Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian hockey scene  has been stuck in the doldrums. Short of finance and lacking a national  infrastructure, the domestic game has passed an entire generation of young Ukrainians by, but luckily the hockey tradition runs deep in this part  of the world and efforts are finally being made to build up a viable Ukrainian  hockey league. Local side Lviv Express are representing the city in the  inaugural 2008-2009 season of the country’s Western Division, and they  delighted fans in late December by getting their campaign off to a resounding  start with a 14-4 thrashing of the division’s outsider whipping boys Vinitsia  Patriots. There was little patriotic about the Vinnitsia side’s surrender  to Lviv’s marauding forward line as the home side cruised to a comfortable  home victory at the Medyk open-air ice rink. Lviv Express is the product of  a union between the city’s two historically leading ice hockey teams, Lviv  Hockey Club and Sokol Hockey. Lviv has a long history of hockey heroes,  with the first recorded reference to a match taking place in the city coming  from a 1904 Prague journal. Meanwhile, in 1932 Lviv players formed the  core of the Polish side which took 4th place and just misse d out on a  medal at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, America.