Make No Mistake About It: Soviets Atone
MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT: SOVIETS ATONE
Boston Globe
February 20, 1984
Author: John Powers Globe Staff
Estimated printed pages: 4
The Soviet team guide refers to it as the "unexpected mishap at Lake Placid." The official view is that what the Americans considered a miracle was merely one of those cosmic burps that come along once a generation.
"If we played again their 1980 team, I don't think they should have been able to win," USSR hockey coach Viktor Tikhonov concluded. "Even if they play the second game in Lake Placid.
The Russians craved a piece - a large piece - of the US team. "They wanted us," captain Phil Verchota said. "But we dodged them."
So the Russians had taken it out on anyone handy - 6-1 over the West Germans, 10-1 over the Swedes, 4-0 over the Canadians and, yesterday, 2-0 over unbeaten Czechoslovakia for the Olympic gold medal they missed last time.
When it was done, the Soviet players happily flung their sticks into the cheap seats, embraced goalkeeper Vladislav Tretiak and bounded upon the award stand.
"I think it will be a good celebration," Tikhonov said, after his people had won all seven matches by a 48-5 aggregate. "We have had a number of triumphs in the last few years. The only one we miss is an Olympic gold medal, and now we have achieved it."
There was redemption there, and a measure of relief. There are few tougher tasks than coming to an Olympics as a prohibitive favorite. Ask Scott Hamilton.
"The Russians have nothing to gain and everything to lose," US coach Lou Vairo had said. "That's a horrible position to always be in. They get the silver medal, they go home in disgrace. We go home with a silver, they hold a parade for us."
The Czechs, who were fifth at Lake Placid, won the silver; Sweden dumped Canada, 2-0, for the bronze. "There are 20 guys all crying in there," said Canadian coach Dave King. "They're sitting with their heads down. They had high hopes. They really thought they could beat the Swedes."
For a dozen days, it had been a lovely little run. Canada had won its first four games, taking down the US and Finland in the process. Then, the Canadians simply stopped scoring - going their final 181 minutes and 42 seconds without a goal - and lost to the Czechs (4-0), Russians (4-0) and Swedes.
Yesterday, needing only a tie to take the bronze, the Canadians came out tight and jittery and never settled down. "We were like a bunch of seagulls on the bench," King said. Peter Gradin got Sweden a goal after 31 minutes. Karl Soedergren added another on the power play 13 minutes from the end, and it was gone.
The Swedes, who were also third at Lake Placid, were delighted with their bronze. They came here with no illusions, and left with fewer.
This was the Soviets' party, and they played the tune. Half of the 1980 team (nine of them forwards) had been replaced, but the critical people - Tretiak, defensemen Vyacheslav Fetisov and Aleksei Kasatanov, wings Vladimir Krutov and Sergei Makarov - were still on hand.
Around them, Tikhonov had molded a group of brilliant new faces, such as wing Nikolai Drozdetski, who scored 10 goals here. The Soviets barely needed their first line of Krutov, Makarov and Igor Larionov (eight goals total). They got 26 from their third and fourth lines. "The Russians," Bruins GM Harry Sinden would say, "are unbelievably good."
Tikhonov, who presided over the Lake Placid mishap, returned, too, with a small brown book in which he scribbled salient scouting notes. "I don't use it too often," he admitted.
Tikhonov knew that everybody here, from the Italians to the Czechs, would play his team the same way - by circling the wagons. The Czechs dropped back into their 2-1-2, keeping the left wing back to create three defenders, hoping for the opening that would let them bust out for a breakaway.
They never got it yesterday. The Russians kept pressing the play from the neutral zone, buzzing goalie Jaromir Schindel (31 saves). They got goals from Aleksandr Kozhevnikov (6:38 of the first) and Krutov (1:12 of the second) and seemed content. If any Czechs got past the red line, Fetisov and Kasatanov, undoubtedly the best defensive tandem on the planet, were standing imposing sentry.
And as for Tretiak, who has now won three gold medals and a silver . . . "I would say he played like Tretiak," Tikhonov said. "Not worse than that."
Meaning that Tretiak gave away nothing. He would stand idle for three, four, five minutes at a stretch, watching the play at the other end. When a rival forward shook loose and headed for him, Tretiak shrugged off the cobwebs, spring to life and denied him.
He did not allow a goal in the medal round, and when the final buzzer sounded, nobody had scored on Tretiak in the final 129:56.
So the gold medal is back in the USSR for the sixth time in eight Olympiads, and the Soviets are already planning to crunch a few old friends at this fall's Canada Cup. "This triumph we have today," said Tikhonov, "is already history."
So, he said, is the mishap at Lake Placid. Fate had it that there would be no rematch here, which was probably just as well for the Americans. Missing a date with these people is like missing a ride on the Hindenburg.
In another hockey development, Le Journal de Montreal reported that the NHL's Calgary Flames are ready to pay Czechoslovakia $2.6 million for two players and the head coach of that country's national team.
The newspaper said Sunday that Flames general manager Cliff Fletcher made a pitch to Czechoslovakian hockey officials in Sarajevo early last week to acquire left wings Igor Liba and Jaroslav Benak, as well as veteran head coach Ludek Bukac.
The report didn't indicate whether the Czechs showed any interest in Fletcher's offer. Benak was considered a bust in the Olympic tournament, but Liba, with four goals and eight assists, was one of his team's best performers.
Liba was a fifth-round draft choice of the Flames in last year's NHL entry draft, while Benak was taken in the 11th round.
