The hero of his time

As long as I remember - I have a fan all my life. Hockey is my favorite sport. How much I am “sick”, so much I “root” for hockey and so much in my life Viktor Tikhonov. Was. But when I heard about his death, I remembered first of all not hockey at all. That is, not quite hockey. Because in the life of this person, except for hockey, there really was nothing. And with us, one way or another, he was always associated with a puck, club, ice.

So here is the day when I heard about Tikhonov, I remember perfectly. I was six years old. For the first time in my life, I watched "Seventeen Moments of Spring." So, as a six -year -old child can watch not very children's cinema. My parents explained to me that this is our scout Stirlitz, and his artist Tikhonov plays. And after the film showed the final of the World Hockey Championship. In Prague, ours with the Czechs played. 1978. Now I understand how many symbolism and subtexts were in this match. The USSR national team was supposed to not just win, but to win a certain score in order to win gold. Won and won. And my father told me that he was training our Tikhonov. And for some time I was sure that the coach of the hockey team was Stirlitz ...

The last months of the life of this is not even legendary, but literally a historical person were full of tests. In August last year, his only son Vasily, who also became a coach, died in an absurd manner. Of course, not as great as the father, but it was simply impossible to become like that. Viktor Vasilich had a grandson, the son of Vasily. Also Victor. Victor Tikhonov Jr.. And this spring, Victor Jr. became the world champion, the best scorer and the best player in the world championship, which his grandfather won with the Soviet team eight times. The most terrible and probably the happiest moments have met this person in the last months of life ...

There is no need to list all his titles, because it is enough to open the encyclopedia. And there is no need to say that it is simply impossible to repeat these achievements. Victor Vasilich Tikhonov was the hero of his time. Which went long before his death and will never return. The Soviet hockey remained in that epic past, and now, when every international victory is an event, sometimes accompanied by a blow, attracted by the ears of Paphos, it is difficult to imagine that there were days when we won every year. And what kind of victory at the World Cup did not give the title of Honored Master of Sports - it was necessary to win at least two gold! What the second place could be expelled from the national team, and even the third seemed like a disaster, and here they could not be expelled from the national team! Well, below the third simply did not happen. Never in the history of the USSR national team is in any tournament.

It is pointless to say now that those victories were won in matches against not the most powerful Canadian teams. In the end, the Czechs were always real, and for the Czechs the 68th year before the end of the communist era remained a doping that doubled forces in the confrontation with the Russians. And against the best Canadians, Tikhonov played quite successfully. The famous Call Cup-79, the Great Cup of Canada-81, countless matches of CSKA with NHL clubs, which decorated the New Year holidays. Randev-87 and the triple final of the Canadian Cup of the same 1987-the best that was generally in the history of world hockey. All this was under Tikhonov. And we will not forget that his teams always had to play with Canadians at Canadian sites, visiting. So at the world level it is pointless to dispute Tikhonov’s achievements.

They spoke different things about Tikhonov “for internal use”. About despotism, turning into tyranny. About ruthlessness to players, whom he perceived rather not as people, but as human material. Many did not love him, some hated it. They moaned from its diaphoretic system and barracks. Although again, many of those who moaned and hated are scattered today in gratitude.

But one way or another - not Tikhonov invented this system. The system in which hockey, together with space and ballet, was a showcase of the Soviet system. So, he worked exclusively for international victories of the national team. The main club of the country was CSKA. And these two teams were sometimes almost synonymous. If you want to get to the national team, go to CSKA to Tikhonov. The army team won the year after year. Even individual matches lost by them turned into a sensation. On equal terms with CSKA, only NHL clubs could play - it seemed that our hockey generally exists for these matches and for the sake of the world championships with the Olympiads.

But not Tikhonov was the fault. He was simply the most important person of the system created by others for generations before him. After all, once the same “red car” was led by Anatoly Tarasov, the hero of the previous era of continuous victories.

The fruits of this approach are our “puck” all the years after the collapse of the Union. When it turned out that without a basic club, which is subordinate to everything, we cannot create a combat -ready team. When it turned out that generations of coaches who did not know how to win. Because only one person always won. And the struggle went at best for the second-third place. When our hockey players knocked over the ocean, we did not know how to do for another and a half, how to do it as not to divide hockey players into millionaires and non -poatriots who are “there” and “their own”, who are “here”.

In the new conditions, Tikhonov also ceased to win, and his CSKA turned into a middle peasant, who, after the Soviet era, never once became the leader of the championship. But it just so happened that in 1992 it was under the leadership of Tikhonov that the national team of the already nonexistent Soviet Union, who came to the games of Alberville without a flag, without a hymn and even without an emblem on the uniform, without the stars migrated to the NHL, managed to win our last hockey Olympics, winning the decisive match of Canadians. It is simply impossible to come up with a more symbolic ending.

Since then, the Russian national team has won the world championships, the Olympics - no. Even on its ice in Sochi. And today Tikhonov remains the most titled coach in the history of international hockey. A man who, not yet working in CSKA, but training in the early 70s the modest Riga Dynamo, committed a revolution in world hockey. It was his team who was the first to play four five, and now they play everything and everywhere on both sides of the ocean.

... Everyone very much hoped that the ill one and a half months ago Tikhonov would recover by November 24 and will be able to come to the army ice palace. Because on this day in Moscow, CSKA was accepted by St. Petersburg SKA, where Victor Tikhonov Jr. plays. But it was on November 24 that in the morning Tikhonov Sr. was never. And in the evening, Tikhonov Jr. abandoned two goals in the game, which the grandfather could not come to.

The CSKA won, which for the first time in many years is again leading in our championship. But if in Soviet times many were sick of a “spite” against the army hockey monster, now many will wish for this team. Times have changed in this sense.



Photo of TASS