Stepan Solovyov backstops Golden Ring Selects to World Championship

In the 12U World Selects Invitational championship game, goaltender Stepan Solovyov mounted a 23-save shutout to give Golden Ring Selects a 6-0 victory. The best goalie in the tournament saved his best performance for last, finishing with an 7-1-0 record, a 1.12 goals-against average and .944 save percentage.

Solovyov — who plays for CSKA Moscow in the regular season — started all eight games and played every minute of the tournament for Golden Ring. The team outscored WSI opponents 35-9 en route to the 2025 world title. It was the first WSI championship in history for Golden Ring, but it wouldn’t be the only one. Just three days later, the 16U Golden Ring squad would win the 2009-born world championship in Philadelphia as well. 

Golden Ring opened up tournament play with a 6-3 win over WestCan Prime (CAN). A four-goal first period with strikes from Kirill Tszian, Dmitrii Maliutin, Matvei Fedorov and Arsenii Gorshkov put Selects out in front early. 

After back-to-back shutout wins over Finland Selects and Midwest Prime (USA), Solovyov and the Russians faced their biggest test of the tournament. Elton Önerud fueled a three-goal second period for Sweden Selects to pull off a come-from-behind win in the final game of pool play to upset first-placed Golden Ring, and give the Russians their only loss of the tournament.

After a 2-1 win over Finland Selects in the quarterfinals — their second victory over the Finns in the tournament — Golden Ring advanced to a final four where three of the teams were Russian-based clubs. 

A pair of goals from Fedorov less than four minutes apart pushed Golden Ring past its fellow countrymen with a 3-1 win over Dynamo Academy. Fedorov would stay hot in the championship game as well, with his fourth goal of the playoffs and sixth overall. This time, his tally, along with a hat trick from Arkhip Lazarev and goals from Timofei Fomin and Maliutin built an insurmountable lead over Avangard. A 23-save effort from Solovyov in goal ensured the victory, and Golden Ring claimed its first world championship. 

The all-Russia finale was the first time since 2017 that the 12U WSI featured a championship game between teams of the same country. That year, Dynamo Moscow defeated Prokhorkins Selects, coincidentally, an all-Russia final as well. 

Solovyov proved to be the top goaltender in the tournament. And despite shutting out Avangard in the finale, Hawks leading scorer Matvei Valov still led the age group in scoring with 11 goals and 18 points. Canadian-born Jaxsen Gardiner led the tournament with 10 assists while playing for Pro Hockey. 

Golden Ring Selects went 7-1-0, winning the 12U WSI as the No. 3-seed in the tournament. It is the eighth straight year that a different club has claimed the 12U title, with no team repeating as champions since Pro Hockey did so in 2015 and 2016. In that span, five different countries have claimed the top spot as well.