Photo: (L to R) Payton Vescio, Christian Cicigoi, Jim Bruce, Tomas Yachmenev, Chris Dawson and Jacob Peterson-Galema. Photo by Lee Anne Dawson.
When hockey players move on from junior hockey, many times – even 10 or 20 years later – the players enjoy reminiscing about their teenage years playing junior hockey.
Not only memories, but the relationships that are built can literally last a lifetime.
That’s certainly the case for a group of Powassan Voodoos who played parts of more than two seasons together from 2017 to 2020.
It was early June of 2025, when former Voodoos star Tomas Yachmenev married his bride Emma in Ottawa.
Yachmenev, son of Voodoos assistant coach and former NHLer Vitali Yachmenev, moved from Russia to North Bay, Ontario, to join the Voodoos in the summer of 2017 at the age of 17.
“When I first moved here I didn’t really know anyone at all. It was a new chapter for me in my life moving from overseas oto play hockey, and at first it was a little tough,” recalls Yachmenev.
Like his father, Tomas has a very quiet demeanor. In fact, many of his early teammates were unsure if Tomas even spoke any English.
Christian Cicigoi, a 16-year-old North Bay Battalion prospect on the Voodoos, who made a significant life change himself, leaving his home of Thunder Bay to play for the Battalion affiliate team in 2017.
At the time, “Cich” as he is nicknamed, was a quiet, shy rookie goaltender himself.
“I recall being on the bus and the guy next to me told me Tomas didn’t speak any English so I asked him and he looked at me like I had 10 heads, and we both kind of laughed about it,” said Cicigoi, who is going into his senior season at Lakehead University where he place USports hockey with the Thunderwolves.
The Thunder Bay product and the Voodoos rookie Russian rocket created a health competition on practice and anjoyed pushing each other to be better on the ice.
“We had a scoring competition and when he would score on me, he would celebrate like crazy,” said Cicigoi.
“We worked hard at practice and it was certainly a way that we pushed each other.”
Wedding Day hockey memories
At Tomas Yachemenev’s wedding, two former Voodoos teammates were in his wedding party: Jacob Peterson-Galema a North Bay native who went to high school at Widdifield with Tomas in the fall of 2017, and Cicigoi, who was his best man.
During Cicigoi’s best man speech, he joked about Tomas’s lack of emotion when they first met.
Another former teammate, Payton Vescio, who is currently going into his senior year at Nipissing University where he plays defence for the Lakers was in attendance at the wedding and reflected on how much he enjoyed his first season of junior hockey in 2017-18 with the Voodoos as he went on to play major junior the following season with the North Bay Battalion and was eventually traded to the Hamilton Bulldogs.
Yachmenev is grateful for his time with the Voodoos and the memories he will have forever.
“Cich and I didn’t connect right away, but a couple of bus trips in and then we hit it off and you know ever since we’ve been best of friends and it’s been great,” he said.
“The following year, I connected with Jacob, and I’ve been really good friends since.
“Everyone including ownership and staff, was very welcoming when I first moved here, since it was a new environment and I didn’t know what to expect. I know I made good friends, and Payton Vescio was at the wedding. He’s a good friend of mine and we still talk to this day, and we had a great group of guys around me to mould me into who I am today.”
Cicigoi, Yachmenev, Galema and Vescio also welcomed posing for a photo at the wedding with older guests in Voodoos president and team owner Jim Bruce and Chris Dawson, Voodoos general manager.
“It was awesome, getting together at the wedding with my old teammates and seeing Jim and Chris was great too,” said Cicigoi.
Yachmenev, who has graduated from the University of Ottawa, is now working in the banking industry, embraces all the life lessons he learned on and off the ice with the Voodoos.
“You’re always on road trips together, you hang out together,” he said.
“You go through the wins and losses of a season, the heartbreaks, the highs and lows, so you really go through everything with a group of guys as a hockey team and you know nothing really is compared to that.”
