Party coach

Viktor Tikhonov died - one of the most noticeable and contradictory figures of domestic sports, a driver of a hockey "Red Machine"

In Moscow, in the 85th year of his life, an outstanding hockey coach Viktor Tikhonov died. He headed the USSR team, which, under his leadership, became the world champion eight times and won the Olympic Games three times. Tikhonov was also the head coach of the Russian hockey team and left this post only in 2004. Tikhonov’s name is associated both the fantastic successes of the Soviet team, which received the nickname “Big Red Machine” in the West, and many conflicts with hockey players-especially at the turn of the 1990s after the opening of the borders and the wave of players in the NHL.

Victor Tikhonov, March 2014

A whole era in the history of Soviet and Russian hockey is associated with the name of Viktor Tikhonov. Tikhonov was born on June 4, 1930 in Moscow. He began to engage in hockey in 1945 in the youth team of the sports club of the Central House of the Red Army. In 1949-1953 he played a defender for the MVO Air Force Club, in 1953-1963 - for the Moscow Dynamo. In the championships, the USSR spent 296 matches, abandoned 35 goals. Viktor Tikhonov as a player became a four -time champion of the USSR (three times as part of the Air Force, once in Dynamo), and in 1952 he won the USSR Cup. In the 60s, he began coaching, was an assistant to the coach in Dynamo Moscow, then he headed the Riga Dynamo, where he achieved the first successes. It was in the Riga Dynamo that Tikhonov demonstrated a revolutionary hockey innovation - a game of four fives, which is practiced today.

The match between the national teams of the USSR and Czechoslovakia in the hockey on the Canadian Cup draw

In 1977, this club took 4th place in the USSR championship. Immediately after that, Tikhonov headed CSKA. There, he put a strict discipline at the forefront and introduced daily two -time training. The athletics elements with an emphasis on the starting speed of players came to the fore. In the memory of the players, the Tikhonovskoye "Santiago" remained - 16 segments of 400 meters with short pauses, after which some players needed the help of a doctor. Many club veterans did not accept high loads and discipline, the result of which was the change of hockey generations. In particular, under Tikhonov, the famous three Mikhailov - Petrov - Kharlamov gave way to the equally famous link "KLM" - Krutov - Larionov - Makarov. Together with the defenders of Fetisov and Kasatonov and other players, they made up the Red Machine known to the world, which for many years was considered the best team in amateur hockey and was able to win the Canadian Cup, in which the strongest professionals from the NHL participated in history.

The trailer for the film "Red Army" by the American director Gabe Polski. The picture dedicated to the phenomenon of the USSR national hockey team and its coach Viktor Tikhonov was awarded a special show at the Cannes Film Festival in the spring of this year:

Over a decade and a half, CSKA, led by Tikhonov, became the champion from 1977 to 1989, won the European Champions Cup 14 times, and the USSR Cup twice won twice. In the same 1977, Viktor Tikhonov headed the USSR national team , which won the World Cup 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1989, 1990. The team won three times in a row at the Olympic Games ( the USSR team -in 1984, 1988, the CIS team in 1992 ). Under the leadership of Tikhonov, the USSR national team in 1979 won the call Cup, and in 1981 won the Canada Cup.

A selection of the best moments from the speeches of the USSR national team under the leadership of Viktor Tikhonov:

In those years, Tikhonov’s authority was indisputable. However, many fans and experts were unhappy with politics, in which the best players from other clubs were transferred to CSKA, as they said then, "in the interests of the national team." So, for example, the Kapustin - Zhluktov - Balderis link appeared. The fact that subsequently Fetisov and Larionov entered the famous "Russian five" of the club "Detroit Red Wings", which won the Stanley Cup, of course, is the merit of Viktor Tikhonov. However, Tikhonov himself was fiercely resisted by the players to the West: when the best Soviet players began to move to the NHL clubs, the coach categorically opposed, believing that the national team would be seriously weakened. It was impossible to stop the mass departure of the players, but the struggle of Tikhonov against the Hockey Struggle against the departure of players in the NHL entered a separate page. So, in October 1988, in the magazine "Ogonek" published an open letter of hockey player Igor Larionov Tikhonov , in which he subjected his coaching methods to sharply criticism.

1988, the first five of the Olympic team of the USSR in hockey. From left to right: Sergey Makarov, Alexey Kasatonov, Igor Larionov, Vyacheslav Fetisov, Vladimir Krutov

In 1993-1994, Tikhonov was the head coach of the Russian team. In 1994, the Russian team could not win gold Olympic medals, after which Tikhonov left the post of head coach of the national team, but remained the coach of CSKA.

Tikhonov returned to the Russian team in the summer of 2003, but after an unsuccessful performance at the 2004 World Cup, he finally left this post. On March 31, 2004, he left the post of head coach of CSKA.

Sports journalist Arkady Ratner , who has been working in the sports editorial office of the Central Television of the USSR for more than 40 years and has repeatedly communicated with Viktor Tikhonov, recalls him as a person, a devoted party and the Soviet idea:

- Viktor Vasilievich was an outstanding coach, but in Soviet reality there were no less strong teams, for example, under the leadership of Anatoly Tarasov and Arkady Chernyshev . By virtue of my own age, I remember Tikhonov as a player, and in the form of the Air Force team, and the defender of Dynamo. I can’t call him an outstanding player, but he was very serious, and most importantly, very hardworking. In 1962, he became an assistant to Chernyshev, in 1968 he moved to Riga and literally created a magnificent team in a naked place, in which no well-known players performed at that time. Tikhonov was an innovator: he was the first not only in the Soviet Union, but also in the world he began to play four three, although at the beginning they laughed at this idea. Hardness was also the main feature of Tikhonov-trainer. Whenever you arrived at the CSKA sports palace, you could always find him there.

Victor Tikhonov and Vladimir Putin, 2011

- The Tikhonov team in the West was called the "Big Red Machine". The formation of such a team was possible only in Soviet conditions, when hockey players could be directed to clubs, when there was a kind of understanding of patriotism, supported by the Soviet system, when it was possible to use, as they say, an “administrative resource” without restrictions?

- When in 1977 Tikhonov accepted the national team after an unsuccessful performance in Vienna under the leadership of Boris Kulagin , an attempt was immediately made to strengthen CSKA. Balderis from Riga, Kapustin from the “Wings of the Soviets”, Babinov came to the team. The team became magnificent. At first, Tikhonov was not easy for relations with the first "three", with Kharlamov, with Boris Mikhailov, but gradually everything worked out. Gradually, the second appeared, in my opinion, also a outstanding Troika, Kapustin - Zhluktov - Balderis, they essentially soon became the first. Krutov was already growing, Makarov from Chelyabinsk, Larionov from the Voskresensky "Chemist". Of course, the power of CSKA was that the club was almost an analogue of the USSR national team, the best players from all cities of the Soviet Union were taken here.

The power of CSKA was that the club was almost an analogue of the USSR national team, the best players from all cities of the Soviet Union were taken here

The team was brilliant, although in 1982 Spartak began to revive almost took first place from CSKA. As for international speeches, matches with professionals, of course, the achievements were very high. There was a won “Canada Cup”, but we must remember that the same team lost it. And there was a severe defeat from the United States in 1980 in Lake Placide . It was for Tikhonov there was a severe mental trauma. I remember how literally two or three days after his return from the United States I came to him and we talked in his office for almost three hours. It seems to me that he was biased in assessing the team’s game, but I was struck by the depth of the experiences that poured out of him. He spoke about this with such a pain, with such an anguish ... to lose to the Americans on their field - for him it was a blow, especially since it was far from the strongest American team.

-Tikhonov was part of the Soviet system of sports and political relations. How did he experience the scraper that occurred in the late 1980s, when the Soviet hockey players-Alexander Mogilny, Vyacheslav Fetisov, Igor Larionov-wanted to leave for the NHL?

Viktor Tikhonov surrounded by players of the Russian national team at the 2004 World Cup in the Czech Republic

-He was a member of the party, had a military rank, andropov personally accepted him in 1977. Brezhnev, a passionate lover of hockey, was extremely depressed that ours in 1977 lost to the Swedes world championship in Vienna, and instructed the party "curators" of hockey to choose the best coaches. As part of this strategy, Tikhonov met with Andropov , raised the question of him about strengthening the team, which, of course, was immediately done - all the best was transferred to him to CSKA. But on the whole, patriotism, which has always been unusually pedalized in Soviet teams, was in Tikhonov’s team at the highest level. The Soviet anthem in the locker room, like Tarasov,, of course, did not sing, but set an example for everyone with his impeccable party behavior. He was a man devoted to the idea of Soviet hockey, the conjunctural hockey, where everything was decided not only at the expense of coaching skills, but also at the expense of various kinds of not very sports deals.

He was a man devoted to the idea of hockey of the conjunctural, where everything was decided not only at the expense of coaching skills, but also at the expense of various kinds of not very sports deals

As for the departure of the players, Tikhonov resisted this with all his might. Not only because he was afraid to lose Fetisov, he, with many, for example, with Tretyak, had a difficult relationship in the team. It was just not clear to him how the Soviet man, especially a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, suddenly, suddenly throw his country and go for money to another! But Fetisov, of course, was a player of a significant, higher level than the majority in our Soviet championship, and worthy of performing in the NHL.

- Now there is no Soviet Union, there is no that hockey system, Tikhonov also left. Is it possible to revive such brilliant hockey in Russia?

- I think that such a national team will not be able to create. For many reasons. The first reason is the departure of young guys who could achieve more here than playing in some lower league in Canada. Secondly, for some reason, super-talents disappeared. The 1960-70-80s were an era, when one super-tier replaced another, and now our power is objectively visible according to the quarter-finals of the game at the Sochi Olympics, where Finland was stronger than Russia on his head. I think that we will never have such a team that will never have any “machine” there, ”said Sports journalist Arkady Ratner .

Viktor Tikhonov was introduced into the Hall of Glory of the International Federation of Hockey and the Museum of Olympic Glory in Lausanne, had the titles of Honored Coach of the USSR, Honored Coach of the RSFSR, Honored Coach of the Latvian SSR, was a gentleman of the Olympic Order. Repeatedly awarded Soviet and Russian state awards. The grandson of Viktor Tikhonov, also Victor, as part of the Russian national team became the world champion and one of the best players in the 2014 Minsk Championship .

The funeral of Viktor Tikhonov will take place on November 27 at the Vagankovsky cemetery in Moscow.

Fragment of the final issue of the Freedom Time program