Ukrainian Hockey Player Rebuilds Face After Combat Shooting
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- Oleksandr Matviychuk, 51, has undergone nearly a dozen facial reconstruction surgeries in Kyiv after being shot in the face during a June 2025 mission to evacuate Ukrainian troops surrounded by Russian forces, with plastic surgeon Leylya Omerova confirming 'he didn't have a nose' when he arrived.
- Matviychuk spent five seasons (1998–2003) playing in Russia's Kontinental Hockey League, including stints in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where Russians were his teammates; he told CBC that anger now makes it impossible to imagine facing them again on the ice.
- After Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Matviychuk turned down a coaching offer in Alberta, Canada, and instead joined Ukraine's military intelligence agency (GUR) despite having no prior military experience, saying he 'didn't feel right leaving.'
- During the June 2025 ambush, one of Matviychuk's team members was killed and four others were severely wounded; he applied his own tourniquet and walked himself to an evacuation vehicle while his face was 'hanging' off.
- Surgeons have reconstructed Matviychuk's nose, jaw, and lips, with at least one more surgery planned for fall; he now rarely leaves his rural dacha because he dislikes being stared at, saying, 'I don't like them feeling sorry for me.'
- Matviychuk played two seasons (1994–1996) in the Ontario Hockey League with North Bay, and earlier had taken a Ukrainian youth team to a tournament in Belarus just days before Putin announced his 'special military operation,' initially assuring parents Russia would not invade.
- Matviychuk has not returned to the ice since his injury because cold air makes it harder for him to breathe through his reconstructed nose, though he told CBC he longs to return to the game he loves.
Why it matters: The story tracks a concrete human cost of the war on a demographic rarely profiled: elite athletes who gave up international careers to fight. Omerova's observation that facial injuries inflict 'not only physical suffering but mental and psychological suffering' underscores a reconstruction burden that extends far beyond the battlefield, and the rejection of a Canadian coaching pathway highlights how many Ukrainians chose combat over emigration.
