Как это было

Результаты хоккейного турнира XIII Олимпийских Игр 

Американцы о русских: Russian Way. "Нью-Йорк Таймз" 18 февраля 1980 года. На английском языке

22 февраля 1980 года. Стоп-кадры мачта СССР-США

Фото-галерея советских хоккеистов, членов сборной СССР 1980 года

18 February, 1980. Lake Placid, New York

In the noontime chill of the old Olympic Arena, the noise sounded like gunfire. Hockey pucks cracked against the Plexiglas, boomed against the wooden boards and stuttered against the goaltender's leather pads. This was the Soviet Union team in rehearsal. The joke among hockey people is that the Russian's practices are better than most team's games, even National Hockey League games. But it's not a joke to those teams that must play them in the Olympic tournament.

"They are," says one NHL visitor, "like a skunk at a garden party."

As they awaited today's game with Finland, the Russians were the Olympics' only unbeaten, untied and unmerciful team. They had strafed Japan, 16-0, and the Netherlands, 17-4, before their 8-1 triumph Saturday over Poland, when half of dosen anti-Soviet political banners were confiscated. Unless the ice melts, or unless the United States team or another team performs a miracle, as did the American squad in 1960, the Russian are expected to win the Oltympic gold medal for the sixth time in the last seven tournaments.

"But this is a very unusual practice for them," a long time observer of the Russians was saying now. "Not everybody is working out."

On the ice yesterday, only 13 players had joined Viktor Tikhonov, the coach, and Vladimir Jurzinov, his assistant, who resembled Santa Clause in their floppy stocking caps. But the other seven players, including the 35-year-old captain and center, Boris Mikhailov, were in the stands. Throughout its Olympic stay, the Soviet team quietlyhas been guarded by New Your State troopers alert for anti-Soviet political demonstarators. Bundled in thick red jackets and pants, the other seven players were not sprawled in repose. Instead, they were leaning forward on the edges of their red plastic chairs, watching their teammates perspire as intently as the several dozen aficionados who wandered in to view technique the way medical students study surgeons at work.
 

Виктор Тихонов

Inside the blue line, 30-years-old Valery Vasilev, the Russain's best defenseman, was hunched over like a puma in a tree. From the side boards, the young defensman, Viacheslav Fetisov, slid him passes as Viktor Tikhonov watched.

One after another, at intervals of three to four seconds at the most, Valery Vasiliev slammed slap shot at 27-year-old Vladislav Tretyak, the Russian's celebrated goaltenders, who blocked most of them. But of the 10 shots, only one was wide of the net. And when Valery Vasiliev shot, he never hesitated, he never missed connecting solidly with the puck. When he shot, it was all one motion, the same way that, in the Russian translation, "icehockey" is all one word. 

The "icehockey" history goes back only about 35 years. Not until after World War II did the Russians hold their first national championships. Not until 1956 did they enter a team in Olympics, the year they won their first gold medal.

The official version of that history is contained in the 56-page "icehockey" section of 211-page "The USSR Olympic Team" media guide, in both Russian and English, with a hard red cover that is available here in the headquarters of Tass, the official Soviet press agency. Its propaganda is obvious. But the guide also supports the theory of some NHL oriented hockey people that a Communist system lends itself to a team game better than a star system does.

"Soviet icehockey," it says in the Olympic Guide, "has been developed since its first years in peculiar way. Those who inaugurated the game in the country played other games and above all football and bandy. They helped to form teh school of Soviet icehockey which prompted ice hockey as a game of collective and combinational tactics in a high tempo."

In addition to their five Olympic gold medals, the Russian have competed in 24 world and European championships, winning 16 world titles and 19 European titles. In those tournaments, the Russians have won 176 games, tied 10 and lost only 23 while scoring 1402 goals in stark contrast to teh opposition's 394 goals. The guide acknowledges that Canada has won more world championships, but adds, "the players of the country where the game of ice hockey originated participated in 35 world championships."

The development of the Russians is best understood in the overhelming numbers of its players, facilities and instructors. According to its Olympic guide, the Soviet Union has: *26.077 physical education collectives in the enterprises, construction sites, institutions, collective farms and Soviet farms, and schools that have ice hockey sections *749.940 players who go in for icehockey in those sections. *287.291 icehockey players who have official sport categories; 6.461 of them are athletes of the 1st grade of Candidates for Master of Sport. *211 icehockey players who are Master of Sport or Master of Sport, International Class *986 full-time coaches who train the qualified icehockey players. *50.469 unpaid public instructors who train the icehockey players of mass grading. *14.460 icehockey rinks that are at disposal of those who are practicing the game. *55.637 referees who umpire icehockey matches.

Those numbers, of course, are consistent with Soviet philosophy that "physical education and sport become one of the most popular forms of active rest among the people" in a nation with a population of 265 million. But sometimes a hockey player is a hockey player is a hockey player. During practice yesterday, as Valery Vasilev stood motionless near center ice for a moment, he yawned. The coach was looking the other way.