Avangard Omsk

Hockey Club Avangard (Russian: ХК Авангард, Vanguard), a.k.a. Avangard Omsk Region, are a Russian professional ice hockey team from Siberia, based in the city of Omsk. They are members of the Chernyshev Division of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL).

Franchise history

Early years of Omsk hockey (1950–1972)

The first amateur ice hockey teams in Omsk began to appear in 1950, formed by local bandy players. One of them was a hockey section of the Omsk Spartak sports society. Spartak Omsk was chosen to be the first Omsk hockey team in the 1950–51 RSFSR championship. In the 1955–56 season, the team had a chance to represent the city in the Soviet Championship, joining its then-second level Class B league and recruiting the best hockey players from Omsk. Four seasons later, the team finally won promotion to the top division.

Its first game in the major Soviet championship Spartak played on November 29, 1959, against Spartak (later Avtomobilist) Sverdlovsk. The first goal for Avangard was scored by Viktor Shevelev. In 1962, the team was assigned with a trade union of the Omsk airport and renamed as Aeroflot Omsk. Playing under its new name, the Omsk team reached the 13th place overall, its highest success during the original four-season run in the top level of Soviet hockey. However, it was still not enough to secure their position in the Class A after the subsequent reform of the championship—starting with the 1963–64 season, Aeroflot joined a newly established A2 league. The first stars of that early period were defenseman Viktor Blinov and forward Viktor Shevelev.

Omsk

Omsk (Russian: Омск; IPA: [omsk]) is a city and the administrative center of Omsk Oblast, Russia, located in southwestern Siberia 2,236 kilometers (1,389 mi) from Moscow. With a population of 1,154,116, it is Russia's second-largest city east of the Ural Mountains after Novosibirsk, and seventh by size nationally.

During the Imperial era, Omsk was the seat of the Governor General of Western Siberia, and later of the Governor General of the Steppes. For a brief period during the Russian Civil War in 1918–1920, it served as the capital of the anti-Bolshevik Russian State and held the imperial gold reserves.

Omsk is the administrative center of the Siberian Cossack Host. It also serves as the see of the bishop of Omsk and Tara, as well as the administrative seat of the Imam of Siberia.

Geography

Omsk stretches along the banks of the north-flowing Irtysh at its confluence with the smaller Om River. The city has an elevation of 87 meters (285 ft) above mean sea level at its highest point.

Omsk is an important railroad hub, and is the junction point for the northern and southern branches of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The city also serves as a major hub for the regional highway network. River-port facilities handle both passengers and freight, giving the city access to navigating the extensive waterways of the Irtysh and Ob River. The waterways connect Omsk with the coal and mineral-mining towns further up the river in Kazakhstan, as well as with the oil, natural gas and lumber operations of northern Siberia. Omsk is served by the Tsentralny Airport, which offers access to domestic and international (primarily, German and Kazakh) destinations, making the city an important aviation hub for Siberia and the Russian Far East.

3406 Omsk

3406 Omsk is a main-belt asteroid discovered on February 21, 1969 by the Russian astronomer Bella Burnasheva at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, and given a preliminary designation of 1969 DA. It was named for the discoverer's birthplace of Omsk, the administrative center of the Omsk Oblast in Russia.

Photometric observations of this asteroid made in 2007 at the Mt. Tarana Observatory in Bathurst, Australia were used to produce a light curve that showed a period of 7.275 ± 0.006 hours with a brightness variation of 0.28 in magnitude. This indicates a ratio of 1.3 between the lengths of the major and minor axes.

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