Three won Olympic games, 8 world Championships, Challenge Cup, Canada Cup, an endless procession of victories in the European Champions Cup with CSKA… In any other country a coach with such a track record would be a national hero.We are all different. Speaking of Viktor Tikhonov, always remember losing the Olympics in lake placid, the death of Kharlamov, let me remind you that the dissatisfied wives of the players called him “Pinochet”. Tikhonov did not consider it necessary to respond. His destiny, faith and truth was hockey, the Ministry to whom he gave all life.Victor, an ordinary Moscow the boy was 11 years old when the war began. Like many peers, he replaced the Desk in a working specialty, becoming a mechanic in the bus depot. The father of the coach was killed at the front. When the war reached a turning point-the opportunity came to get back to school. After school Tikhonov enrolled in school trade apprenticeship.Canadian hockey came to the Soviet reality after the war, quickly gaining popularity. Victor also contracted a common hobby, after conscription was selected in the team of the air force. This club was under the supervision of the General of aviation Vasily Stalin, the son of the leader. If football “pilots” did not Shine, the ice hockey team of the air force became the triple champion of the Soviet Union.Tikhonov, who played as a defender, was reliable and stable, although not the star hockey player. After the club, the air force was disbanded, he moved to the “Dinamo”, where he added to his three another title of champion of the USSR. Tikhonov’s playing career ended at age 32, what for that time was quite common. To retire from hockey, he never thought, focusing on coaching activities.Dynamo young coach had a great Arkady Chernyshev, together with Anatoly Tarasov formed the invincible coaching tandem in the national team of the USSR.However, when Tarasov and Chernyshev led the team to major victories, Tikhonov in the Moscow “Dynamo” was gone. He was sent to independent work in Riga, where the misery of the local “Dynamo”. Latvian hockey that developed since before the war, at that time, was in a serious crisis. The main team of the Republic has slipped to the second League for 10 years, replacing 10 coaches. Local hockey players and Tikhonov did not expect miracles. But he felt differently.Its novelty initially, some were surprised and others were made fun of. Instead of three fives he played four, drew particular attention to the play, creating what is then called “STARBRIGHT implementation.” Too frequent change of players on the ice, practised in Riga “Dinamo” Tikhonov, considered a freak, but the team’s results demonstrate efficiencythe effectiveness of the new approach. Perhaps the years of work in Riga was the most peaceful time in his career Viktor Tikhonov. From a hopeless outsider, he created one of the most distinctive teams in the country, bringing it to 4th place in the Premier League. After the end of the Tarasov-Chernyshev, the Soviet hockey is not something to find yourself in a hole, but the stability he lacked. And since hockey by the time he turned the business card of the country, the organizational issues were solved at the highest level.Tikhonov invited the Chairman of the KGB Yuri Andropov, who offered a promising coach positions head coach of CSKA and USSR national team. So as a life coach in the history of Soviet hockey, a new era began.In 1980, the national team of the Soviet Union sensationally missed the Olympic gold in lake placid after losing to team USA. To give the main ideological enemy, but also in the eyes of the American public — in the Soviet years it is sometimes worth career. But Tikhonov avoided resignation. Soviet leaders to implode did not. In the Luggage Viktor already had won two world Championships and also winning the Challenge Cup-1979, where USSR team took over the NHL.By the way, in 1979 in the final match Tikhonov used a move that put the opponent in a dead end — instead of Tretiak in the gate, he put Vladimir Myshkin. North Americans, accustomed to the style of play the best goalkeeper on the planet, to unravel the secrets of his alternate are unable. As a result the national SSR won with the score 6:0.So, when Tikhonov ill-fated match against the USA changed Tretiak for Myshkin, this move was not something absolutely extraordinary. However, at that time didn’t work.
On The Eve Of “Miracle”. In 1979, the hockey team of the Soviet Union erased the NHL in powder
Read more
Having received carte Blanche after the failure of 1980, Tikhonov started a radical restructuring of the team. On the Cup of Canada 1981 went, in fact, a new team, which was not even Kharlamov.This solution Tikhonov many could not forgive, believing it to be indirectly responsible for the death of the stars of Soviet hockey in the accident.But the tragedy and prevent a sober look at things. Victor always proceeded from the interests of the business, and drive someone to the tournament for past achievements, no matter how huge they were not, fundamentally not going to. In fact, the defeat of the star of team Canada with a score of 8:1 in the final, proved the truth of the coach of the national team of the USSR. In that tournament for the first time in full force debuted the “first five” — Makarov, Larionov, Krutov, Fetisov, Kasatonov. In the 1980’s “first five” will become a major phenomenon in the world of hockey.It was during Viktor Tikhonov the USSR national team became the legendary “Red car”, sweeping everything in its path.At the Olympics in Sarajevo and calgary equals to the Soviet hockey players are simply not there. From 1978 to 1990, the USSR national team only twice gave the title.The deafening power of the USSR national team and CSKA Tikhonov could not cause envy and irritation. Mentor began to blame the fact that it runs in privileged conditions, takes the best players from other teams. Years later it will become clear — any talented players will not give results if they are trained by a weak specialist.Tikhonov was able to brilliantly reveal the strengths of the players, integrating them into its intricate designs. Probably each of the “first five” would be able to Express themselves in hockey alone, but without Tikhonova they would not have achieved the soaring heights of skill that made them for the whole world.During perestroika, when it became fashionable to overthrow the idols, on Tikhonov was poured a huge amount of slop. The students, bursting into the NHL, accusing him of dictatorial methods of work, in contempt of his personal life. Wife Soviet stars still in the interview talking about how Tikhonov kept their husbands at the base, giving extra time to spend with their families. “Victor Pinochet” — so called his life partner of Olympic Champions and world Champions.With Tikhonov was really difficult. For him, hockey was the main and only thing in life that he belonged entirely. A different attitude seemed to Tikhonov, a real fanatic of his profession, strange. In the years of his youth he, unlike his teammates, strictly observe the regime, not participating in fun feasts and gatherings. In coaching years to the venerable age of Tikhonov ran with the team trainers and went out on the ice. Even on vacation he was immersed in his legendary notebooks, where he collected the groundwork for the strategy and tactics of the game, according to the methods of the training process.They say that after the death of Tikhonov his achievements were not in demand. Maybe this is the reason that of such figures in the national coaching workshop is no more?
Farewell, Master: departed this life the Creator of “the red car” Victor Tikhonov
Read more
In 1992, he went to the Olympic games in Albertville, the team of foreign journalists called “kindergarten”. Team broken country without a national anthem, flag and the stars, promised failure, but Tikhonov won gold of the Games for the third time in his career.It would seem that after the spitting and insults in his address he proved everything to everyone. It was possible to go abroad, where, in contrast to the Motherland, its credibility and success is not questioned. Or just go on a holiday, speaking to the media as an expert and engaged in writing his memoirs. Instead, Viktor Tikhonov all 1990-e will work in a completely bloodless CSKA. He will put a spoke in the wheel, trying to get rid of him… the Coach will survive the split of the team in a lower division, even for some time the loss of the rights to the name “CSKA”… Some call it bigotry, others devotion to hockey. The truth is that Viktor Tikhonov was never unfaithful to himself…. I think it was in the late 1990s or very early 2000s… In the stadium “Dynamo” was held a mediocre match of the championship of Russia on football. A heavy rain began, and the fans huddled under the tiny canopy on the top, where was the commentary Studio. Among these fans are willing to endure the rain for the most outstanding football, stood a man in a raincoat with an umbrella. He watched the game, and others seem to not even know him. That man was Viktor Tikhonov. His pupils became the stars of the NHL, looked at us from the covers of glossy magazines and TV screens. And the man who created the “Red car”, huddled in the crowd an old Dynamo on the podium.He gave all of myself to hockey. And this was probably the main happiness Viktor Tikhonov
