Scattered by war, Ukrainian preteens head to hockey tourney

MONTREAL (AP) — Sean Bérubé said he thought it was a joke when he was first asked to help assemble a team of Ukrainian preteen refugees, displaced by war and spread out across Europe, to play in a renowned Quebec City hockey tournament. Bérubé was having a beer in Bucharest last March with Evgheniy Pysarenko, whom he played hockey with in Ukraine as a teenager. Pysarenko requested a favor from Bérubé. That favor morphed into a mission, culminating with a group of 11- and 12-year-olds from Ukraine playing in the Quebec International Peewee Hockey Tournament.