Soviet Union national ice hockey team

Soviet Union Soviet Union
(USSR / СССР)
Nickname(s) Красная Машина
(The Red Machine)
Most games Alexander Maltsev (321)
Top scorer Alexander Maltsev (213)
Most points Sergei Makarov (248)
First international
 Soviet Union 23 – 2  East Germany
(East Berlin, East Germany; 22 April 1951)
Biggest win
 Soviet Union 28 – 2  Italy
(Colorado Springs, United States; 26 December 1967)
Biggest defeat
 Canada 8 – 2  Soviet Union
Ottawa, Canada; 9 January 1986)
 Czechoslovakia 9 – 3  Soviet Union
(Prague, Czechoslovakia; 21 March 1975)
IIHF World Championships
Appearances 32 (first in 1954)
Best result 1st (1954, 1956, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1989, 1990)
Canada Cup
Appearances 5
Best result 1st (1981)
Olympics
Appearances 9 (first in 1956)
Medals Gold: 7 (1956, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1984, 1988)
Silver: 1 (1980)
Bronze: 1 (1960)
International record (W–L–T)
738–110–65
Olympic medal record
Men's ice hockey
1956 Ice hockey
1960 Ice hockey
1964 Ice hockey
1968 Ice hockey
1972 Ice hockey
1976 Ice hockey
1980 Ice hockey
1984 Ice hockey
1988 Ice hockey

The Soviet national ice hockey team (Russian: Сборная СССР по хоккею с шайбой) was the national ice hockey team of the Soviet Union. The team won nearly every world championship and Olympic tournament between 1954 and 1991 and never failed to medal in any International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) tournament they competed in.

After 1991, the Soviet team competed as the Unified Team at the 1992 Winter Olympics and as the Commonwealth of Independent States at the 1992 World Championship. In 1993, it was replaced by national teams for Belarus, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine. The IIHF recognized the Russian ice hockey federation as the successor to the Soviet Union hockey federation and passed its ranking on to Russia. The other national hockey teams were considered new and sent to compete in Pool C.

The IIHF Centennial All-Star Team included four Soviet-Russian players out of a team of six: goalie Vladislav Tretiak, defenseman Vyacheslav Fetisov and forwards Valeri Kharlamov and Sergei Makarov who played for the Soviet teams in the 1970s and the 1980s were selected for the team in 2008.[1]


History

Vsevolod Bobrov during the 1956 Winter Olympics, the Soviet Union's first appearance at the Olympics.

Ice hockey was not properly introduced into the Soviet Union until the 1940s, though bandy, a similar game played on ice, had long been popular in the country. It was during a tour of FC Dynamo Moscow of the United Kingdom in 1945 that Soviet officials first got the idea of establishing an ice hockey program. They watched several exhibition matches in London, and National Hockey League President Clarence Campbell would later say that "This was the time when the Russians got the idea for their hockey team. The Russian soccer players were more interested in watching Canadian players play hockey than in soccer."[2] The Soviet Championship League was established in 1946, and the national team was formed shortly after, playing their first matches in a series of exhibitions against LTC Praha in 1948.[3]

The Soviets planned to send a team to the 1953 World Championships, but due to an injury to Vsevolod Bobrov, one of their star players, officials decided against going.[4] They would make their debut at the 1954 World Championships instead. Largely unknown to the larger hockey world, the team surprised many by winning the gold medal.[5]

Throughout the rest of the 1950s the World Championships were largely contested between Canada and the Soviet Union. That changed in the early 1960s. Canada won the gold in 1961, and after missing the 1962 tournament due to political issues, the Soviets would win the gold medal every year until 1972.[6] They faced perhaps their greatest upset at the 1976 World Championships; in their opening match against host Poland, the Soviets were defeated 6–4.[7]

In 1972 the Soviets played Canada in an exhibition series that saw the Soviet national team play a team composed of National Hockey League (NHL) players for the first time. Both the Olympics and World Championships did not allow professionals, so the best Canadian players were never able to compete against the Soviets, and in protest at this Canada had left international hockey in 1970. This series, known as the Summit Series, was a chance to see how the NHL players would fare. In eight games (four in Canada, four in the USSR), the teams were close, and it took until the final 34 seconds of the eighth game for Canada to win the series, four games to three, with one tie.[8]

At the 1980 Winter Olympics, the Soviets also had one of their most notable losses. Playing the United States in the medal round, the Soviets lost 4–3. This match, later dubbed the Miracle on Ice, was notable because it had the Soviets, recognized as the top international team in the world, against an American team composed largely of university-level players. The Americans would go on to win the gold medal in the tournament, while the Soviets finished with the silver, only the second time they failed to win gold at the Olympics since their debut in 1956.[9]

The reforms of the 1980s in the Soviet Union had a detrimental effect on the national team. No longer afraid to speak out against their treatment, players like Viacheslav Fetisov and Igor Larionov openly critiqued the management style of their coach, Viktor Tikhonov, which included being seculded in a military-style barracks for eleven months of the year. They also sought the chance to move to North America and play in the NHL, though the authorities were reluctant to allow this. Negotiations with the NHL began in the late 1980s over this, and in 1989 several players, including both Fetisov and Larionov, were permitted to leave the Soviet Union and join NHL teams.

Controversy

The advent of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc countries further eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage. The Soviet Union entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession, but many of whom were in reality paid by the state to train on a full-time basis.[10] Nevertheless, the IOC held to the traditional rules regarding amateurism.[11]

Stats

Leading scorers (Olympics, World Championships, Canada Cups, 1972 Summit Series)

  1. Sergei Makarov – 248 points
  2. Aleksandr Maltsev – 213+ points
  3. Valeri Kharlamov – 199 points
  4. Boris Mikhailov – 180 points
  5. Vladimir Petrov – 176 points

World Championship record

Year Location Result
1954 Stockholm,  Sweden Gold
1955 Krefeld / Dortmund / Cologne, West Germany  Silver
1957 Moscow,  Soviet Union Silver
1958 Oslo,  Norway Silver
1959 Prague / Bratislava,  Czechoslovakia Silver
1961 Geneva / Lausanne,   Switzerland Bronze
1962 Colorado Springs / Denver,  United States DNP
1963 Stockholm,  Sweden Gold
1965 Tampere,  Finland Gold
1966 Ljubljana,  Yugoslavia Gold
1967 Vienna,  Austria Gold
1968 Grenoble,  France Gold
1969 Stockholm,  Sweden Gold
1970 Stockholm,  Sweden Gold
1971 Bern / Geneva,   Switzerland Gold
1972 Prague,  Czechoslovakia Silver
1973 Moscow,  Soviet Union Gold
1974 Helsinki,  Finland Gold
1975 Munich / Düsseldorf,  West Germany Gold
1976 Katowice,  Poland Silver
1977 Vienna,  Austria Bronze
1978 Prague,  Czechoslovakia Gold
1979 Moscow,  Soviet Union Gold
1980 Lake Placid, New York,  United States Silver
1981 Gothenburg / Stockholm,  Sweden Gold
1982 Helsinki / Tampere,  Finland Gold
1983 Düsseldorf / Dortmund / Munich, West Germany  Gold
1985 Prague,  Czechoslovakia Bronze
1986 Moscow,  Soviet Union Gold
1987 Vienna,  Austria Silver
1989 Stockholm / Södertälje,  Sweden Gold
1990 Bern / Fribourg,   Switzerland Gold
1991 Turku / Helsinki / Tampere,  Finland Bronze

Summit Series record

Canada Cup record

  • 1976 – Finished in 3rd place
  • 1981 – Won championship
  • 1984 – Lost semifinal
  • 1987 – Lost final
  • 1991 – Finished in 5th place

Challenge Cup and Rendez-vous vs. NHL All-Stars

Notable players

Head coaches

Years Coach Achievements
1953Anatoli Tarasov
1953–1957Arkady Chernyshev1 Olympic gold medal, 2 World Championship gold medals, 2 World Championship silver medals
1958–1960 Anatoli Tarasov1 Olympic bronze medal, 2 World Championship silver medals
1961–1972Arkady Chernyshev3 Olympic gold medals, 9 World Championship gold medals, 1 World Championship silver medal, 1 World Championship bronze medal
1972–1974Vsevolod Bobrov2 World Championship gold medals
1974–1977Boris Kulagin1 Olympic gold medal, 1 World Championship gold medal, 1 World Championship silver medal, 1 World Championship bronze medal
1977–1991Viktor Tikhonov2 Olympic gold medals, 1 Olympic silver medal, 8 World Championship gold medals, 2 World Championship silver medals, 2 World Championship bronze medals

The "Hockeyklubban" episode of the 1991 TV series Sunes jul features Sune dribbling away the USSR national team. The episode was recording during the team's training camp in Sweden.[12]

See also

References

  1. ↑ IIHF (2008). "Who are the best six of all time?". IIHF.com. Retrieved 2017-05-20.
  2. ↑ Martin, Lawrence (1990). The Red Machine: The Soviet Quest to Dominate Canada’s Game. Toronto: Doubleday Canada. pp. 25–26.
  3. ↑ Martin. The Red Machine. p. 31–32.
  4. ↑ Martin. The Red Machine. p. 34.
  5. ↑ IIHF (2008). "Soviets hammer Canada, win gold at their first Worlds". IIHF.com. Retrieved 2017-05-20.
  6. ↑ IIHF (2008). "1972 – Soviet streak of nine straight World golds ends". IIHF.com. Retrieved 2017-05-21.
  7. ↑ IIHF (2008). "Poland scores biggest shocker in World Championship history". IIHF.com. Retrieved 2017-05-21.
  8. ↑ MacSkimming, Roy (1996). Cold War: The Amazing Canada-Soviet Hockey Series of 1972. Greystone Books.
  9. ↑ Coffey, Wayne (2005). The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team. New York City: Crown Publishers.
  10. ↑ Benjamin, Daniel (1992-07-27). "Traditions Pro Vs. Amateur". Time. Retrieved 2009-03-18.
  11. ↑ Schantz, Otto. "The Olympic Ideal and the Winter Games Attitudes Towards the Olympic Winter Games in Olympic Discourses—from Coubertin to Samaranch" (PDF). Comité International Pierre De Coubertin. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 5, 2013. Retrieved September 13, 2008.
  12. ↑ Johannes Nylander (10 December 2013). "Sören Olsson om Sunes jul" (in Swedish). Sveriges Television. Retrieved 12 April 2015.

Bibliography

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