Ukraine’s 2022/23 soccer season kickoff ceremony, held on the Day of the National Flag, Aug. 23, in Kyiv’s Olympic Stadium, included hoisting a unique flag that had been brought from Canada before the season.
Volodymyr Onyschenko (left) and Ballon d’Or holder Oleh Blokhin (right), who participated in that 1976 game, were stars of Valeriy Lovanovsky’s “dream team,” Kyiv Dynamo. In fact, the Soviet soccer team was at the time Kyiv Dynamo that changed their blue-and-white uniform for the red one of the U.S.S.R. – the same players, the same coach. In the middle: Andriy Pavelko, President of the Ukrainian Association of Football
Nearly half a century ago, on July 27, 1976, the Soviet and East German teams met in a semi-final of the Montreal Olympics’ soccer tournament. During the game, 20-year-old Canadian Ukrainian Danylo Myhal got over the fence onto the pitch. Wearing a vyshyvanka, a blue-and-yellow flag in his hands, he managed to perform several hopak steps and shout “Freedom to Ukraine!” before police corralled him and escorted him from the pitch. The spectator applauded, but the 11 Soviet players, nine of whom represented the Ukrainian club of Kyiv Dynamo, stood silent.
Danylo Myhal was born in 1955 in Thunder Bay, Ontario, to a family of Ukrainian immigrants. A Ukrainian diaspora activist, he was a member of the Canadian organizations of Plast, Prosvita, and the Ukrainian Youth Association. In 2021, Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada Andriy Shevchenko awarded him for his contribution to developing the Ukrainian community in Canada.
The young man spent an hour in the police precinct and was released with the assistance of journalist Andriy Bandera, the son of Stepan Bandera. Danylo explained that he wanted to “dramatize the fate of the Ukrainian people” and support the Ukrainian soccer players. After Ukraine regained its independence, he dreamt of transferring the flag to Ukraine, and finally, it was given over to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
It can be taken for granted that in 1976 the players from “Soviet Ukraine” were puzzled by the incident. Why did that strangely dressed guy stream a strange flag, and what did he mean by shouting “Freedom to Ukraine”?
Now we know well. And for those who were still puzzled, the russian missiles gave an exhaustive explanation. Coming back to the inauguration of the new soccer season, which will be held under the mottos, “We’re invincible while playing” and “We are of the same bravery,” the first game was symbolically kicked off by an Azov Regiment soldier who had been wounded in the fights for the Kyiv Oblast. And there was also announced the introduction of a new tradition: coming onto the pitch covered with Ukrainian flags.
As for that unique flag from Canada, it is expected to travel around Ukraine with Ukrainian soccer clubs. And we believe that soon it will be raised in the stadiums of Donetsk, Luhansk, Simferopol, and other Ukrainian cities liberated from the Russian orcs.
Sources: Ukrainian Association of Football; Wikipedia; UNIAN
