Inky
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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Oakland-ish
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Hockey- Canada vs. The Soviet Union, 1972
MOSCOW - Thirty years after the 1972 Summit Series between the then-Soviet Union and Canada, there are still winners and losers. And it is mostly the players who came out on the short end of the epic eight-game hockey clash who lost even more when their playing days were over.
"We are the forgotten ones," said Evgeny Mishakov, a rugged forward on the Soviet team. "We are forgotten by our own people and by our own government.
"They have left us to live on nothing. It is a disgrace what happened to the great veterans of hockey here. Tell them in North America how we live."
In September, on the 30th anniversary of the series, I travelled to Russia to track down as many members of the Soviet team as I could. I wasn't interested in quick reflections on the series itself as much as I was the story of their lives. What were they doing now? How did they live? What, if any, benefits did they derive from being part of one of the greatest hockey encounters in history?
Moreover, how were they coping in the New Russia, the one with the dog-eat-dog, capitalist sensibilities?
For almost a month I travelled around Moscow and the surrounding countryside looking for the players and their stories. I found them in arenas and coffee shops, I met them in their homes and on street corners. In the end, I tracked down nearly all of them. Those I couldn't meet in person I talked to over the phone, through my interpreter Denis Neznanov, to see what they were now doing.
We drank vodka together. We shared caviar.
Sometimes we talked until the early hours of the morning.
Today, in Mix, I share their stories and some of my experiences in Russia with you.
While players like Evgeny Mishakov may feel forgotten, his circumstances are representative of most Russians of his generation, most of whom have struggled under the radical changes in their country. The transition from communism to capitalism has not been an easy one. Many Russians have seen their standard of living plummet, former hockey stars being no exception.
Victor Kuzkin, the great Soviet defenceman, saw his life savings vanish in a single day when the Russian economy collapsed in August, 1998. He and his wife lost tens of thousands of dollars they had spent decades accumulating.
The Kuzkins weren't alone. Millions lost their savings that day. Many of the players I talked to no longer trust the banks as a result and keep their money at home under mattresses or in vaults.
When the pension system was overhauled in the early 1990s, Russians saw their monthly stipends from the government drastically reduced. Again, this hit veterans of the 1972 team right in the gut, leaving them gasping for air and searching for money from other sources.
The players had a difficult time making the transition from hockey player to average citizen. Most had no practical job skills to fall back on when their playing days were over. A few of the bigger stars were offered prime coaching jobs but the majority weren't. Most ended up taking anything they could get, even if it meant collecting a couple thousand rubles a month.
Today, 30 rubles is roughly equivalent of $1 US.
Several of the players began coaching children at area hockey schools. At one time being a children's coach in Russia was a decent, well-respected, government-paid position, the equivalent of a phys-ed instructor in North America. But as the Soviet economy began running into trouble in the 1980s money for these positions began disappearing.
When the country made the transition to a free market system in 1991, the government got out of much of the sports business altogether. The private sector, mostly big businesses and oligarchs -- businesspeople who wield vast influence over Russian political and economic life -- began owning and operating the hockey teams and the hockey schools.
Over time, the status of children's coaches declined and the money offered for the position became a pittance.
Many of the veterans of 1972 who had been coaching children's hockey decided they were better off retiring and collecting their military pensions.
That is what many did.
Players like Yevgeny Paladiev, 54, who has lived in the same one-room apartment for 44 years. He retired 10 years ago and now lives a lonely, welfare-type existence in southeast Moscow. The same for defenceman Alexander Gusev, 55, and forward Yuri Blinov, 52. They also became pensioners early on in their lives and now live in rundown and cramped one-bedroom apartment units with their families. Nearly half of the players on the famed Red Army team are today living on a pension of roughly $80 Cdn a month.
While there have been persistent reports over the years that many of the veterans of the 1972 team battled alcoholism, I didn't find that to be the case. Certainly a few of the players enjoyed the odd drink (sometimes in the morning) but most of the ones I talked to were frank about the drinking issue and said that while they liked a bottle of beer or glass of vodka now and then they were not alcohol-addicted.
"We don't have the money to be big drunks," said one of the players.
One exception is Vladimir Vikulov, the one-time speedy Soviet forward, who apparently has plunged into an alcoholic abyss. According to nearly all of his former teammates, Vikulov is not doing well. I was told he would not be able to give a coherent interview. As it turned out, he was impossible to find.
But many of the players seemed to be coping just fine.
Former greats Alexander Maltsev and Valery Vasiliev were two players seemingly thriving under capitalism. However, as you will discover in Mix neither was prepared to reveal much about the source of their income. Others like Alexander Yakushev and Boris Mikhailov, two of the biggest names on the Soviet team, also enjoy comfortable but modest, middle-class lives. But both were looking for work when I caught up with them.
During my time in Russia I heard stories filled with tragedy and despair, hope and wonder. Many of the players appeared to be at peace with their destiny. Sure, they would love to have more money, they told me, but had lived so long without it they didn't notice it was missing anymore.
Others were even more philosophical.
"There are many people worse off than me," said Alexander Gusev, one of the more destitute members of the team. "I can make due with what I have. I have a beautiful wife and beautiful children. God has given me so much already it is difficult to ask for more."
Yuri Blinov and his wife took in the young child of a single mother who died four years ago. The boy is now almost five. The three of them live in a one-room apartment that is far too small but Blinov prefers not to dwell on his circumstances.
"We are trying to get a bigger apartment," he told me one afternoon. "But if it doesn't happen we will live where we live and be happy. Russians are strong people. We learn to survive. For many generations we have learned to survive hardship and for my generation it is no different.
"Money is not the biggest thing in my life. The most important thing for me is that people respect me."
Still, a bitterness lingers. Most of the veterans feel their contributions to the sporting history of this country have been forgotten; that the Olympic gold medals and world hockey championships they helped win mean nothing. And when it comes to the Summit Series, most of the players feel it is only Canadians who care any longer.
In this regard, Evgeny Mishakov speaks for many.
"We opened the world's eyes to the wonder of Soviet hockey," Mishakov said at his home one day. "We paved the way for Russian players to go play in the NHL. That series did this. Before that no one knew how good we were. But it means nothing now, nothing at all to the government here or the people here or to the Russian players who have gone to the NHL."
Mishakov took a long drag on his cigarette.
"The Canadians won in 1972," he said. "And the Canadians are still winning today. That is the story of the series."
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11-10-2002 04:32 AM
