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▲ Gagik Malakyan ’24 and Artem Buzoverya ’24 helped the Statesmen clinch the conference title, but the war between their home countries is never far from their thoughts.
The Waiting Game For the Hobart hockey team, the Russian-Ukraine conflict is personal. B Y
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In February, teammates and friends Artem Buzoverya ’24 and Gagik Malakyan ’24 watched from halfway around the world as the political turmoil between their home countries turned violent. Buzoverya was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, less than 30 miles from the Russian border, not far from where Russian forces invaded. Malakyan grew up in Moscow. Both have family in their respective countries, and the conflict cast a shadow over the spring semester that saw the Statesmen into the NCAA quarterfinals. “You sit every day and just hope for the best but in reality you never know. You don’t control it. None of us do,” says Buzoverya. He and Malakyan came to the U.S. during high school to join junior hockey leagues. When the junior leagues ended, both came to HWS, where they met and built
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