After bouncing from one hockey team to the next in a minor-league career spanning 15 years and passing through Colorado Springs, an aging right winger found himself without a job when his team — the 18th he had played for — folded last spring.
Bogdan Rudenko, 32, who used his brawn to win slots on teams in Russia, Canada and the U.S., now finds himself in much deeper trouble than unemployment.
He was arrested at a Colorado Springs hotel on Christmas Day for allegedly fatally shooting hockey player Yuriy Anatolevich Kharitonov several days earlier in Stallings, N.C. Rudenko, who appeared in court Tuesday, is fighting extradition.
Kharitonov’s body, pierced with a single bullet hole, was found behind an auto repair business. The victim and suspect had been friends who knew each other in their native Kazakhstan, where they played hockey together, according to reports by North Carolina media.
Friends cite stress
Some former teammates of Rudenko, who was known as “Rudy” when he played two years for the defunct Colorado Springs Gold Kings, said they wonder whether his current legal troubles are tied to career and financial stresses.
“You can only guess at what kind of stress he was under,” said former Gold Kings teammate RJ Enga, now an assistant hockey coach for the Topeka Roadrunners. “When teams fold like that, it’s tough because you don’t have a plan B.”
On Tuesday during a jailhouse interview in Colorado Springs, Rudenko declined to discuss circumstances surrounding his arrest.
He would only talk about his career.
Rudenko was only 17 in 1994 when he began playing for a Russian team, Omsk Avangard.
“I had the talent,” he said. “I can dominate the game.”
He was recruited by a major junior team in Canada and was on track to earn a slot in the NHL when he had a devastating injury to his Achilles tendon, he said.
In 1996, and in the next three years, he played for four teams including the Quad City Mallards, according to .
When Kirk Tomlinson, an assistant coach at the Mallards, moved to Colorado Springs to be the head coach of the Gold Kings, he brought along Rudenko.
Friendly enforcer
Though he was known as a fighter, his former teammates said Rudenko was easygoing off the ice and didn’t let his thick accent stop him from socializing with teammates after practice.
“He always had a big smile,” Enga said.
After two years in Colorado Springs, Rudenko was traded to the Idaho Steelheads in Boise, Idaho, and then to a succession of teams.
His career eventually led to Winston-Salem, N.C., where he played during the 2008-09 season for the Twin City Cyclones. The hockey team folded on March 31, blaming the recession, according to a team website.
Police are still investigating Rudenko’s recent ties to Kharitonov, who played for several hockey teams in Russia and Europe, according to the Charlotte Observer. Stallings Police Chief Larke Plyler said the two men had been “associates.”
Several former teammates said they were shocked to learn of the arrest of Rudenko, known at the conclusion of games to befriend players from opposing teams he had earlier fought.
In a phone call, Rudenko’s wife, Amanda, said her husband is innocent.
“He’s not capable of doing something like this,” she said.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
