The meeting of the parliamentarian and the Pope took place on September 19. The Pope expressed his support to all participants and organizers
of this pioneering project. He also agreed to become an honorary captain of this initiative. Thus, the Pope becomes a captain of the Red team. Vyacheslav Fetisov
Vyacheslav Alexandrovich
presented a stick, a puck and a name shirt with the number ”1“, the official jersey of the hockey game, to the pontiff. The honorary captain of the Blue team, which will compete in the match on the North
Pole, is the UN Secretary General António Guterres.
”The world is very fragile now, and sport and ecology will become ‘bridges’ that will help to unite the entire planet in front of global challenges. It is a great honor for me that the Russian initiative is supported at such a high level,“ Fetisov noted.
In May 2018 Fetisov was appointed as a UN Environment Patron of the Polar Regions of the UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) for the Arctic and Antarctic and the organization of a friendly international hockey match near the North Pole. The friendly hockey match is scheduled for April 24–25, 2019, and it will be held on the basis of the drifting Arctic expedition camp of the Russian Geographical Society ”Barneo“. Participation has already been confirmed by hockey players from Canada, the USA, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland. It is expected that prominent politicians from different countries will take part in the meeting. On the eve of the match, a wide discussion of environmental issues is also taking place in different countries.
The Arctic has one of the most fragile ecosystems on Earth. The hockey game, entitled ”The last ice hockey game on the North Pole“, is designed to draw global attention to the issue of climate change in the unique natural ecosystem of the Arctic, which affects the ecology of our entire planet.
This project was previously personally supported by UN Secretary General António Guterres.
