Each summer, Utah Mammoth defenseman Mikhail Sergachev and New York Rangers forward Artemi Panarin team up to put on “Match of the Year,” a best-on-best charity hockey game in Russia.
The match pits the best Russian NHL players against the best players in the KHL, Russia’s top professional league (and arguably the second-best in the world). This year’s game raised 30 million rubles (approximately $384,000 USD) for children with disabilities — more than double what they raised last year.
In a recent episode of the Russian podcast “Smol Talk,” Sergachev explained that throughout his time in the United States, he’s seen a different attitude toward charity than what he experienced in Russia.
“In general, in America, they know how to do it,” he said (translated from Russian by YouTube’s auto captions and adjusted for English grammar by the Deseret News).
He recounted an annual auction that Ryan Callahan, a former teammate of his with the Tampa Bay Lightning, hosted in support of children in need of significant medical help. He spoke of a young child whose father drives him 75 miles each way for injury rehab, but his car broke down.
“All these stories, they were piercing and real,” he said. “Everyone thinks, ‘Well, that’s just it. He went to rehab.’ But how did he get there? ... They sell it to you — that is, in the good sense of the word."
“We live in the woods, near the mountains. We’ve already gotten used to this place. It’s so nice. I’m there in my own house, I put my phone aside, I’m just lying there, looking and enjoying it: clean air, people — Mormons are so very, very nice. Very kind."
— Mikhail Sergachev on living in Utah
He was amazed that one of his teammate’s jerseys, which he could buy at the team store for $250 and have his teammate sign, sold for $75,500.
“This is the culture,” he said. They don’t shy away from it, they just take it. They sell, people donate, and it’s cool.”
He said he wanted it to be like that in Russia, too.
Sergachev’s plan to start his own charity event came about while he was rehabilitating the broken leg he suffered in February 2024. He had seen that Panarin had put on charity games in the past, so he called him up and got him on board. They made sure to get Alex Ovechkin to commit to come, and once that was finalized, they knew they could take off.
2025 Match of the Year
On July 13, in the second edition of the event, the NHL group pulled off a 15-3 win — much more lopsided than 2024’s 8-8 tie.
It was centered this year around Ovechkin, who broke Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal-scoring record in April. They honored him in a pre-game ceremony, which included gifting him a brand-new car.
Ovechkin was among the 15 goal scorers in the game, which also saw a Vasily Podkolzin hat trick and a Matvei Michkov Michigan.
What did Mikhail Sergachev say about Utah in his interview?
When asked about living in Utah, Sergachev was eager to rave.
“We live in the woods, near the mountains,” he said. “We’ve already gotten used to this place. It’s so nice. I’m there in my own house, I put my phone aside, I’m just lying there, looking and enjoying it: clean air, people — Mormons are so very, very nice. Very kind."
He joked that as the neighbors would stop by his house to introduce themselves, he and his wife would just see the parents — until they realized there were eight kids standing behind them.
He even said he got invited to go to church.