When Serhii Nikulin left his native city of Kharkiv in the Ukraine for Boston late last summer, he never imagined that his country would just seven months later be plunged into a maelstrom of violence and destruction.
The 18-year-old defenseman who played AAA hockey for the East Coast Spartans while completing his junior of high school studying at Boston Trinity Academy in Hyde Park, Mass., now finds himself thousands of miles away from his family while the Russian invasion has dominated the world’s attention. It’s tough enough to leave your home and culture to play hockey and study abroad, but the unimaginable stress of watching images of his war-torn country is something very few in the United States can relate to.
“I did not believe it can actually happen,” Nikulin told New England Hockey Journal when asked about the current situation in Ukraine. “I would say nobody could expect it. It was so, so awful, because I came home after my late practice with the Spartans, and I received a message from my parents and my girlfriend, and they wrote me that the war started. I felt like everything fell out from under my legs at that moment.”
Growing up in Kharkiv, Nikulin spent most of his life in the Northeastern city, known as a cultural, educational and scientific center in Ukraine, second only in size to the capital city of Kyiv. Known for its attractions like Derzhprom building in Freedom Park, the Annunciation and Dormition cathedrals, Shevchenko Park and other monuments and facilities, it is a place steeped in Ukrainian history and traditions. The city’s proximity to the Russian border made it a key objective in the initial air and ground offensives launched by the former Soviet military in late February.
That military action put Nikulin’s family in danger, forcing father Oleksandr, mother Savchuk Maryna and 10-year-old sister Veronika into hiding in a basement to escape the shelling and air strikes. Their son, half a world away in Milton, Mass., has only been able to watch the images of the war in Ukraine and stay in contact with his family sporadically since the invasion.
Nikulin’s parents didn’t have hockey in mind when they went to a local rink to sign him up for skating lessons and put him in a local figure skating program. He needed a helmet to participate, however, so Oleksandr approached the local hockey team about acquiring a helmet for his son to use while learning his way around the ice.
“The hockey coach asked my father if I would join the team,” Nikulin said. “That led me from being just like, a simple skater, to become a hockey player when I was 7 years old. It was funny, because my parents weren’t serious about me playing hockey, they just wanted me to learn how to skate.”
Nikulin was a quick study and soon found himself on the fast track to being invited to play for select travel teams out of his native Kharkiv, before leaving home in the seventh grade for the city of Dnieper Petrovsk. He was recruited by the coach there, offering the opportunity for Nikulin to develop with better facilities and greater access to ice time and competition at age 12. Throughout his development in Kharkiv and Petrovsk, he had the opportunity to play in high-level events and competitions in Russia, Austria and Latvia playing for local and other All-Star teams he was recruited to skate for. At age 15, he practiced close to home with the local professional team but played for the Lviv Under-16 squad, which won the Ukrainian national championship. The success he had opened the door for him to play for the Ukrainian national team as well.
As successful as he was locally and regionally, Nikulin had a dream to play NCAA hockey in the United States and knew that in order to achieve that objective, he needed to raise his profile. In contact with some former teammates and friends who had left Ukraine to play abroad in North America, he realized that crossing the Atlantic to get the kind of education and exposure to facilitate having a chance to play college hockey and possibly beyond was a must for the defender who stands at about 6-foot-1, 175 pounds.
That’s when the Spartans came into the picture.
“I was contacted (by) the general manager of the Spartans, Neil Liston,” he said. “I found a school here (in Boston) to study off-line, my team found me the perfect family, so I am living with (a host) family now and basically with a couple of connections led me to have a conversation with Neil. The most interesting fact is that I was without a team until August, and I found the team only in August because of the pandemic and I couldn’t simply come here and play hockey only because of visa stuff, so I came here to Boston. It was the best opportunity for me that my family could be calm that I’m in school and that I’m playing hockey, and I’m developing the way I was planning to go.”
Living in Milton with Sean and Sandy Capplis and their three children has been a blessing for Nikulin, who is grateful that they opened their home and hearts to him. Their only son, Liam, is Nikulin’s teammate on the Spartans, and the two have grown close, playing cards and joining in family board games. The two have been able to encourage and push each other on and off the ice, developing a brotherly bond in a short time.
“Since September, I lived with them,” Nikulin said. “Nowadays with this situation, they provide me a huge help and they basically provide me with everything I need.”
Nikulin had a strong season with the Spartans, playing for former Northeastern and pro forward Dennis McCauley (Billerica, Mass.), taking some time to adjust to the smaller North American ice surface and the physicality of the playing style. Along with the hockey, McCauley said that Nikulin’s priority on education and eventually attending college in the U.S. meant that going to school in English and adapting to the academic environment was an even more challenging transition for the young defenseman.
“English is not his first language, so the schooling at Trinity for him was a huge adjustment,” he said. “But, his grades have improved and the recommendations from his school have just been outstanding to help him through that process.”
Adding to the adjustment obstacles, the Spartans practice and play out of Lowell, Mass., so Nikulin and his billet brother would have to make the trek for 5 p.m. practices three days a week. He even found a way to play for the Boston Trinity soccer team in the fall on top of everything else he was juggling.
Hockey, however, remains Nikulin’s biggest source of strength. McCauley describes him as an offensive defenseman who sees the ice well and effectively uses his hockey sense and skills to produce from the back end. While not a dynamic two-way presence in the mold of a Cale Makar, the coach said that when the Spartans needed a boost, it was often his team’s scoring leader who provided it.
Eligible to return to 18-under play for 2022-23, Nikulin is keeping his options open. He can continue playing for McCauley but could look at junior hockey options as a raw but improving talent.
“He’s big, he’s strong,” McCauley said. “He cares about the game and his teammates and brings a lot of emotion. No one shows more emotion when they score a goal than he does. And everyone on the team tends to gravitate to him; his work ethic, his size, he’s a leader without the letter on his chest, and then to everything that happened with this (invasion of Ukraine), it’s been hard for him.”
His attention is squarely focused on the events in Ukraine and his family’s safety. After the first three days of the war, his parents, sister and both grandmothers were able to evacuate Kharkiv and make it westward to Lviv, near the Polish border, which has been a center for refugees fleeing the crisis. His maternal grandfather chose to remain home and the uncertainty surrounding him and his well-being has weighed heavily on Nikulin.
He does have an important source of support in girlfriend Oleksandra or “Sasha”, who studies at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and accompanied him to Boston. The two have been together for two years and share in the burden of concerns for family and friends in Ukraine. The two of them have each other to lean on, and being so far from home at a time of crisis has brought them closer together.
Nikulin describes the situation as a “nightmare,” and for now, the plan is for him to stay with the Capplis family through the summer after originally planning to return home after the school year ended. However, the love and support he has received from so many locally and around the region and U.S. has had a profound positive impact on his outlook. His host family has set up a GoFundMe page for Serhii and his parents, and to date, more than 220 people have donated financial resources to assist.
He’s doing what he can to stay in touch with his family, and like much of the world, hopes for the best in Ukraine and an end to hostilities soon. He knows that by putting in the effort in school and hockey, that will honor his family and the sacrifices they’ve made, and knows that even though he is far away from them, he is not alone.
“That just underlines how people are caring about the situation here,” he said. “Every person wrote me a message via email, they all offer me the best facilities and all expenses I need. People from everywhere are helping me somehow, and I’m really proud of being a part of the powerful community here.
“The U.S. is different (from Ukraine) because of the different personalities and populations, but the one thing I know is that this is a united place. Here, I feel like myself, like at home, because of every single person that supports me, but I can say truly about the American people that they are strong and responsible.”
