Dr_Chimera
06-13-2010, 02:57 PM
I just finished this book, having purchased it after hearing good things.
It's a pretty good, even if somewhat dry, read. Martin is a Canadian journalist who has a long history of living and writing in Soviet Union/Russia, going back a few decades now. He published "The Red Machine" in 1990, just before the breakup of the Soviet Union. He sets out to chronicle the history of the Soviet National team, through the many years of their development and reign, from the Russian perspective (as countless books by then had been written by Canadians about their own reactions to the Soviets, particularly in respect to 1972).
Martin was stationed in Russia for a long while, got to know a lot of the important people and eventually compiled enough information to write this book. The result is a bit clunky - a combination of some really good things, western naivete and a touch of condescension one would expect pro-Capitalist Gorbachev lover. It's a bit funny reading this now with the added knowledge that comes with the benefit of 20 additional years. Martin's agenda comes off as a bit absurd, his understanding of (not exposure to) Russian culture is a virtual zilch, but he compiles enough interesting narratives here to keep one glued to the page. It is likely now that most Canadian amateur historians on Soviet hockey get their information from this book.
Martin veers in being both a defender and critic of Soviet hockey. He frequently takes shots at the Soviets' lack of business sense in selling their own game and the system's aim of turning its own players into emotionless robots. However he is also quick to defend Soviet accomplishments against Canada - giving them credit for the nearly forgotten Challenge Cup of '79 and the numerous NHL tours - and disparages certain Canadian rhetoric that is filled with plain untruths about the Soviet teams (eg. they play together all year round). His biggest downfall as a writer is probably his apparent lack of close relations with Russians - the anecdotes he provides are informative, but they lack insight about individuals as private people. We get a lot of stories about the professional side of things, but little about the personal side of things. I suspect that in all of his years as a journalist in Russia, Martin never really got close to everyone and one of his ways of dealing with it was to constantly refer to Russia as a drab, cold place. The entire book, ironically, feels every bit as cold as the purported country.
Some comments on the interesting parts... The portion on Vsevolod Bobrov is probably the one that most informs the minds of Canadian historians. Martin's profile of the player stems largely from Anatoli Tarasov's own point of view about him. While Bobrov was the biggest star of Soviet hockey in the 1950s, he played the game in antithesis to Tarasov's system-oriented methods. Bobrov is described as being an individualist, disparaged in many ways by Tarasov, described as a talented floater. This description of Bobrov seems to have caught on, but it's informed by one particular point of view and bias. Martin doesn't offer other viewpoints about Bobrov aside from the generally known and believed common truths that he was maybe the most skilled Soviet athlete of the era. Another factor in all of this was that Bobrov died in the late 70s, so Martin may never have had a chance to know the man, but Tarasov was still around for him to interview. The book has some considerate passages on Bobrov's stint as a coach following Tarasov's firing - particularly at the 1972 summit series. Martin, however, suggests that Bobrov's approach was to get his players to play more individually (which seems like an oversimplification) and speculates that his more relaxed (and less system-oriented) approach contributed to the team's lack of energy and demise in the final three games of the series. I'm not sure all of this is deserved and Bobrov never seems to get credit for having his team so well prepared for the series to begin with.
There are some informative passages on other 1950s players - Evgeny Babich (Tarasov's favorite), Nikolai Sologubov (Russia's first physically punishing defenseman) and Nikolai Puchkov (the country's first great hockey goalie).
Tarasov is described as the man who truly harnessed the Soviet science-based approach to hockey, something that Martin truly admires. In fact, Martin's thesis is that the Soviets helped save Canada's game by introducing new ways of approaching strategy (based on mathematics). He often points out (correcty) the irony of the Soviet wealth of outstanding tactical ideas and utter dearth of materials (equipment, technology). The books tends to shuffle back and forth between stories of Canadians (like Fred Shero) coming to Russia and being amazed by their 'sciency' presentations on strategy, and conversely the ways in which Russians would seek to trade for equipment with western teams just to have something half-decent to play with. I think that one of the strengths of the book is pointing out the tunnel vision in this Soviet science-based approach to hockey - master one thing, completely ignore and fail at another.
Anatoly Firsov is described in glowing terms in the 1960s portions of the book. The passages describe him as a player of an extremely high IQ who could master very complex strategies, and do things with the puck others could not. Martin also strongly believes that the mid-to-late 60s Soviet teams were better and deeper than the 1972 summit series team (something with which I agree). In the late 60s players like Firsov, Starshinov and Alexandrov dominated international competitions, but unfortunately no exhibition with NHL clubs came to fruition (in spite of talks). There are some other interesting bits of info: Firsov generated an extreme amount of interest from NHL clubs, particularly the LA Kings... Another portion of the book mentions a discussed proposal to include a Russian club as a visiting NHL team (something the Soviets, not the NHL, turned down due to conflicts with the World Championships). Martin is critical of the Soviet goaltending pre-Tretiak - referring to Konovalenko (though not in this term) as a mediocre player who got easily rattled. This is not how he's remembered in Russia now, but that's the point of view shared here.
There's a whole chapter on Kharlamov, which probably offers the fewest surprises to the informed reader - what Canadians know about him comes, to a large extent, from this book. Seemingly left out (and in the minds of many) is the fact that Kharlamov had a somewhat short prime as a player (early-to-mid 70s). Nevertheless, in the minds of everyone who likes Soviet hockey Kharlamov is the greatest Russian hockey legend.
Martin talks up the period of 1976 to 1984 as the finest in Soviet hockey history (starting with the Olympics of '76 and ending with the Canada Cup defeat of '84). He refers to the Soviet Canada Cup squad of '76 as "experimental" (indeed, shorthanded) and lauds the great '78 WC triumph (Tikhonov's first), the Challenge Cup, the '81 Canada Cup, the convincing triumphs over NHL teams, and the '84 Olympics (probably the country's most dominant Olympics). I tend to identify the '81-'84 period as the strongest, because the 'late 70s + 1980 team was still led by Mikhailov-Kharlamov-Petrov whose advanced age probably hurt it against the US in the 1980 Olympics. The subsequent triumphs of KLM as the leading line appear to be more convincing, not to mention that Tretiak developed a mystique of invincibility in those final four years of his career after somewhat up-and-down play in the 1970s.
Martin describes the late-70s national team in a lot of detail - it was an older, more physical squad than the summit ones. Tikhonov, inspired by the play of oldtimers Howe/Hull and others in the '74 summit, decided to ride his old horses in contrast with past philosophy of going young. I haven't seen the 1980 Olympic match between the Russians and the US in a long time, so I can't comment on memory, but Martin blames Tikhonov for his overreliance on the older players who, he says, were physically exhausted late in that match, while the youngsters rode the pine. Tikhonov also erred gravely in pulling Tretiak (abiding by an order from a government official), and in refusing to go with an extra attacker late in the game.
Most of the rest of the book deals with the breakdown of the system, something that Martin tries to blend with the grander narrative of the Soviet collapse (not with great success, in my opinion). He gives Tikhonov a lot of credit for certain things, but doesn't fail to mention his firey temper, penchant for extreme nervousness and tendency to keep long grudges against players who defied him. There is a fascinating account of Helmut Balderis's fights with Tikhonov - Helmut played under Tikhonov with Riga (Balderis's beloved home town), before VT was promoted to coach the national team (and by extension CSKA). This resulted in a conflict, Tikhonov wanting Balderis on CSKA, Balderis eventually leaving for Riga, Tikhonov holding a grudge and banning Balderis from NT. There are some other stories of extremely talented players who never became "NT-material", because they simply would not conform to Tikhonov's very rigid standards.
Tikhonov was not a player-friendly coach, unlike Bobrov. He wanted to be a legend, very much in the same way as Tarasov - and he was not a nitwit strategy-wise. But unlike with Tarasov, Tikhonov's players didn't respect him. Both in terms of looks and personality, Tikhonov was an unpleasant man with an insecure way about him. Martin writes about Tretiak's retirement after the Olympics of '84, as a kind of first stage of the collapse of the national team. Tretiak had little kids by this time (a daughter and son) and wanted more freedom to see them, and, in general, less rigid regulations for non-hockey activity. This wasn't granted and he retired. After Tretiak, the Soviets never had a stable goalie and, gradually, the matter of strict regulation became a hot topic among players, brought on, in part, by glasnost of course. This lack of compromise on the part of Tikhonov sent the team into a spiral, and it's amazing that they did so well in the '87 Canada Cup - in spite of the internal dissent and anticipation of opportunities to play in the NHL. Tikhonov was completely out of touch, almost in every way - Martin even points out that it was Tikhonov who not only agreed to, but encouraged the appointment of Koharski as referee in the '87 Canada Cup finals. He paid for it dearly.
Anyway, there's lots and lots more here. It's a worthwhile read. I would be interested in a follow-up, but I sense that Martin's overly simplistic thesis about passion as a democratic virtue would fall apart upon any revisiting of the issues. Monitoring the state of things in hockey now, it is quite difficult to be a Russian hockey fan and feel optimistic about the future. The Soviets developed a great number of outstanding ideas that would enrich hockey, but were unable to keep them to themselves. Those ideas were copied, integrated, refined everywhere around the world. The tragic thing about the Soviets is that, even as Martin points out, they were much slower, and even incapable, of adjusting to, and being influenced by, outside tendencies comparing to other countries - particularly Canada, which upon being faced with an initially grim reality, quickly adapted and became better. The Soviets developed something brilliant, gave it away and became the victims of their own brilliant creation. Pretty dark stuff.
Today's Russian national team is oddly antithetical to what Tarasov had in mind. Scientific-minded they aren't - in fact all the science went Westward, made that much more sophisticated by new technologies that wealthy countries, like Canada, use to constantly stay ahead of the curve. So the Russians have lost the science or, differently put, their science is in the stone ages. Their players are incapable of playing a system, while the coaches still hopelessly attempt to recreate the glory of the past by mimicking the old style finesse game, oblivious to the fact that it doesn't work anymore. I still think that if the Russians are to return to the top, what would occur would have to be the very mirror of the past - an approach of learning openly and rigorously from the best. This is something that would require the Russians to grow from outside of their own mental bubble. I wonder if they can pull it off.
Read this book if you have a chance.
It's a pretty good, even if somewhat dry, read. Martin is a Canadian journalist who has a long history of living and writing in Soviet Union/Russia, going back a few decades now. He published "The Red Machine" in 1990, just before the breakup of the Soviet Union. He sets out to chronicle the history of the Soviet National team, through the many years of their development and reign, from the Russian perspective (as countless books by then had been written by Canadians about their own reactions to the Soviets, particularly in respect to 1972).
Martin was stationed in Russia for a long while, got to know a lot of the important people and eventually compiled enough information to write this book. The result is a bit clunky - a combination of some really good things, western naivete and a touch of condescension one would expect pro-Capitalist Gorbachev lover. It's a bit funny reading this now with the added knowledge that comes with the benefit of 20 additional years. Martin's agenda comes off as a bit absurd, his understanding of (not exposure to) Russian culture is a virtual zilch, but he compiles enough interesting narratives here to keep one glued to the page. It is likely now that most Canadian amateur historians on Soviet hockey get their information from this book.
Martin veers in being both a defender and critic of Soviet hockey. He frequently takes shots at the Soviets' lack of business sense in selling their own game and the system's aim of turning its own players into emotionless robots. However he is also quick to defend Soviet accomplishments against Canada - giving them credit for the nearly forgotten Challenge Cup of '79 and the numerous NHL tours - and disparages certain Canadian rhetoric that is filled with plain untruths about the Soviet teams (eg. they play together all year round). His biggest downfall as a writer is probably his apparent lack of close relations with Russians - the anecdotes he provides are informative, but they lack insight about individuals as private people. We get a lot of stories about the professional side of things, but little about the personal side of things. I suspect that in all of his years as a journalist in Russia, Martin never really got close to everyone and one of his ways of dealing with it was to constantly refer to Russia as a drab, cold place. The entire book, ironically, feels every bit as cold as the purported country.
Some comments on the interesting parts... The portion on Vsevolod Bobrov is probably the one that most informs the minds of Canadian historians. Martin's profile of the player stems largely from Anatoli Tarasov's own point of view about him. While Bobrov was the biggest star of Soviet hockey in the 1950s, he played the game in antithesis to Tarasov's system-oriented methods. Bobrov is described as being an individualist, disparaged in many ways by Tarasov, described as a talented floater. This description of Bobrov seems to have caught on, but it's informed by one particular point of view and bias. Martin doesn't offer other viewpoints about Bobrov aside from the generally known and believed common truths that he was maybe the most skilled Soviet athlete of the era. Another factor in all of this was that Bobrov died in the late 70s, so Martin may never have had a chance to know the man, but Tarasov was still around for him to interview. The book has some considerate passages on Bobrov's stint as a coach following Tarasov's firing - particularly at the 1972 summit series. Martin, however, suggests that Bobrov's approach was to get his players to play more individually (which seems like an oversimplification) and speculates that his more relaxed (and less system-oriented) approach contributed to the team's lack of energy and demise in the final three games of the series. I'm not sure all of this is deserved and Bobrov never seems to get credit for having his team so well prepared for the series to begin with.
There are some informative passages on other 1950s players - Evgeny Babich (Tarasov's favorite), Nikolai Sologubov (Russia's first physically punishing defenseman) and Nikolai Puchkov (the country's first great hockey goalie).
Tarasov is described as the man who truly harnessed the Soviet science-based approach to hockey, something that Martin truly admires. In fact, Martin's thesis is that the Soviets helped save Canada's game by introducing new ways of approaching strategy (based on mathematics). He often points out (correcty) the irony of the Soviet wealth of outstanding tactical ideas and utter dearth of materials (equipment, technology). The books tends to shuffle back and forth between stories of Canadians (like Fred Shero) coming to Russia and being amazed by their 'sciency' presentations on strategy, and conversely the ways in which Russians would seek to trade for equipment with western teams just to have something half-decent to play with. I think that one of the strengths of the book is pointing out the tunnel vision in this Soviet science-based approach to hockey - master one thing, completely ignore and fail at another.
Anatoly Firsov is described in glowing terms in the 1960s portions of the book. The passages describe him as a player of an extremely high IQ who could master very complex strategies, and do things with the puck others could not. Martin also strongly believes that the mid-to-late 60s Soviet teams were better and deeper than the 1972 summit series team (something with which I agree). In the late 60s players like Firsov, Starshinov and Alexandrov dominated international competitions, but unfortunately no exhibition with NHL clubs came to fruition (in spite of talks). There are some other interesting bits of info: Firsov generated an extreme amount of interest from NHL clubs, particularly the LA Kings... Another portion of the book mentions a discussed proposal to include a Russian club as a visiting NHL team (something the Soviets, not the NHL, turned down due to conflicts with the World Championships). Martin is critical of the Soviet goaltending pre-Tretiak - referring to Konovalenko (though not in this term) as a mediocre player who got easily rattled. This is not how he's remembered in Russia now, but that's the point of view shared here.
There's a whole chapter on Kharlamov, which probably offers the fewest surprises to the informed reader - what Canadians know about him comes, to a large extent, from this book. Seemingly left out (and in the minds of many) is the fact that Kharlamov had a somewhat short prime as a player (early-to-mid 70s). Nevertheless, in the minds of everyone who likes Soviet hockey Kharlamov is the greatest Russian hockey legend.
Martin talks up the period of 1976 to 1984 as the finest in Soviet hockey history (starting with the Olympics of '76 and ending with the Canada Cup defeat of '84). He refers to the Soviet Canada Cup squad of '76 as "experimental" (indeed, shorthanded) and lauds the great '78 WC triumph (Tikhonov's first), the Challenge Cup, the '81 Canada Cup, the convincing triumphs over NHL teams, and the '84 Olympics (probably the country's most dominant Olympics). I tend to identify the '81-'84 period as the strongest, because the 'late 70s + 1980 team was still led by Mikhailov-Kharlamov-Petrov whose advanced age probably hurt it against the US in the 1980 Olympics. The subsequent triumphs of KLM as the leading line appear to be more convincing, not to mention that Tretiak developed a mystique of invincibility in those final four years of his career after somewhat up-and-down play in the 1970s.
Martin describes the late-70s national team in a lot of detail - it was an older, more physical squad than the summit ones. Tikhonov, inspired by the play of oldtimers Howe/Hull and others in the '74 summit, decided to ride his old horses in contrast with past philosophy of going young. I haven't seen the 1980 Olympic match between the Russians and the US in a long time, so I can't comment on memory, but Martin blames Tikhonov for his overreliance on the older players who, he says, were physically exhausted late in that match, while the youngsters rode the pine. Tikhonov also erred gravely in pulling Tretiak (abiding by an order from a government official), and in refusing to go with an extra attacker late in the game.
Most of the rest of the book deals with the breakdown of the system, something that Martin tries to blend with the grander narrative of the Soviet collapse (not with great success, in my opinion). He gives Tikhonov a lot of credit for certain things, but doesn't fail to mention his firey temper, penchant for extreme nervousness and tendency to keep long grudges against players who defied him. There is a fascinating account of Helmut Balderis's fights with Tikhonov - Helmut played under Tikhonov with Riga (Balderis's beloved home town), before VT was promoted to coach the national team (and by extension CSKA). This resulted in a conflict, Tikhonov wanting Balderis on CSKA, Balderis eventually leaving for Riga, Tikhonov holding a grudge and banning Balderis from NT. There are some other stories of extremely talented players who never became "NT-material", because they simply would not conform to Tikhonov's very rigid standards.
Tikhonov was not a player-friendly coach, unlike Bobrov. He wanted to be a legend, very much in the same way as Tarasov - and he was not a nitwit strategy-wise. But unlike with Tarasov, Tikhonov's players didn't respect him. Both in terms of looks and personality, Tikhonov was an unpleasant man with an insecure way about him. Martin writes about Tretiak's retirement after the Olympics of '84, as a kind of first stage of the collapse of the national team. Tretiak had little kids by this time (a daughter and son) and wanted more freedom to see them, and, in general, less rigid regulations for non-hockey activity. This wasn't granted and he retired. After Tretiak, the Soviets never had a stable goalie and, gradually, the matter of strict regulation became a hot topic among players, brought on, in part, by glasnost of course. This lack of compromise on the part of Tikhonov sent the team into a spiral, and it's amazing that they did so well in the '87 Canada Cup - in spite of the internal dissent and anticipation of opportunities to play in the NHL. Tikhonov was completely out of touch, almost in every way - Martin even points out that it was Tikhonov who not only agreed to, but encouraged the appointment of Koharski as referee in the '87 Canada Cup finals. He paid for it dearly.
Anyway, there's lots and lots more here. It's a worthwhile read. I would be interested in a follow-up, but I sense that Martin's overly simplistic thesis about passion as a democratic virtue would fall apart upon any revisiting of the issues. Monitoring the state of things in hockey now, it is quite difficult to be a Russian hockey fan and feel optimistic about the future. The Soviets developed a great number of outstanding ideas that would enrich hockey, but were unable to keep them to themselves. Those ideas were copied, integrated, refined everywhere around the world. The tragic thing about the Soviets is that, even as Martin points out, they were much slower, and even incapable, of adjusting to, and being influenced by, outside tendencies comparing to other countries - particularly Canada, which upon being faced with an initially grim reality, quickly adapted and became better. The Soviets developed something brilliant, gave it away and became the victims of their own brilliant creation. Pretty dark stuff.
Today's Russian national team is oddly antithetical to what Tarasov had in mind. Scientific-minded they aren't - in fact all the science went Westward, made that much more sophisticated by new technologies that wealthy countries, like Canada, use to constantly stay ahead of the curve. So the Russians have lost the science or, differently put, their science is in the stone ages. Their players are incapable of playing a system, while the coaches still hopelessly attempt to recreate the glory of the past by mimicking the old style finesse game, oblivious to the fact that it doesn't work anymore. I still think that if the Russians are to return to the top, what would occur would have to be the very mirror of the past - an approach of learning openly and rigorously from the best. This is something that would require the Russians to grow from outside of their own mental bubble. I wonder if they can pull it off.
Read this book if you have a chance.