KEVIN MENZ
Sports Writer

The dissolution of the Soviet Union marked an ideological revolution for many people living in Russia — specifically, the shift from government and militaristic control to individual rights and freedoms marked a new age of individuality for the Russian people.

In the world of Soviet hockey, however, the effect of individuality has been less positive — at least in terms of winning at ice hockey. And to be blunt, Russia has lacked the same dominance the Soviets once had before the collapse of the USSR.

The Soviet hockey team was first allowed to enter the Winter Olympics in 1956 — the first Winter Olympics in the post-Stalinist period — and competed until the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. Between those years, the Soviets won gold in seven of the nine tournaments and, in 1992, the Unified Team, consisting of members from most former Soviet countries, won gold.

Essentially, teams consisting of players from the Soviet Union won gold in eight of the 10 tournaments and the Soviet Union planted itself as arguably the most dominant team in Olympic Men’s hockey history — the only team that might compete for this title is the Canadians, who won gold six of seven times from 1920 to 1952.

Since countries of the former Soviet Union started competing as separate countries in Olympic hockey, there have been five Winter Olympics. Russia has only medalled twice — silver in 1998 in Nagano and bronze in 2002 in Salt Lake City. Compared to the Soviet Union’s success, this should be considered a failure on the Russians’ part and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has already scorned the Russian team’s 2010 performance.

The fact that Russia is a smaller region than the Soviet Union and that international hockey competitions aren’t always consistent in terms of the quality of players (some years have lacked NHL-quality players), it is possible that there is a correlation between Russia’s lack of success in Olympic hockey and these factors.

However, in spite of these issues, Russia has always been regarded as boasting some of the most talented players in the world and it is a wonder as to why the Russians cannot succeed.

With individualism being a relatively new political concept for Russians the country has been breeding talented superstars, but has ignored the aspect of team that the Soviets once had.

Before the Soviet Union dissolved, the country was, of course, communist.

This meant that the region of Russia was devoted to its state and not its individuals. For the Soviet hockey team, this meant that international competitions were a stage to display their country’s dominance and not a stage to display individual talent.

Nationalistic pride and government pressure existed behind every game and the nation — much like in Canada, today — would feel a sense of rise or fall, depending on the team’s success. Thus, the team was placed above the individual.

In fact, in his biography, the Soviet coach from 1946-1975, Anatoli Tarasov, is said to have adopted a coaching style that was “non-individualistic,” “patriotic,” and team-oriented.

Prior to the break-up of the Soviet Union, in order for Soviet-born players to play in the NHL they had to sneak away from their home teams without warning. One of the most famous examples of this is Sergei Fedorov, who, while his team from Moscow was in Seattle for an international competition, snuck out of his hotel room and boarded a plane to Detroit to play for the Red Wings who had taken the risk and drafted the Soviet player.

However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union the NHL became a realistic and attainable goal for many Russian players — Russia’s hockey mentality switched from a nationalistic mentality to one of individual success and freedom.

In terms of this individual freedom and the development of talented individuals, Russia has been extremely successful. They have developed such great players as Igor Larionov, Pavel Bure, Sergei Gonchar, Ilya Kovalchuk, Pavel Datsyuk, Evgeni Malkin and Alexander Ovechkin.

The interesting thing about talented Russian players, however, is that a majority of them are forwards. It is this offensively minded mentality that perfectly exemplifies the state of Russian hockey today — the concept of individuality in Russia emphasizes individual success over team success and leads to the production of a lot of amazing forwards; unfortunately, it leaves Russia lacking in terms of defense and defensive play.

Not to say that Russians do not take pride in their hockey, but there is a clear distinction between the playing-styles of Russians and Canadians — who are very nationalistic when it comes to hockey.

When Canada played Russia in the 2010 Games’ quarter-final, the distinctions between Canada’s team-style game and Russia’s individual-style game was most apparent. Canadian players passed quickly, shot when they had their chances, cycled the puck around the outside boards and worked together to knock the Russians off the puck.

Needless to say, the Canadians played solid defensive hockey; the Russians, on the other hand, held on to the puck too long, cherry-picked at the opposing teams’ blue-line in order to get breakaways and had defencemen who were too slow to stop Canada’s speed. It was this dissociation between defence and offence that was Russia’s greatest downfall — the offensive players refused to adequately help out their struggling defense and, consequentially, the lack of defensive skill prevented Russia from getting the puck onto their offensive players’ sticks. Along with this, each player held onto the puck too long and it led to turnovers in both their offensive and defensive zones.

Russia’s attempt to develop individual scorers and the greatest hockey players in the world has been a relative success, but, unfortunately, they have ignored the aspects of team play.

However, this appears to be changing.

Players such as Alexander Ovechkin are re-establishing a sense of national pride in Russian hockey — Ovechkin intends to play for Russia in the 2014 Olympics even if it means illegally breaking from his NHL contract — and with the next Olympics being in Russia, it is likely that Russian nationalism will be stronger than ever.

If the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia takes this year’s surprising underachievement in the Olympics as a sign, they will rethink their development strategy. If they can focus on developing stronger defencemen and a more team-style game, the Russian team, fuelled by a sense of revamped nationalism, will be a difficult team to play in the 2014 Olympics.

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photo: Flickr