30 for 30 on Soviet Hockey: Were Canadians thugs?

Thanks for the link. I was unaware of Jonathan Hock's project until you posted this. Still looking forward to eventually seeing Red Army.

 

In all seriousness, from what I've read about the Red Army doc, Slava Fetisov claims Tikhonov favored either the team members from Central Red Army over those of Dynamo (or vice versa, cannot remember for sure) and Tretiak was from the group Tikhonov discriminated against. Fetisov is still apparently highly ticked about it.

 

As one of the few people on this board who has been to Flin Flon, I can guarantee that laying a two hander is more than justified in trying to GTFO there. A desolate dump.

 

Pretty much all I need to know about the town I learned by reading the Tiger Williams autobiography. He agrees with you.

 

Watched this last night. Fascinating. A little hard to get through with all the subtitles, but the Fetisov parts were terrific (sidebar: his daughter is smoking).
I didn't know about the Olympic Village prison in Lake Placid.
Didn't know all the behind-the-scenes stuff with Fetisov and the Devils.
I knew Clarke was a dickhead. (I had a brief run-in with him once when my question insinuated that the Flyers gained an advantage when Paul Holmgren induced Dave Taylor to retaliate and both went to the box. He said, what are you talking about? I said, you losing Holmgren and the Kings losing Taylor seems to be advantage for you. He started yelling, "Paul Holmgren is a damn good hockey player.") I knew he intentionally injured that guy but not that he threatened to whack the ref.
Terrific ending with Fetisov hoisting the Cup in Moscow and calling that the real Miracle.

 

Tikhonov's NY Times obit:

The Soviets took an early lead in the medal-round game, but the Americans rallied, tying the score at 2-2 just before the end of the first period. It was then that Tikhonov made what he later called “the biggest mistake of my career.”

Frustrated with the American goal, he surprised both teams by replacing goaltender Vladislav Tretiak, regarded as the best in the world, with Vladimir Myshkin. Although Myshkin helped hold the United States scoreless in the second period, the Americans scored twice in the third and won the game, 4-3.

In “The Boys of Winter,” by Wayne Coffey (2005), Tikhonov was quoted as saying that his decision to pull his starting goalie “was a result of getting caught up in emotions.”

Not that he blamed only himself for the defeat. After the game, he pointed his finger into the faces of Tretiak and other star players, saying: “This is your loss! This is your
The Americans played one more game, defeating Finland, 4-2, to win the gold medal. The Soviets won the silver, although some of them threw their medals into the trash in Lake Placid.

On the flight back to the Soviet Union, defenseman Valery Vasiliev grabbed Tikhonov around the neck.

“I will kill you right now,” Vasiliev told his coach before his teammates pulled him off.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/s...onov-soviet-hockey-coach-dies-at-84.html?_r=0

More:

In “Red Army,” a documentary about Soviet hockey released this year, one of Tikhonov’s former stars, Vyacheslav Fetisov, was among several players who had few kind words for his former coach.

“Coach with no heart, can he teach us to play?” Fetisov said. “No. He give us drills, discipline. He wants to see us still as puppets, dancing to his whistle for the rest of our lives. That’s dictatorship.”

Tretiak, the goalie Tikhonov pulled from the game in 1980, is now president of the Russian Hockey Federation.

“People like Viktor Tikhonov should never be forgotten,” Tretiak said on Monday, Russian news outlets reported. “This is our history, and if we forget our past, what can be said?

“Viktor’s name is forever inscribed in the history of Soviet and Russian hockey. We must cherish that name.”

 

Clarke administered the two-handed slash on Kharlamov, but it was J.P. Parise who menaced the referee with his stick.

And Soviet center Vladimir Petrov said this when comparing Tikhonov and his predecessor, Anatoly Tarasov:

"They were different because Tarasov was an artist when it came to hockey and Tikhonov was more of a hockey accountant."

 

Finally saw "Of Miracles and Men" this weekend. Not a whole lot new to me. However, it was good to be reminded what a legacy Anatoly Tarasov established. Those video clips of the 1981 Canada Cup brought back horrible memories.