretiak as the more accurate Tretyak, Alexander Kovalev as Kovalyov, Sergei Fedorov as Fyodorov, Semen Varlamov as Semyon, among others. Perhaps unfamilar to North American fans (such as this writer), this represents an effort to be as true to the player’s name, without changing these names to Cyrillic characters, somewhat fruitless for a site that operates in English. However, you will see with many other languages and alphabets (Czech, Swedish, French, etc.) that efforts are made here to capture the literal spelling as much as possible.

After all, it wasn’t too long ago that Alexei Zhamnov played with jerseys that read “JAMNOV,” and let’s be honest, that’s just not right.

Photo Credit: Bizniasport.sk – IIHF – HHOF – IOC