The Russian Five, Alexei Kasatonov and captain Slava Fetisov in the rear on defense, and forwards Sergei Makarov, Igor Larionov, and Vladimir Krutov
From left to right, defenseman Alexei Kasatonov, Coach Viktor Tikhonov, goalie Vladislav Tretiak, center Igor Larionov, and defenseman Slava Fetisov
Soviet goalie Vladislav Tretiak (left) and legendary hockey coach Anatoli Tarasov
Valeri Kharlamov
Vyacheslav “Slava” Fetisov, captain of the USSR national hockey team
Slava Fedisov’s parents
Slava Fetisov
legendary Soviet goalie Vladislav Tretiak
Soviet Hockey Coach Viktor Tikhonov
Slava Fetisov, (left) Soviet captain from 1980 – 1989, and Boris Mikhailov, Soviet captain from 1972 – 1980
Slava Fetisov
Fetisov and director Gabe Polsky at Cannes, 2014
RED ARMY A-
USA Russia (85 mi)
2014 d: Gabe Polsky Official
site
Hockey players are not
cowards!
This is about as much fun as you can have in the documentary
format, where it has the feel of the madly inspired Guy Maddin on a mission,
whose obsession with hockey, having been born and raised in Winnipeg, is
nothing less than an ecstatic lifelong passion.
What’s perhaps most surprising is the degree of poignancy registered by a
sports story. The brilliance of the
young director is not only the accumulation of such amazing archival material,
but framing the subject matter as the examination of a historical event as seen
through the eyes of a sports figure, where the transformation of an entire
nation was happening simultaneous to events happening in his own life, creating
an extraordinary look at how history can effect us all. Perhaps what’s most unique is the degree of
access into a period of Soviet history that is otherwise secretive and not
easily revealed, where the filmmaker’s background, born and raised in the
United States by Soviet immigrants might help explain the filmmaker’s
inquisitive drive to uncover the mysteries of his own past, where his curiosity
was bent on discovering how and why this Soviet hockey team of the 70’s and
80’s was so good. Most are familiar with
the Miracle
on Ice, when a group of amateur and collegiate kids from America, barely
together for a few months, played the hockey game of their lives and won the
gold medal at Lake Placid in the 1980 Olympic Games, beating one of the
greatest Soviet hockey teams of all time 4-3, gold medal winners in six of the
previous seven Olympics, an event so improbable that Sports Illustrated called it the Top Sports Moment of the 20th
Century. Few, however, have taken an
insightful look at just how good that Soviet team was that dominated the sport
of hockey during the Cold War, where successful sports teams and players, much
like the Space
Race, were used as propaganda tools to demonstrate supposed ideological superiority. Traditionally the Soviets
didn’t even have a hockey team, as historically they played Bandy, an outdoor
winter game that resembles field hockey on ice.
Since that game was never recognized at the Olympics (hockey was
introduced in 1920), after World War II, the Red Army
assigned Anatoli Tarasov to found a Moscow hockey club at
the army sport’s club, CSKA Moscow, which represented the Red Army, while he
served as the original coach of the Soviet national team for thirty
years beginning in 1946, becoming the “father of Russian hockey,” developing a
passion for the game, equally influenced by the mental dominance of chess
masters and the athletic grace of ballet, where the Soviet style of hockey has
an emphasis on skating skills, offense and passing, an amazingly creative and
improvisational style where they move fluidly on the ice, working collectively
as a team, turning the game into an art form.
While Tarasov was the dynamic builder of the team which
started to have some success in the 50’s, winning their first World Championship
in 1954 and first Olympic gold in 1956, he was beloved by his players, seen as
a paternal father figure, as he embraced each of them as young men full of
potential, “You’ll become great hockey players…and great men,” where his job
was to unleash that potential with inspired play on the ice. One of his young protégé’s, Vyacheslav “Slava”
Fetisov, was only 12-years old when he was chosen for the Dynamo youth hockey
team, the oldest sports and physical training society of the Soviet Union. Born in Moscow, he is one of the most
decorated* hockey players that ever lived, the
greatest defenseman the Soviets ever produced, where the list of his accolades
amusingly overflow off the screen, like medals on the chest of a heavily
decorated army officer. To our
amazement, Fetisov opens up like he’s never done before, literally befriending
this young American director with a heavy mix of deadpan humor and Russian
sarcasm, but also providing enlightening and sometimes eye-opening information about his
storied life, where today his name is literally synonymous with hockey. When he is introduced in front of the camera
today at age 55 in a face-to-face interview with the director, he waves the
camera away, as he’s busy taking a call on his cellphone, claiming it’s
business, joking that Americans don’t know the meaning of work. While his good-natured wit is appreciated
today, it was not always the case, even in his home country, where he was a kid
that grew up only blocks away from the rink, always the first to arrive, the last
to leave, where so long as he was playing hockey he was happy. As we are introduced to several former
players, journalists, sports commentators, and even a retired KGB officer sitting in
front of an immense statue of Lenin, they are each initially identified in the
Russian language of Cyrillic and then in English, where there’s a constant
interplay between Soviet and American, as the two nations were so much at odds
during the Cold War. Feeling personally connected
to both worlds, Polsky, with a great deal of visual style, creates an often
funny and always enjoyable film that is quick, witty, and fast moving, almost
always with lively Russian music playing in the background, where there’s a joyous and
festive spirit as we take a spin through Fetisov’s childhood, filled with
strange and unusual training techniques, all designed to build teamwork and bring
players closer together, to have each other’s backs, to look after one other,
where players on the same lines stayed together off-ice as well as on-ice,
becoming best friends in life, where the intensity of the experience is also
connected to winning and being proud to represent your country.
Interweaving plenty of archival footage from the 70’s and 80’s
along with amusing and insightful contemporary interviews, the Soviets were
extremely successful in the sport, winning gold in 7 out of 9 Olympic Games
(Olympic record 62–6–2), winning the World Championships 19 times, where the
players were honored with flowers and medal ceremonies each time they returned home
to Moscow and treated like national heroes.
Even though they eventually lost the series, the Soviets surprised the
world in the 1972 Summit Series, finally going face-to-face
with the best NHL Canadian players and initially making it look easy, as the
Canadian goalies had never seen the kind of choreographed movement on the ice
before, where the puck could come from all directions. To slow them down, the Canadians began
engaging in a more physical style of North American play, resulting in disputes
over officiating, roughhouse tactics and finally dirty play, where Philadelphia
Flyer center Bobby Clarke deliberately injured the star Soviet
forward, Valeri Kharlamov, intentionally slashing his
skates, fracturing a bone in his ankle, where the Soviets were winning the
series 3–1–1 when the injury occurred, figuring prominently in the Canadians
winning the last 3 games. Kharlamov was
the most popular Soviet player at the time and his injury in front of a Moscow
crowd had a chilling effect, only adding to the already existing East-West
drama. The Soviets returned to form for
the 1974 Summit Series and won 4 games to one, where
the Canadians wouldn’t win another head to head competition until 1989. The interest generated by the international
stage led to the next generation of Soviets, headed by new team captain Slava Fetisov
and the Russian
Five who helped win three consecutive World Junior Championships from 1976—78
as well as the 1981 Canada Cup, despite being led by Canadian
phenom Wayne Gretzky, arguably the greatest player in history. Despite the improbable loss to the Americans in
the 1980 Olympics, the 70’s and 80’s were the period of greatest Soviet
domination, where the International Ice Hockey Federation
conducted a poll in 2008 asking a group of 56 experts from 16 countries to vote
on the greatest team of the century, IIHF Centennial All-Star Team, which
included four Soviet players on a team of six, with Fetisov and Gretzky the two
leading vote getters at one and two respectively, including two Soviet
forwards, Valeri Kharlamov and Sergei Makarov, legendary Soviet goalie
Vladislav Tretiak, and Swedish defensiveman Börje
Salming.
Despite the honors, there was trouble brewing behind the
scenes, where in the late 70’s Tarasov was suddenly replaced by a more
dictatorial style of coach beholden to the KGB, Viktor Tikhonov, as the
Soviet leadership feared defections, so they needed him to keep a close eye on
all the players. Housed in a prisonlike barracks 11
months out of the year, Tikhonov trained them relentlessly, refusing to let one player leave even for the impending
death of his father, where according to Fetisov, the players won despite their
coach, as they unanimously hated his approach, calling him an accountant due to the fastidious notes he was always taking, believing he suffocated their
creative style and instead instituted a strict regimen and the threat of
discipline, instilling fear instead of any love for the game. Fetisov holds Tikhonov responsible for the
Soviet loss to the Americans in the Miracle
on Ice, claiming he favored the Moscow Dynamo players, who represented the KGB over the more skilled
Russian
Five CSKA Moscow players who represented the Red Army, which explains why
he pulled the Soviet’s greatest goalie, Vladislav
Tretiak, after the first period, pulling him for Moscow Dynamo goalie
Vladimir Myshkin, suggesting it was the KGB players that allowed
three of the four American goals. But
rather than being sent to some Siberian gulag after the loss, as people in the
West might think, Tikhonov was actually honored and rewarded. One of the curious side effects of the international
exposure of the Soviet skill players was the interest by the NHL, as they wanted
these players in the North American league, tempting them with big money
contracts, but the Russian government wouldn’t let them go, though they
initially tempted Fetisov with a contract similar to basketball player Yao Ming
from Communist China, where they earn a huge million dollar contract, but 50%
or more, depending on the terms, belongs to the government. Fetisov, on the other hand, combining
business and political sense, insisted on receiving every penny he earned. So he stayed put.
Drafted by the New Jersey Devils, Fetisov was initially
promised by Tikhonov that he would be released to play in the NHL if they won
another gold medal at the 1988 Olympics, which they did, but he refused to let
him leave the country, even after a visit to Moscow, contract in hand, from the
Devil’s President and General Manager Lou Lamoriello, who was even prepared to
help him defect, if necessary, but Fetisov was a proud Russian that refused to
leave under those conditions, never able to return home. Fetisov’s wife Lada recounts a story of what
happened in Kiev after Fetisov publicly refused to play any more for Tikhonov,
where he was arrested, handcuffed to a car battery and beaten until 4 am, with
the police eventually calling Tikhonov who informed them they could lock him up
or do whatever they wanted, but he was not allowed to leave the country. Finally he was called into the office of the
Minister of Defense Dmitry Yazov, second only to the Soviet President
(ironically dismissed from his post after a failed 1991 coup d'état attempt), who
screamed and cussed him out for wanting to play for “the enemy,” but Fetisov
instead offered to resign his position in the Red Army, where in 1989 he became
the first Soviet citizen granted a work visa that allowed him to play hockey in
the west, paving the way for literally thousands that followed. At age 31, he began his second career in the
NHL, which was hardly an easy transition, as he was forced to endure red-baiting
hostility when the American fans initially hated him for not becoming an
instant star and winner for their team, where he had difficulty adjusting to a
more individualistic playing style. He
played nine seasons in the NHL, the final three in Detroit where he reunited
with yet another Russian Five to win two Stanley Cups in 1997 and 1998,
once again retiring a champion.
According to the director, “Soviets play hockey the way Brazilians play
soccer. It’s improvisational, it’s
fluid, it’s beautiful. It’s extremely
difficult, but looks effortless.” Legendary
Hall of Fame Detroit Coach Scotty Bowman was so impressed by their play at the
time that he acknowledged, “I don’t know who taught you to play this way, but
whatever you do, don’t change a thing.”
Transforming his life where he went from a national hero to a political
enemy, Slava Fetisov eventually returned home to Moscow a Stanley Cup champion,
chosen by Putin to be the Minister of Sport for Russia from 2002 to 2008, where
his story reads like something out of a Tom Clancy novel.
*Vyacheslav “Slava” Fetisov Notable
Achievements and Awards:
•
Member of the Organizing Committee for 2014 Sochi Winter
Olympics.
•
Hockey Hall of Fame Inductee
•
IIHF Hall of Fame
•
USSR Hall of Fame
•
14 Soviet Hockey Championships
•
9 Time Soviet League All-Star
•
9-time IIHF All-Star
•
5-time IIHF best defenseman
•
7 Hockey World Championship Gold Medals
•
1 World Championship Silver
•
2 Olympic Gold Medals
•
1 Olympic Silver Medal
•
1 Canada Cup Championship
•
3 World Junior Championships
•
2 World Championship Bronze Medals
•
2 Time CCCP Player of the Year
•
2-time Soviet MVP
•
9 Years Soviet National Team Captain
•
3 Golden Stick Awards
•
Order of the Red Banner of Labour
•
Soviet Order of Honor
•
Soviet Order of Friendship
•
Silver Olympic Order
•
Order of Service to the Fatherland 4th Class
•
Order of Service to the Fatherland 3rd Class
•
2 Orders of the Badge of Honor
•
IIHF International Centennial All-Star
•
Honored Master of Sports
•
UNESCO Champion for Sport
•
Russian Diamond Award
•
Order of Lenin Award
•
2-time Stanley Cup Champion as a player
•
3-time Stanley Cup Finalist as a player
•
Stanley Cup champion as an assistant coach
•
2-time NHL all-star
•
Asteroid 8806 was renamed “Fetisov”
