1988-89 Central Red Army Evgeny Davydov Jersey

Born on this date in 1967, right winger Evgeny Davydov started his career with his hometown Traktor Chelyabinsk with 5 games in the 1984-85 season. That season his international career began with the European U18 Junior tournament. He became a regular the following season with 11 goals and 16 points in 39 games. During that season he also competed in his first World Junior Championship, scoring 3 goals and 4 points in 7 games as the Soviets won the gold medal.

As was often the case during the time of the Soviet Union, the players recognized as being the best in the land found themselves becoming members of the Soviet Red Army and being assigned to play hockey for the army's sports club, CSKA Moscow, also known as Central Red Army. There were many benefits to playing for Red Army, as the majority of the Soviet Union National Team was comprised of the Red Army squad. The downside was living life under the stern oversight of head coach Viktor Tikhonov, who had strict control of the player's lives for 11 months a year.

Davydov joined the famed Red Army club in 1986

Davydov's Red Army career began with the 1986-87 season with 11 goals in 32 points on the high powered club. Davydov also returned to the World Junior Championships in 1987. Things did not go according to form however, as the Soviets entered their final game with a 2-3-1 record in their game against rivals Canada, who needed to win by five goals to secure the gold medal.

With the Canadians leading 4-2 with 6:07 left in the second period, a fight broke out which led to Valeri Zelepukin, who was playing hurt with a separated shoulder, being pummeled by Mike Keane. Davydov left the Soviet bench to come to Zelepukin's rescue, which sparked the most infamous bench clearing brawl in international hockey history. The officials were powerless to break up the battling players and eventually left the ice and had the lights turned off in the arena in an attempt to end the fighting.

Eventually, after the brawl lasted some 20 minutes, both teams were disqualified from the tournament, which cost Canada a medal since they were guaranteed at least a bronze. The incident became known as The Punch-up in Piestany.

The Soviets and Canadians battle after Davydov sparked a bench clearing brawl

Davydov would play five more seasons with CSKA at the end of their incredible dynasty, winning Soviet League championships in 1987, 1988 and 1989, a Soviet Cup in 1988, the IIHF European Champions Cup four times from 1987 to 1990 and a Spengler Cup in 1991. His best seasons with Red Army came in 1989-90 with 17 goals in 44 games and in 1991-92 with 25 points in just 27 games.

During that time period, Davydov would appear in his only World Championship in 1990, where he scored 5 goals and 9 points in 9 games as the Big Red Machine of the Soviet Union would win it's final of 22 gold medals.

The 1990 gold medal winning Soviet Union National Team

Also during this period of Davydov's career, massive changes were happening politically in the Soviet Union and the country ceased to exist in late December of 1991 while preparations were being made for the upcoming 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France. While the Soviet Union ceased to exists, a coalition of former member states competed together as the Unified Team. So short were the preparations before the Games, that the Unified Team wore the same Soviet jerseys as before, only with the letters CCCP removed. On the home white jerseys there was even the curvature around the "P" remaining!

No matter what they were called, these were still the elite of the Soviet hockey system, who roared through the competition with a 7-1 record to defeat Canada 3-1 in the final to win the Olympic gold medal to go with his World Championship and World Junior gold.

Davydov jumps on top of the goal as the Soviet Union

celebrates its' 1992 Olympic gold medal

With his Olympic obligations to the Motherland now completed, Davydov began the next phase of his career as he reported to the Winnipeg Jets for the final dozen games of their NHL schedule where he impressed with 4 goals and 7 points followed by his first playoff experience with an additional 7 games.

Davydov then completed his first, full NHL season in 1992-93, showing good promise with 28 goals and 49 points in 79 games, nearly twice as many as he had ever played during a Soviet regular season, where his previous maximum was 44. Also of note was his +/- rating of -2, showing he was not a one way defensive liability.

Davydov showed promise with the Jets in 1992-93

Despite the promise shown by Davydov in 1992-93, he was considered expendable in light of the Jets having a lineup that consisted of the likes of rookie superstar Teemu Selanne, Thomas Steen, fellow Russian Alexei Zhamnov, Darrin Shannon and Keith Tkachuk which resulted in Davydov being traded in September of 1993 to the expansion Florida Panthers.

Davydov's time with the Panthers was brief

Life with the expansion Panthers was difficult and not a good fit for Davydov, and after just 21 games and a mere 2 goals, he was traded to the Ottawa Senators in January of 1994 where he fared no better, scoring just 5 goals in 40 games for the even more offensively challenged Senators.

His 1994-95 season cannot be descirbed as anything but a bust, as Davydov played just 3 NHL games with Ottawa, scoring just once. He also saw action in 11 games for the San Diego Gulls and 18 with the Chicago Wolves, both of the IHL. His final NHL totals were 155 games played, 40 goals and 39 assists for 79 points.

Ottawa was Davydov's final NHL stop

The remainder of his career was spent back in Europe, where he spent the next ten seasons meandering through its various pro leagues. 1995-96 saw Davydov play 7 games with EHC Olten of the Swiss second division followed by 3 regular season and 13 playoff games with HC Amiens in France, highlighted by 15 goals and 24 points during the playoffs.

The next two seasons brought a measure of stability, as he signed with Brynas IF Gavle in Sweden, scoring a league leading 30 goals and 48 points in 46 games in 1996-97 followed by a 33 point season in 40 games with Brynas in 1997-98.

Davydov with Brynas of the Swedish Elitserien

He was on the move again in 1998-99, splitting time between Ak Bars Kazan of the Russian Superleague (14 games) and EV Zug in Switzerland (11 games).

For the next two seasons, Davydov was back with Olten in the Swiss second division, where he excelled with 26 goals and 56 points in 1999-00 before setting career highs in 2000-01 when he cut loose for 31 goals and 80 points in 40 games, an average of two points per game.

He could not sustain that success however, as 2001-02 saw him struggle with 2 goals in 7 games with Karpat Oulu in Finland followed by 5 goals in 34 games with the Berlin Capitals in the German DEL.

If possible, Davydov's 2002-03 season was worse, as he only managed cameo appearances which amounted to 5 scoreless games with Krylja Sovetov Moscow (Soviet Wings) followed by a mere 2 games with HC Milano in the top Italian league, where he scored his lone goal of the season while acquiring another stamp in his passport.

In 2003-04, he showed some signs of his past promise. After 12 games with Olofstroms IK in the Swedish second division, Davydov again returned to Russia, only this time in the third division with Velkom Moscow, where he scored 10 goals and 30 points in 30 games.

His final season of play was with Titan Kiln, also in the Russian third division, where in 32 games he wrapped up his career with 7 goals and 25 points.

After starting his career with the prestige and stability of playing with Central Red Army and winning three league championships and three gold medals in the World Juniors, World Championships and Olympics, his move to the NHL, which looked promising after his first full season in Winnipeg, ended quickly 64 games later and he began a journey through the hockey wilderness, never spending more than two consecutive seasons with any single team, as he moved among ten leagues spread among seven countries - Switzerland, France, Sweden, Russia, Germany, Finland and Italy.

Davydov waves to the crowd at the 1992 Olympic hockey medal ceremony

Today's featured jersey is a 1988-89 Central Red Army Evgeny Davydov jersey. Unlike today's featured jersey, this is a prime example of a typical Soviet jersey from the era that has been hammered with game use that has worn the combination of silk screening and heat pressed graphics, which have been both ground off or peeling off, particularly along the waist stripe, lower left arm and lower torso.

The Super Series of games, in which Soviet Club teams came to North America to play exhibition games against NHL club teams, gave the top Soviet clubs who came over in 1989 and 1990 (Red Army, Dynamo Riga, Khimik Voskresensk, Soviet Wings and Dynamo Moscow) an injection of cash and a nice, new set of top quality jerseys.

While some of the team's jerseys appear to have been worn for games back in the Soviet Union with Cyrillic names added, Red Army in particular, others were likely sold following the final game of the club's North American tour, probably in one of a few different manners, either as a complete team set to a well funded memorabilia seller in a shady deal out of the back door of the locker room by the team's head coach for personal gain or individually by the team's equipment manager as an impromptu garage sale to the lucky fans who happened to be in the area or the the knowledgeable individual collector hoping for just such an opportunity after the Soviet's final game before heading home.

Bonus jersey: Today's bonus jersey is a 1990-91 Central Red Army Evgeny Davydov jersey as worn during his time with the most dominant club in the history of hockey. Unlike many of the somtimes paper thin mesh jerseys with silkscreened or heat sealed graphics as seen in today's featured jersey, this Red Army jersey is a top of the line, Canadian-made CCM jersey produced to the same standards as one would find in the NHL and very likely produced for use in the 1989, 1990 or 1991 Super Series and then converted to Cyrillic names for use back home in the Soviet League.

Extra bonus jersey: Today's extra bonus jersey is a 1992 Unified Team Evgeny Davydov jersey as used in the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. With the upheaval of the political situation in the Soviet Union in 1991, there was little time to sort out what kind of identity the brand new team made up of six of the 15 former Soviet republics would compete with.

The Unified Team competed under the Olympic flag, and with just five weeks before the games were to commence, the jersey supplier to all the Olympic teams, Tackla of Finland, made up a set of the usual Soviet Union jerseys, only without the "CCCP" lettering across the chest. Note they did not even alter the chest stripes, which were still notched on the left hand side for the curvature of the "P"!

This was the one and only appearance for these stop-gap jerseys, as Russia competed in a new set of jerseys at the 1992 World Championships held just two months later in April as an independent nation, separate from the other five countries of the Unified Team.

Unlike the screened or heat pressed Soviet jerseys, this Tackla jersey uses the dye sublimation process, in which each jersey starts as a white blank jersey and then has all the graphics dyed into the jersey, not added onto the jersey, a much superior process which is permanent and allows the jersey to retain its vibrant colors indefinitely.

photo courtesy of Classic Auctions

 

Today's video selection is the gold medal game from the 1992 Olympics, as the Unified Team, wearing their jerseys without any national identity, captures the gold medal against Canada, followed by a brief clip of the medal ceremony.

1992 Unified Team Andrei Kovalenko Jersey

The world outside of hockey was in a time of upheaval as the 1992 Winter Olympic Games in Albertville, France were approaching.

Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev had ushered in a new era of reforms. The Central Committee of the Communist Party agreed to give up it's monopoly of power in February of 1990 and several Soviet Republics had declared their independence, with Lithuania and Estonia doing so in March of 1990 and Latvia following in May.

In March of 1991 a referendum vote was held and 76.4% was cast in favor of retaining the Soviet Union, but with a level of reforms. Seven republics boycotted the vote however, so the results were far from being as decisive as they sounded. In June of 1991, Boris Yeltsin won the post of President of Russia and took office on July 10, while Gorbachev still led the Soviet Union.

Yeltsin and Gorbachev

Yeltsin's policies favored the the dissolution of the Soviet Union, while Gorbachev attempted to restructure the Soviet Union as still a single entity. The New Union Treaty was set to be signed on August 20, 1991 which would convert the Soviet Union to a federation of independent republics with a common president and military force.

On August 19, 1991, hardliners looking to preserve the Soviet Union, and their own personal power in the process, put Gorbachev under house arrest and attempted to revoke his reforms which had granted unprecedented freedoms. They issued an emergency decree, suspended political activity and shut down most of the newspapers. Yeltsin quickly condemned their actions and the coup organizers attempted to have him arrested but failed.

Three days later the coup failed, it's organizers were arrested and Gorbachev returned to power as president of the Soviet Union, but with his powers now compromised.

On December 1, 1991, 90% of the voters in Ukraine voted for independence from the Soviet Union. Then a week later the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus met to discuss how to proceed and signed an agreement to dissolve the Soviet Union and replace it with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which Gorbachev described as an unconstitutional coup.

On December 12th, Russia ratified the Belavezha Accords and on December 21, 1991 representatives of all the member republics of the Soviet Union signed the Alma-Ata Protocol, confirming the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The same day, all of the former Soviet republics agreed to join the CIS with the exception of Georgia and the three Baltic States, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.

Gorbachev resigned on December 25th and transferred any remaining powers of his office to Yeltsin and the Soviet hammer and sickle flag was lowered for the final time over the Kremlin on December 26th. By December 31, 1991, all official Soviet government operations had ceased and the individual republics assumed governmental control.

This greatly affected their World Junior Hockey Team, as they had left for Germany as the Soviet Union, which ceased to exist midway through the tournament. They eventually won the gold medal only to return home to find their country no longer existed!

The Olympics began on February 8, 1992 in Albertville, France with a joint team consisting of players from six of the former 15 Soviet republics, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Uzbekistan and Armenia competing as the Unified Team under the Olympic flag.

The Unified Team was placed in Group B and completed their schedule with a 4-1 record with dominant wins over Switzerland, Norway, France and a one goal victory over Canada and their only loss coming to Czechoslovakia, who would also cease to exist as a nation at the end of the year when it divided into the Czech Republic an Slovakia.

The Unified Team battles Czechoslovakia

The Unified Team's second place finish in Group B saw them matched up against Finland, who finished third in Group A, on February 18th. The Unified Team won easily by a score of 6-1 to advance to the semifinals against the United States, who they easily dispatched 5-2 to earn a place in the gold medal game on this date in 1992.

There was no score after the first period of play, despite the first power play for Canada and three subsequent ones for the Unified Team, including a brief 5-on-3 for 12 seconds. The shots on goal were tied at 10-10 after one.

The game continued on and the tension grew as the second period also passed with no scoring. The Unified Team had the only power play of the period, but failed to convert. The Unified Team clearly carried the play in the second period, outshooting the Canadians 15-6.

Finally one minute and one second into the third period, Vyacheslav Butsayev solved Canadian goaltender Sean Burke with an assist from Evgeny Davidov. The game remained close for the next 14 minutes until Igor Boldin added to the Unified Team's lead when he scored from Nikolai Borschevsky and Vitali Prokhorov at 15:54, leaving the Canadians just four minutes to do what they had failed to do in the previous 56, score on goaltender Mikhail Shtalenkov.

1:26 later they did just that, giving them hope that a comeback was in progress when Chris Lindberg scored with assists from Joe Juneau and Jason Woolley to reduce the Unified Team's lead back to one.

Vyacheslav Bykov sealed the gold for the Unified Team with their third goal of the period with just 1:09 remaining from Andrei Khomutov. to make the final score 3-1.

The Unified Team celebrated their gold medal win over Canada

Surprisingly, none of the four goals in the period came on the power play despite two penalties for Canada and four for the Unified Team, which included 25 seconds of 5-on-3 midway through the period and 59 seconds more beginning at the 13:06 mark which Canada failed to convert. Despite the edge in powerplay time, the Canadians were outshot 12-6 in the third period for a final edge of 37-22 for the Unified Team, which consisted of 19 Russians, 2 Ukrainians, a Belorussian and a Lithuanian.

The Unified Team at the medal ceremony

The victors posing with their gold medals

By the time the next Winter Olympics game just two years later, in an effort to separate them from the Summer Olympics, the political situation in the former Soviet Union had a chance to stabilize, as did the world of hockey, which saw the creation of many new national teams, including those of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan which were all former republics of the Soviet Union, but now had their own national teams competing in international hockey, as well as the additions of Slovakia, Croatia and Slovenia, which were created as a result of the divisions of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

Russia, now fielding it's own team in 1994, placed fourth and out of the medals for the first time since they joined the Olympics as the Soviet Union in 1956.

Today's featured jersey is a 1992 Unified Team Andrei Kovalenko jersey as used in the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. With the upheaval of the political situation in the Soviet Union in 1991, there was little time to sort out what kind of identity the brand new team made up of six of the 15 former Soviet republics would compete with. Mind you, the Unified Team was not the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Team, which was comprised 12 of the 15 Soviet republics and acted more like an association comparable to the European Union, rather than a country, such as the Soviet Union had been.

The Unified Team competed under the Olympic flag, and with just five weeks before the games were to commence, the jersey supplier to all the Olympic teams, Tackla of Finland, made up a set of the usual Soviet Union jerseys, only without the "CCCP" lettering across the chest. Note that they did not even continue across the chest or even alter the remaining stripes, which were still notched on the left hand side for the curvature of the "P"!

This was the one and only appearance for these stop-gap jerseys, as Russia competed in a new set of jerseys at the 1992 World Championships held just two months later in April as an independent nation, separate from the other five countries of the Unified Team.

photo courtesy of Classic Auctions

Bonus jersey: Today's bonus jersey is a 1992 Unified Team Alexander Andrievsky jersey. This road red jersey was prepared for Andrievsky, who did not make the final roster for the Unified Team in 1992.

Note the difference in the red jerseys compared to the white set, as the inner ends of the white and yellow chest stripe on the player's left side both end in a vertical alignment, unlike the white jersey's chest stripes which still retain the curvature of the absent "P" from the former CCCP cresting.

 

Today's video selection is the gold medal game from the 1992 Olympics, as the Unified Team, wearing their jerseys without any national identity, captures the gold medal against Canada.

This next clip begins with the Unified Team's Group B game against Czechoslovakia and is of superior video quality compared to the previous clip of the gold medal game. It turned out to be their only loss of the tournament. The video continues with the Czechs playing against Sweden, Canada and finally the United States in the bronze medal game.

For those with the time, here is the complete game between the Unified Team and the United States from the 1992 Olympics.

Red Army Movie Green Unit Week - Head Coach Viktor Tikhonov

In honor of the US release of the documentary feature film "Red Army", which had it's widespread release yesterday and continues nationwide over the course of the next month (click here for the schedule of cities and dates), we are have featured each member of the fames Soviet Central Red Army Hockey Club's famed "Green Unit" of forwards Sergei Makarov, Igor Larionov and  Vladimir Krutov and defensemen Alexi Kasatonov and Viacheslav Fetisov.

The Green Unit was assembled and coached by the legendary Viktor Tikhonov, whose all-powerful, dictatorial style brought the team great successes, but at the cost of the freedom of his players, who were required to not only train, but live in the team's training base for 11 months out of the year.

Tikhonov's own playing career began in 1949 with VVS Moscow, the hockey club of the Soviet Air Force, under the guidance of Soviet hockey innovator Anatoli Tarasov. He later moved to Dynamo Moscow in 1953-54, where he played for ten seasons, eventually finishing his career with 35 goals in 296 games played, four consecutive Soviet League championships (3 with VVS 1951-1953 and 1 with Dynamo in 1954) and a USSR Cup in 1952 with VVS.

After the end of his playing days, he became an assistant coach with Dynamo Moscow in 1964 and later became a head coach with Dynamo Riga. He was later named head coach of the powerful CSKA Moscow (Central Red Army) in 1977. Along with those duties also came the position as head coach of the Soviet National Team, as the vast majority of the national team was made up of players from CSKA.

Dynamo Riga and young head coach Viktor Tikhonov

His success was immediate, as he led CSKA to a Soviet Championship League title in his first season. Following the domestic championship, Tikhonov guided the Soviet Union to the 1978 World Championship, setting the tone for what would become a historical run of success unequalled by any coach in hockey history.

With CSKA's unparalleled ability to choose nearly at will any player it desired from other clubs, by "drafting" them into military service and then assigning them to report to duty with the army' s hockey club, CSKA was essentially a perpetual Soviet National All-Star Team competing in a domestic league. This obvious advantage led to CSKA winning 12 consecutive Soviet Championship League titles under Tikhonov's reign. Additionally, CSKA would win the Soviet Cup in 1977, 1979 and 1988, the European Cup 14 times in 1976 and 1978-1990 and the Spengler Cup in 1991.

Additionally, the World Championship gold medal was nearly an annual right, as the Soviets were successful in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1989 and 1990 - 8 out of a possible 10 times, with a silver medal in 1987 and a bronze in 1985, making for 12 out of 12 placings in the medals.

During that period of time, the World Championships were not held during Olympic years, and the Soviet Union came home with a sliver medal in 1980, followed by gold medals in both 1984 and 1988. In 1984, the Soviet Union went undefeated in seven games with 48 goals for an 5 against, while 1988 saw them finish 7-1 with 45 goals for and 13 against.

The undefeated 1984 Olympic gold medal winning Soviet National Team

Other international success included soundly defeating the NHL All-Stars in the 1979 Challenge Cup and capturing the 1981 Canada Cup tournament, the only nation to defeat the Canadians in five tries.

Viktor Zhluktov celebrates after the Soviet Union’s
shocking 8-1 win in the 1981 Canada Cup final

Despite the success of his teams, he was an unpopular figure with his players, as he was an absolute iron-fisted dictator, controlling not only the player's on the ice, but their personal lives as well, confining them to barracks away from their wives and families for intensive training 10 or 11 months out of the year.

This eventually led to friction followed by an open revolt by stars Igor Larionov and Viacheslav Fetisov in 1991, as they desired more personal freedom and the opportunity to sign a contract to play in the NHL in particular. Eventually the political and economic changes in the Soviet Union resulted in the national federation allowing players to leave for the NHL, with their incentive being a portion of the proceeds from the player's contracts proving too lucrative to pass up, despite Tikhonov's desire to keep the national team intact.

"In the past, players stuck it out with the national team for 10 years," Tikhonov told the Toronto Sun in September 1991. "I will have to replace the departed players with juniors and they'll stay with me until they are 23 or 24, before they leave. I'm trying my best to keep the 18- and 19-year-olds from jumping to Scandinavia, Central Europe, or North America. I don't want the drain on our talent to continue, because we won't have a national team at all."

Once players began to receive permission to leave for North America, Tikhonov's obvious advantage in compiling the CSKA roster deteriorated and no more domestic titles would be forthcoming in his remaining years as CSKA coach through 1996. The strength of the National Team had also diminished, as players such as Alexander Mogilny had been lost to defection and Tikhonov did not allow players drafted by NHL clubs, such as Pavel Bure, Valeri Zelepukin, Evgeny Davydov and Vladimir Konstantinov to compete in the 1991 Canada Cup for fear of them defecting to the west as well, which led to a dismal 1-3-1 record to close out the history of the Soviet Union National Team on a down note.

Following the breakup of the Soviet Union in December of 1991, Tikhonov guided the Unified Team to gold at the 1992 Olympics, the final great triumph of his long and successful career.

"This is the kind of joy I haven't experienced in a long time." He explained that he had mellowed, recognizing the need for a new approach to lure NHL and European stars to play for the Unified Team. "We had a lot of new players and we didn't know them very well," Tikhonov said after the Games. "We lost a lot of good players. In order to get fresh players, the coaches had to review our approach."

Tikhonov would return for the 1994 Olympics after relinquishing his duties as coach at the World Championships, guiding Russia to the Final Round playoffs and an eventual 4th place finish.

In addition to the many, many honors and awards he would receive in the Soviet Union and later Russia, including the prestigious Order of Lenin, Tikhonov would be inducted into the International Ice Hockey Hall of Fame in 1998. Later, when the IIHF named it's Centennial All-Star Team, four the six players named, Vladislav Tretiak, Fetisov, Valeri Kharlamov and Makarov, all had played for CSKA and the Soviet Union under Tikhonov during their careers.

Tikhonov receiving the Order of Friendship in 2010

Today's featured jersey is a 1981 Soviet Union National Team Sergei Makarov jersey as worn during the 1981 Canada Cup. While the Soviet Union was used to having it's way at the World Championships and the Olympics, the Canada Cup was the one time where each country could send it's best players regardless of their amateur or professional status, which benefitted Canada more than any other country.

The Soviet Union had opened it's tournament with a 1-1 tie against their rivals from Czechoslovakia and received a sound 7-3 thumping at the hands of Canada in the Round Robin portion of the tournament, knowing that both countries had already qualified for the playoffs. The Soviets then downed the Czechs 4-1 in the Semifinals and stunned Canada 8-1 in the finals, scoring the last seven goals of the contest after the game was tied at 1-1 eight minutes into the second period.

This style of Soviet jersey with the diamond shapes around the waist was used from 1977 until 1983, including gold medals at the World Championships in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 and 1983, the 1981 Canada Cup, the 1979 Challenge Cup vs. the NHL All-Stars and most famously, a silver medal at the 1980 Olympics.

photo courtesy of Classic Auctions

Bonus jersey: Today's bonus jersey is a 1992 Unified Team Andrei Kovalenko jersey as used in the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, Tikhonov's final great success of his coaching career.

With the upheaval of the political situation in the Soviet Union in 1991, there was little time to sort out what kind of identity the brand new team made up of six of the 15 former Soviet republics would compete with. Mind you, the Unified Team was not the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Team, which was comprised 12 of the 15 Soviet republics and acted more like an association similar to the European Union, rather than a country, such as the Soviet Union had.

The Unified Team competed under the Olympic flag, and with just five weeks before the games were to commence, the jersey supplier to all the Olympic teams, Tackla of Finland, made up a set of the usual Soviet Union jerseys, only without the "CCCP" lettering across the chest. Note they did not even continue or even alter the chest stripes, which were still notched on the left hand side for the curvature of the "P"!

This was the one and only appearance for these stop-gap jerseys, as Russia competed in a new set of jerseys in time for the 1992 World Championships two months later in April with"Россия" now across the front in rushed, simple one color block letters rather than the fancier two color, drop shadowed letters used during the 1991 season prior to the fall of the Soviet Union.

Photo courtesy of Classic Auctions

Extra bonus jersey: Today's extra bonus jersey is a 1988-89 CSKA Moscow Alexander Mogilny jersey from Red Army's 13th consecutive Soviet Championship League title under Tikhonov just weeks prior to Mogilny defecting to the west. Mogilny's departure in early May after that year's World Championships in Sweden, effectively marked the end of an era for Tikhnov and the supremacy of CSKA, as prior to the following season Fetisov, Larionov and Vladimir Krutov left the Soviet Union with permission of the authorities to play in the NHL, brining to a close their unparalleled streak of championship dominance.

Today's video section begins with highlights of the final game of the 1981 Canada Cup tournament.

Our next video selection is the gold medal game from the 1992 Olympics, as the Unified Team, wearing their jerseys without any national identity, captures the gold medal against Canada, followed by a brief clip of the medal ceremony.

For those of you with the time, here is a half hour interview with Tikhonov on the occasion of the Russian's first World Championship victory in 15 years in 2008, which features his long standing view on team play over individual talent and his thoughts on many other topics.

It requires some concentration to listen to the translator over the original Russian language in the background, but is a rare chance for North Americans to hear his experience come through in his own words.

Finally, the trailer for the movie "Red Army", now showing in theaters across the United States and Canada.

  

  

Viktor Tikhonov

One of hockey history's most successful, respected and feared coaches, Viktor Tikhonov, passed away yesterday at the age of 84.

Tikhonov's own playing career began in 1949 with VVS Moscow, the hockey club of the Soviet Air Force, under the guidance of Soviet hockey innovator Anatoli Tarasov. He later moved to Dynamo Moscow in 1953-54, where he played for ten seasons, eventually finishing his career with 35 goals in 296 games played, four consecutive Soviet League championships (3 with VVS 1951-1953 and 1 with Dynamo in 1954) and a USSR Cup in 1952 with VVS.

After the end of his playing days, he became an assistant coach with Dynamo Moscow in 1964 and later became a head coach with Dynamo Riga. He was later named head coach of the powerful CSKA Moscow (Central Red Army) in 1977. Along with those duties also came the position as head coach of the Soviet National Team, as the vast majority of the national team was made up of players from CSKA.

Dynamo Riga and young head coach Viktor Tikhonov

His success was immediate, as he led CSKA to a Soviet Championship League title in his first season. Following the domestic championship, Tikhonov guided the Soviet Union to the 1978 World Championship, setting the tone for what would become a historical run of success unequalled by any coach in hockey history.

With CSKA's unparalleled ability to choose nearly at will any player it desired from other clubs, by "drafting" them into military service and then assigning them to report to duty with the army' s hockey club, CSKA was essentially a perpetual Soviet National All-Star Team competing in a domestic league. This obvious advantage led to CSKA winning 12 consecutive Soviet Championship League titles under Tikhonov's reign. Additionally, CSKA would win the Soviet Cup in 1977, 1979 and 1988, the European Cup 14 times in 1976 and 1978-1990 and the Spengler Cup in 1991.

Additionally, the World Championship gold medal was nearly an annual right, as the Soviets were successful in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1989 and 1990 - 8 out of a possible 10 times, with a silver medal in 1987 and a bronze in 1985, making for 12 out of 12 placings in the medals.

During that period of time, the World Championships were not held during Olympic years, and the Soviet Union came home with a sliver medal in 1980, followed by gold medals in both 1984 and 1988. In 1984, the Soviet Union went undefeated in seven games with 48 goals for an 5 against, while 1988 saw them finish 7-1 with 45 goals for and 13 against.

The undefeated 1984 Olympic gold medal winning Soviet National Team

Other international success included soundly defeating the NHL All-Stars in the 1979 Challenge Cup and capturing the 1981 Canada Cup tournament, the only nation to defeat the Canadians in five tries.

Viktor Zhluktov celebrates after the Soviet Union’s
shocking 8-1 win in the 1981 Canada Cup final

Despite the success of his teams, he was an unpopular figure with his players, as he was an absolute iron-fisted dictator, controlling not only the player's on the ice, but their personal lives as well, confining them to barracks away from their wives and families for intensive training 10 or 11 months out of the year.

This eventually led to friction followed by an open revolt by stars Igor Larionov and Viacheslav Fetisov in 1991, as they desired more personal freedom and the opportunity to sign a contract to play in the NHL in particular. Eventually the political and economic changes in the Soviet Union resulted in the national federation allowing players to leave for the NHL, with their incentive being a portion of the proceeds from the player's contracts proving too lucrative to pass up, despite Tikhonov's desire to keep the national team intact.

"In the past, players stuck it out with the national team for 10 years," Tikhonov told the Toronto Sun in September 1991. "I will have to replace the departed players with juniors and they'll stay with me until they are 23 or 24, before they leave. I'm trying my best to keep the 18- and 19-year-olds from jumping to Scandinavia, Central Europe, or North America. I don't want the drain on our talent to continue, because we won't have a national team at all."

Once players began to receive permission to leave for North America, Tikhonov's obvious advantage in compiling the CSKA roster deteriorated and no more domestic titles would be forthcoming in his remaining years as CSKA coach through 1996. The strength of the National Team had also diminished, as players such as Alexander Mogilny had been lost to defection and Tikhonov did not allow players drafted by NHL clubs, such as Pavel Bure, Valeri Zelepukin, Evgeny Davydov and Vladimir Konstantinov to compete in the 1991 Canada Cup for fear of them defecting to the west as well, which led to a dismal 1-3-1 record to close out the history of the Soviet Union National Team on a down note.

Following the breakup of the Soviet Union in December of 1991, Tikhonov guided the Unified Team to gold at the 1992 Olympics, the final great triumph of his long and successful career.

"This is the kind of joy I haven't experienced in a long time." He explained that he had mellowed, recognizing the need for a new approach to lure NHL and European stars to play for the Unified Team. "We had a lot of new players and we didn't know them very well," Tikhonov said after the Games. "We lost a lot of good players. In order to get fresh players, the coaches had to review our approach."

Tikhonov would return for the 1994 Olympics after relinquishing his duties as coach at the World Championships, guiding Russia to the Final Round playoffs and an eventual 4th place finish.

In addition to the many, many honors and awards he would receive in the Soviet Union and later Russia, including the prestigious Order of Lenin, Tikhonov would be inducted into the International Ice Hockey Hall of Fame in 1998. Later, when the IIHF named it's Centennial All-Star Team, four the six players named, Vladislav Tretiak, Fetisov, Valeri Kharlamov and Makarov, all had played for CSKA and the Soviet Union under Tikhonov during their careers.

Tikhonov receiving the Order of Friendship in 2010

Today's featured jersey is a 1981 Soviet Union National Team Sergei Makarov jersey as worn during the 1981 Canada Cup. While the Soviet Union was used to having it's way at the World Championships and the Olympics, the Canada Cup was the one time where each country could send it's best players regardless of their amateur or professional status, which benefitted Canada more than any other country.

The Soviet Union had opened it's tournament with a 1-1 tie against their rivals from Czechoslovakia and received a sound 7-3 thumping at the hands of Canada in the Round Robin portion of the tournament, knowing that both countries had already qualified for the playoffs. The Soviets then downed the Czechs 4-1 in the Semifinals and stunned Canada 8-1 in the finals, scoring the last seven goals of the contest after the game was tied at 1-1 eight minutes into the second period.

This style of Soviet jersey with the diamond shapes around the waist was used from 1977 until 1983, including gold medals at the World Championships in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 and 1983, the 1981 Canada Cup, the 1979 Challenge Cup vs. the NHL All-Stars and most famously, a silver medal at the 1980 Olympics.

photo courtesy of Classic Auctions

Bonus jersey: Today's bonus jersey is a 1992 Unified Team Andrei Kovalenko jersey as used in the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, Tikhonov's final great success of his coaching career.

With the upheaval of the political situation in the Soviet Union in 1991, there was little time to sort out what kind of identity the brand new team made up of six of the 15 former Soviet republics would compete with. Mind you, the Unified Team was not the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Team, which was comprised 12 of the 15 Soviet republics and acted more like an association similar to the European Union, rather than a country, such as the Soviet Union had.

The Unified Team competed under the Olympic flag, and with just five weeks before the games were to commence, the jersey supplier to all the Olympic teams, Tackla of Finland, made up a set of the usual Soviet Union jerseys, only without the "CCCP" lettering across the chest. Note they did not even continue or even alter the chest stripes, which were still notched on the left hand side for the curvature of the "P"!

This was the one and only appearance for these stop-gap jerseys, as Russia competed in a new set of jerseys in time for the 1992 World Championships two months later in April with"Россия" now across the front in rushed, simple one color block letters rather than the fancier two color, drop shadowed letters used during the 1991 season prior to the fall of the Soviet Union.

Photo courtesy of Classic Auctions

Extra bonus jersey: Today's extra bonus jersey is a 1988-89 CSKA Moscow Alexander Mogilny jersey from Red Army's 13th consecutive Soviet Championship League title under Tikhonov just weeks prior to Mogilny defecting to the west. Mogilny's departure in early May after that year's World Championships in Sweden, effectively marked the end of an era for Tikhnov and the supremacy of CSKA, as prior to the following season Fetisov, Larionov and Vladimir Krutov left the Soviet Union with permission of the authorities to play in the NHL, brining to a close their unparalleled streak of championship dominance.

Today's video section begins with highlights of the final game of the 1981 Canada Cup tournament.

Our next video selection is the gold medal game from the 1992 Olympics, as the Unified Team, wearing their jerseys without any national identity, captures the gold medal against Canada, followed by a brief clip of the medal ceremony.

For those of you with the time, here is a half hour interview with Tikhonov on the occasion of the Russian's first World Championship victory in 15 years in 2008, which features his long standing view on team play over individual talent and his thoughts on many other topics.

It requires some concentration to listen to the translator over the original Russian language in the background, but is a rare chance for North Americans to hear his experience come through in his own words.