Medals from loafs of sausage. How the ASW trophies are made

Taking part in the KHL All-Star Game is an event that players will remember forever. A sort of initiation into the elite of the league, getting into the club of the elected ones. To materialize the memory of the hockey party in Kazan, the Kontinental Hockey League will award all the participants with medals. KHL.ru went to the jewelry studio and learned how the Week of Hockey Stars medals are done.

High jewelry cuisine

In a few rooms, a small workshop works with a dozen people. At the entrance, in a special chamber, the medals that in a month and a half will show off on the chests of the participants of the Week of Hockey Stars are dried. We had a look at the final stage of work on the awards. Very soon, the medals will be packed in colorful cases and sent to the capital of Tatarstan.

The work on the medals begins two or three months earlier. The head of the jewelry studio Vladimir Meisel – the successor of a famous dynasty of artisans – told us about how the original idea turned into a real masterpiece.

“At first, we had to develop an idea about how to create the medals,” Meisel said. “We are the only ones to do them black. I have never seen anything similar at this level. The analogy is quite self-explanatory: a black circle resembles a puck.”

By the way, the idea of honoring the Week of Hockey Stars is a few years old. Medals are awarded to participants of the WHL All-Star Game, JHL Challenge Cup, and KHL All-Star Game.

“At first, we try to agree on a sketch,” Meisel explains. “Often we have to face some creative disputes. Our artist has an idea, while the KHL designers have another idea. But we always find a compromise, and at this point, the tough stuff begins: the actual production of the medals.”

In the jewelry studio, several machines create the plates using unique, customized software. And the very basis of the medal is a thick metal bar one meter long and ten centimeters in diameter. Such a cylinder weighs about 150 kilograms, and the medal itself by weight is only for the stiff necks of hockey players. You take the medal into the palm of your hand, and the black circle pulls the hand down: each medal weighs more than three hundred grams.

“We then take this metal bar and cut it into circles, like a loaf of sausage,” Meisel explains. Then the high cuisine begins: each medal is aligned on a lathe, the mill applies the drawing, and then the medal is coated with precious metals: gold, silver, and bronze.