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In 2014, Olga Dolinina worked in public relations and marketing for Hockey Club Donbass in Donetsk, Ukraine-- a time when great uncertainty gripped the country.?In May of that year, armed rebels burned and damaged the teams stadium. Dolinina didnt know if theyd play the next season in a different city -- or at all. Even if the team resumed operations, she wasnt sure shed feel safe moving back to Donetsk. A few weeks after the stadium attack, a shooting occurred just outside the team offices.A colleague turned up the music to drown out the sound of gunfire. Dolinina didnt know if she could safely walk or take a cab to her apartment.I was really scared, Dolinina said. That was the first time when I could see that events Id watched on television were happening so close to me. Despite her fears and the challenges in her own life, one question loomed in Dolininas mind: How could she help children affected by the crisis? Like Dolinina, many families fled from violence-stricken areas in eastern Ukraine to different parts of the country.Thousands of children are suffering, she said. And need psycho-social support and help with adaptation to their host communities. Hockey, she believed, could alleviate stress and foster understanding and resilience.Its the smallest thing that can be done for children, she said. Children shouldnt be witnesses of war. In the fall of 2014, Olga Dolinina arrived in the United States for the Global Sports Mentorship Program. When she returned to Ukraine, Dolinina launched Break The Ice.Since then, more than 1,000 young people in the country have participated in the organizations table and ice hockey programs. Its something like a common language, Dolinina said. Through sports, you feel like one team. You can accept other children and then make friendships, learn life skills and build peace in the community.***Dolinina grew up an only child in Dnipropetrovsk. From an early age, she played outside with boys. The experience taught her firsthand the equalizing and empowering effect athletic endeavors can have for girls.Dolinina earned a masters degree in sports management and worked as a sports journalist and press officer for the Football Federation of Ukraine. She didnt know much about hockey when she joined HC Donbass in 2013, but with her strong background in sports business, she quickly learned.In her year with HC Donbass, she oversaw programs that reached out to the community in general and children in particular. When she first applied for the Global Sports Mentoring Program, she thought she could use what she would learn there to expand her efforts on behalf of the club.The war changed everything. As she contemplated what was next in her own life, Dolinina realized she could harness sports as a tool to alleviate post-traumatic stress disorder and similar problems among displaced children.She was thrilled to be paired with mentor Susan Cohig, senior vice president of business affairs and integrated marketing for the National Hockey League. The match seemed ideal to Cohig, as well.Using sports to empower kids, create opportunities for them to have a safe place to go, Cohig said. All the things that she wanted to accomplish are things we do in the communities were in.Cohig and other program leaders helped Dolinina with the logistics of her program, including gathering data on the impact of PTSD, compiling evidence of the benefits of sports participation for children in conflict zones and fine-tuning messaging she could use to raise funds and build partnerships.These tactics proved critical because, with the future of HC Donbass uncertain, Dolinina couldnt count on institutional support. In fact, the team suspended operations for the 2014-2015 season, and Dolinina never returned to her job there.At first, the idea of starting a project from scratch seemed daunting.The more I researched and realized the problem could be helped and cured, the more I was inspired by the projects of other members of the program, Dolinina said. I decided, Yes, I can do this myself.***Dolinina realized the expense of ice hockey equipment might delay her efforts. While she worked to secure funding for things such as skates, helmets and pads, she also sought partners and money for less costly table hockey tournaments. With help from organizations such as the International Table Hockey Federation, she held her first two table hockey events in 2015.?Now, Break The Ice and its partners hold regular tournaments in Donetsk, Luhansk, Dnipropetrovsk and Kiev.Twelve-year-old Anna Ivantsova, who moved from Donestk to Kiev last year, even qualified for the Ukranian national table hockey team. Break The Ice provided funding for Ivantsova and her mother to travel to Estonia for the European Table Hockey Championship, a journey Dolinina feels exemplifies the opportunities the program offers children, especially girls.As the table hockey program began flourishing, Dolinina learned that a grant she had applied for from the National Hockey League Players Association came through. Now, she has two full sets of ice hockey equipment. A girls team called Ukrainochka and a boys team, Sokol, both of which consist of local and displaced children, regularly put the gear to use.Some players hope to reach professional status. Ukrainochka now participates in the Ukrainian Womens League, Dolinina said. A group of players from both teams traveled to the United States last year, making stops at NHL facilities in Washington, D.C., and New York, where Cohig works.Being in the room with all these young kids, girls and boys, was really special, Cohig said. It was Olgas work paying off, creating this opportunity to take them away from the difficulties they were experiencing to understand and benefit from what sports can do to make a difference in their lives. It was a full-circle moment.The mentoring experience has come full circle for Dolinina too. It changed my life, she said.Two months ago, she began working as an education officer for UNICEF. In the role, she oversees -- among other projects -- soccer and volleyball championships aimed at improving the lives of displaced children throughout Ukraine.As need increases -- about 1.7 million people have been displaced by the conflict, including 300,000 children -- Dolinina says theres no chance shell leave skates and pucks behind. Shell continue to look for ways to expand the impact of Break The Ice. One option: bring it under the auspices of UNICEF and leverage the organizations resources to make the ultimate power play for peace.Cindy Kuzma is a freelance health and fitness writer in Chicago, contributing editor at Runners World magazine and marathon runner. You can read more of her work at www.cindykuzma.com. Russell Martin Jersey . Halifax beat the Saint John Sea Dogs 7-5 on the strength of two goals apiece from Nikolaj Ehlers, Matt Murphy and Brent Andrews. 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RIO DE JANEIRO -- Heavyweight Evgeny Tishchenkos gold-medal victory over Vassiliy Levit in a widely criticized decision is likely to be a catalyst for change during the International Boxing Associations next evaluation of its judging.AIBA executive board member Tom Virgets told The Associated Press on Tuesday that while he wouldnt offer a personal opinion on the decision, he expects the sports judging criteria to evolve before the 2020 Olympics.Every fight will be analyzed, some with a stronger eye than others, Virgets said.Tishchenko won heavyweight gold Monday night even though the Russian backed up and appeared to struggle throughout his bout with the smothering Levit, a relentless Kazakh power puncher with a thrilling style.All three judges favored Tishchenko 29-28, drawing gasps and boos from the loudly pro-Levit crowd in Rio. The fans lustily booed the decision and jeered Tishchenko as he accepted his gold medal.While Virgets outlined the reasons why the three randomly selected judges from Ireland, Colombia and Algeria likely scored the bout for Tishchenko under the current scoring criteria, the veteran boxing coach and executive also made it clear AIBA had taken note of the worldwide reaction to the result.Were not through with our changes, Virgets said. Were going to continuously improve the sport of boxing, and over the next four years, I think you will see things that are going to make it clearer for everyone to understand what our criteria is, and to be able to more clearly define the boxer who wins.Virgets interview with the AP was AIBAs only public comment Tuesday on the decision, which outraged boxing figures and vocal fans on social media. Irish bookmaker Paddy Power even agreed to pay bettors as if Levit had won.In examining Tishchenkos victory through the lens of AIBAs four main judging criteria, Virgets described why the judges likely arrived at a decision that didnt reward Levits superior aggression and power.Obviously, our judges, they were pretty consistent in the scoring, he said. They obviously followed this. Now is that the best way? Well evaluate and get better.Virgets felt Tishchenko threw more scoring blows to the proper target areas and did more quality punching on the inside, which he claimed is easier to see when watching from the judges seats at ringside. He claimed many of Levits big, exciting punches didnt count because they landed across the side of the head and werent proper scoring blows.Virgets also said Levit initiated the majority of the infringement of the rules during the bout, including holding and head contact.dddddddddddd Levit repeatedly got inside on Tishchenko, smothering the towering Russian before he could even throw a punch.So those combined, obviously in the judges mind, it was more important than the physical dominance that (Levit) was showing through infringement woes and lack of quality blows, Virgets said.But Virgets also said Levit clearly trounced Tishchenko in the judging criteria of competitiveness, the most visible area to fans.No doubt about it, the Kazakh boxer showed he wanted to win more than the Russian boxer, Virgets said.The heavyweight result was even more dismaying to fans because AIBA has made significant changes over the past Olympic cycle to make its sport more exciting. The governing body removed headgear from the male boxers and moved from a punch-counting scoring system to a professional-style, 10-point system. Both changes have been well received in Rio.The first nine days of the Olympics had been remarkably quiet for AIBA, which never holds a major tournament without a number of outraged losing fighters claiming they were robbed of a clear victory in their three-round bouts.But Tishchenkos victory was the biggest in a string of potentially infuriating decisions as the tournament hits bigger fights this week.Irish bantamweight world champion Michael Conlan ripped off his vest and made obscene gestures at the ringside judges after his loss to Russias Vladimir Nikitin on Tuesday. He later denounced AIBA as corrupt and claimed judges had been paid off by Russia, which had several fighters eliminated in close decisions earlier in the tournament.U.S. light welterweight Gary Antuanne Russells decision loss to Uzbekistans Fazliddin Gaibnazarov was also booed by the Rio crowd, but none of the reactions compared to the outrage after Tishchenkos awkward, defensive victory over the ferocious Levit.(After) 213 bouts, everyone felt pretty good about everything, Virgets said. This was one of those bouts that just by the nature of the physicality of the Kazakh boxer, it made it more difficult for a decision to be made. And we have to figure out, how much weight do you put to one criteria over another?---Follow Greg Beacham on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/gregbeacham ' ' '