due to hardship in the postwar years, kanevskyi started to work before his 16th birthday as a carver at the kiev arsenal. at the factory he was making engravings on photo cameras in kiev. as a hobby he also played for a factory team, mashynobudivnyk (predecessor of fc arsenal kyiv) that was coached by livshyts. during that period kanevskyi also played for ukraine's junior team. after he worked as a mechanic at the kiev factory transsignal and was forced to forget about playing.