September 1, 2000

Team Russia - Long Road from Hell to Heaven

Many hockey fans and the admirers of Team Russia  still can not forget its quad's poor showing at the 2000 World Championships in St. Petersburg and some lame excuses of Russian born NHLers for what went wrong that days. Russia has posted its worst-ever results in World Championships action in St. Petersburg, losing four straight to the USA, Switzerland, Latvia and Belarus. Russia has expected big things of its Dream Team, that included a number of NHL stars and Florida Panthers' Pavel Bure as its captain. Instead, the team hasn’t even made the playoffs, placing 11th overall, the country's worst standing in the history of world and Olympic championships.

"The city of St. Petersburg has not seen such a nightmare since 1917," said the daily Sport-Express, referring to the Bolshevik Revolution.

Russian media have consistently criticized the team's poor morale and improper preparation, Steblin said that days, adding: "We have formed a commission to study the national team's problems and, we hope, we will find solutions."

"The stars have their own approach, their own game. We should use our boys for the worlds championships," said later Alexander Steblin, president of the Russian Hockey Federation.

“NHL experiment was not really what the doctor ordered”, said former Soviet coach Viktor Tikhonov.

"The coaches' main mistake was they refused to use the team they'd been  preparing all season long," said Puchkov. The Russian national team, a.k.a. the "sbornaia" has won the Baltica Cup in Moscow and was vying for the first spot in the Eurotour until   the last game of the competition.

Avangard Omsk's Maxim Sushinski said, ”it hurt many of my teammates to see players from the Russian Superleague go home right on the eve of the championships just because another NHLer had expressed interest in coming. "That," he said, "was almost insulting for us, to feel we were just patches to fill holes if an NHLer changed his mind."

Now it seems that a shocking failure at the 2000 World Championships in St. Petersburg can serve a good  lesson to the Russian hockey federation executive board.

Soon after the 2000 WSC country's hockey federation fired the national team coach, Alexander Yakushev. On August 16, 2000 Boris Mikhailov, 55 years of age current head coach of CSKA, was officially appointed head coach of Team Russia. It was his forth coming to the national team. The last time the "sbornaia" won gold was in 1993 with Boris Mikhailov; since then, it's been slim pickings. Under his governing Team Russia will compete for gold at the two nearest world championships and Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

The new Team Russian of Mikhailov is formed on the basis of complete, five-man lines and combinations prepared by Russian clubs and available for the national team. There is CSKA Moscow five Turkovsky-Kamaletdinov, Boikov-Boichenko-Makarov, each player will make his debut in the national team, and Avangard Omsk five Panov-Ryabykin, Gorbushin-Yakubov-Zatonsky. Lethal former combination of Dynamo Moscow Kuvaldin-Prokopyev plus Dynamo’s prospect Alexei Tereshenko is also a nice choice of Boris Mikhailov. Coaches  of the club teams will be preparing their best players so their form peaks at the world championships. And only then, the national team will use some of the best NHL players.

So priority in everything will be given to the players who are representatives of the Russian club teams. The main thing for the head coach is to put together individual lines and make sure everybody is playing as a part of the team. He must pick up the best of what Soviet hockey has had to offer. If the Russians are forced to play as individuals, their opponents have a  good chance of winning. That’s why there should be only two or three Bure calibre players and some quite necessary working-horses in the team who can do fighting for the puck in their own zone and then to do assisting quick forwards to let them skate the length of the ice and to try to score. Everybody must do his work in the team to generate scoring chances for his teammates who are responsible for it. Why not to use the experience of Team Czech Republic who is an Olympic and a recent twice World Champion?

Despite all the failures of the national team Russian hockey is still one of the best in the World. Dynamo Moscow and Metallurg Magnitogorsk have beaten other countries' teams in the European league and those teams were the main suppliers of players to their respective national teams. Moreover each year our hockey produces lots of talented prospects who are in great demand in the North American hockey system. Do you remember the recent NHL Draft? Unbelievable figure 45 Russians have been selected by NHL clubs! A dozen of them are top choices!

Still, the Russian national team has a chance to redeem itself even this year. The first step has been already done. Another players, new coach and new ideas. Time will show what may come out of it. Once burnt twice shy!

Team Russia for the 2000/2001 Euro Hockey Tour

P  Name                 HGT WGT Birthdate Club
GOALIES
GK Maxim Sokolov 181 79  27.05.72 Severstal Cherepov.
GK Andrei Tsarev 186 85  30.08.75 AkBars Kazan
GK Denis Khlopotnov 192 88  27.01.78 CSKA Moscow
DEFENSEMEN
RD Dmitry Krasotkin 183 89  28.08.71 Lokomotiv Yaroslavl
RD Dmitry Ryabykin 188 95  24.03.76 Avangard Omsk
RD Oleg Shargorodsky 187 91  18.11.69 Avangard Omsk
LD Yuri Panov        Avangard Omsk
LD Oleg Orekhovsky 176 76  03.11.77 Dynamo Moscow
D  Artur Oktyabrev 177 85  26.11.73 Severstal Cherepov.
LD Yevgeny Petrochinin 182 90  07.02.76 Severstal Cherepov.
D Alexei Krivchenkov Severstal Cherepov.
RD Rustem Kamaletdinov 179 80  30.06.72 CSKA Moscow
LD Vasily Turkovsky 188 95  03.09.74 CSKA Moscow
FORWARDS
RW Dmitry Zatonsky 172 86  30.03.71 Avangard Omsk
CE Ravil Yakubov 184 85  26.07.70 Avangard Omsk
CE Alexander Prokopyev 181 82  10.06.71 Avangard Omsk
LW Ilya Gorbushin Avangard Omsk
LW Alexander Kuvaldin 184 86  16.03.74 Dynamo Moscow
CE Alexei Tereschenko 180 72  16.12.80 Dynamo Moscow
   Alexei Kudashov 184 86  21.07.71 Dynamo Moscow
CE Pavel Datsyuk 178 76  20.07.78 AkBars Kazan
RW Valery Karpov 178 85  05.08.71 LadaTogliatti
CE Alexei Koznev 174 85  03.10.75 Severstal Cherepov.
RW Alexander Gulyvtsev 171 83  03.05.73 Molot Prikamye Perm
LW Yevgeny Fedorov 176 85  11.11.80 Molot Prikamye Perm
RW Sergei Makarov 181 85  12.10.71 CSKA Moscow
CE Pavel Boychenko 180 86  30.07.75 CSKA Moscow
LW Alexander Boykov 180 80  03.02.75 CSKA Moscow

Head Coach: Boris Mikhailov
Assistant Coach:Genady Tsygurov

Czech Republic

The first stage of Euro Hockey Tour

August 31, 2000

Russia-Finaland 3:3 after three periods Boichenko (Turkovsky-Boikov), Boikov (Makarov), Datsyuk (Gulyavtsev) 3:4 by shot-out. Team Finland wins.

Czech Republick-Sweden 2:3

September 1, 2000

Finaland- Sweden

September 2, 2000

Russia- Czech Republick

September 3, 2000

Sweden-Russia

Czech Republic- Finland