Sochi 2014

[malkinfan]

If by "NA Specialist" you mean North American coaches, I don't favor hiring North Americans at all. I don't know of any special insight that North Americans have to offer. In Canada, youth hockey is based on the premise of mass development, or to put it another way, sheer numbers. In a nation of 33 million people, every small community within Canada has indoor and outdoor rinks, organized teams, and sufficient coaching to ensure that if anyone in the country has the ability to be a good hockey player, he will have more than ample opportunity to learn to skate, join a team, and get some fundamental development training. Canadians are very forthright in saying that a lot of the special skills training that they do was largely borrowed from Soviet hockey school methodology that they learned back in the '70's and '80's, when they used to travel to the Soviet Union to study it.

By contrast, the percentage of Russian kids who have easy access to the tools to build a hockey career is so small as to be almost anecdotal. My friend Allacbeth who posts here lives in the city of Kemerovo near Novokuznetsk, a city of half a million people for whom winter lasts six months a year. Allacbeth tells me that despite these characteristics, there is almost no hockey at all in Kemerovo. Any kid who has athletic ability and wants to skate plays bandy, which is wildly popular. So many parts of Russia have failed to develop any hockey infrastructure at all. The best hope is that the KHL, which is driving the expansion of organized youth hockey, will continue to build such infrastructure in order to feed needed raw materials to its league.

Hockey schools should be created everywhere, and all of the schools should adopt the methodology found at Traktor hockey school, which sets the gold standard for youth hockey development in my opinion. The best feature of Russian hockey, in my opinion, is the schools. Soviet player development, training and conditioning was the best in the World in its time, and all of those approaches should be revisited, IMO, to see which still apply today. The Canadian approach is really nothing more than spending money to fund mass participation, which is nothing that we didn't already know.

I agree, if you read my whole post it will offer a suggestion to your opinion. Russia has better player development, but NA coaches methods are proven at the club level. Russian national teams are starving for quality coaches. Maybe foreign coaches can be used after the players are through development stage.
For example, past 3 KHL championships won by foreign coaches because they take already developed players and put them into a recipe for success. No denying that Keenan has exceptional tactics which other coaches are lacking. He's been around for so long he just knows how things are done, others don't. Its not just me, Zaripov, Mozyakin and others have also promoted Keenan. Glad Russia wised up and hired a foreigner to take the ropes following Latvia's lead.

 

[Jussi]

If by "NA Specialist" you mean North American coaches, I don't favor hiring North Americans at all. I don't know of any special insight that North Americans have to offer. In Canada, youth hockey is based on the premise of mass development, or to put it another way, sheer numbers. In a nation of 33 million people, every small community within Canada has indoor and outdoor rinks, organized teams, and sufficient coaching to ensure that if anyone in the country has the ability to be a good hockey player, he will have more than ample opportunity to learn to skate, join a team, and get some fundamental development training. Canadians are very forthright in saying that a lot of the special skills training that they do was largely borrowed from Soviet hockey school methodology that they learned back in the '70's and '80's, when they used to travel to the Soviet Union to study it.

It needs to be said that hockey has become a middle class sports even in Canada, helped in large by not only the cost of equipment but also the amount of extra skill camps kids have to go to if they want to make it to the top level. A Finnish sports magazine did story a couple years ago about a family from British Columbia. The family spends 5 figure sums (I don't recall whether it was per year or lifetime) to make sure their 12 year old son got to all the skating, shooting and stickhandling camps. Finnish hockey federation has held annual Future Lions camps fro members of various junior national team players, where they've had skill coaches from Canada that are employed by Hockey Canada or private companies. I remember a couple of stories from consecutive years when they had a shooting coach to help the kids working on their shot (Sasha Barkov took part in a recent one). The coaches both said they were surprised how poor the kids were at shooting compared to Canadian kids their age. This is just an example what Europeans could learn from Canadian coaches.

 

[Yakushev72]

It needs to be said that hockey has become a middle class sports even in Canada, helped in large by not only the cost of equipment but also the amount of extra skill camps kids have to go to if they want to make it to the top level. A Finnish sports magazine did story a couple years ago about a family from British Columbia. The family spends 5 figure sums (I don't recall whether it was per year or lifetime) to make sure their 12 year old son got to all the skating, shooting and stickhandling camps. Finnish hockey federation has held annual Future Lions camps fro members of various junior national team players, where they've had skill coaches from Canada that are employed by Hockey Canada or private companies. I remember a couple of stories from consecutive years when they had a shooting coach to help the kids working on their shot (Sasha Barkov took part in a recent one). The coaches both said they were surprised how poor the kids were at shooting compared to Canadian kids their age. This is just an example what Europeans could learn from Canadian coaches.

The skills camps that you refer to came into being after Hockey Canada came to decide that Canadian kids lacked the fundamental skills that visiting Soviet teams displayed. There were even Canadian Government studies that were launched to find out why "our kids can't skate and handle the puck like the Russian kids can." The Russian kids, of course, were trained in Soviet hockey schools.

Now there is no question that Canadians far outspend Russians and everyone else on trying to make sure that their Johnny has the best possible opportunity to make it to the top. Overall, Russians simply lack the wealth to compete with Canada on that level. But I disagree with you when you say that Russians could learn skills from Canadian coaches. They are doing the very drills that learned from the Soviets.

 

[Yakushev72]

I agree, if you read my whole post it will offer a suggestion to your opinion. Russia has better player development, but NA coaches methods are proven at the club level. Russian national teams are starving for quality coaches. Maybe foreign coaches can be used after the players are through development stage.
For example, past 3 KHL championships won by foreign coaches because they take already developed players and put them into a recipe for success. No denying that Keenan has exceptional tactics which other coaches are lacking. He's been around for so long he just knows how things are done, others don't. Its not just me, Zaripov, Mozyakin and others have also promoted Keenan. Glad Russia wised up and hired a foreigner to take the ropes following Latvia's lead.

I don't consider Znarok a foreign coach because he was born in Chelyabinsk and actually attended the Traktor hockey school when he was a kid. Lets put it this way, if they have a foreign coach who has innovative, effective ideas and can teach a coherent system that would allow the NT to play as a unit, then why not? But I don't think being Canadian gives someone a special insight on how to win. I personally don't think Keenan would have any more success than Bykov or Coach Bil with the lineups they had to work with.

 

[Jussi]

I don't consider Znarok a foreign coach because he was born in Chelyabinsk and actually attended the Traktor hockey school when he was a kid. Lets put it this way, if they have a foreign coach who has innovative, effective ideas and can teach a coherent system that would allow the NT to play as a unit, then why not? But I don't think being Canadian gives someone a special insight on how to win. I personally don't think Keenan would have any more success than Bykov or Coach Bil with the lineups they had to work with.

Keenan's strength is bench coaching. If line up changes are required, he'll make them. That hasn't been the case with Soviet/Russian coaches. E.g. Vladimir Jursinov wasn't known for his tactical awareness when he coached at TPS. His bench coaching usually revolved around rolling line 1, line 2, line 3, line 4, line 1 etc. If not for Jukka Koivu as his assistant, there would have been no rotation with line ups or line matching.

 

[Yakushev72]

Keenan's strength is bench coaching. If line up changes are required, he'll make them. That hasn't been the case with Soviet/Russian coaches. E.g. Vladimir Jursinov wasn't known for his tactical awareness when he coached at TPS. His bench coaching usually revolved around rolling line 1, line 2, line 3, line 4, line 1 etc. If not for Jukka Koivu as his assistant, there would have been no rotation with line ups or line matching.

The old Soviet coaches like Yurzinov were definitely more oriented toward macro- than micro-coaching, and bench coaching tends to be more micro, granted. Any qualified coach with a pulse could realize that Malkin and Ovechkin should be broken up, but would they realize that Malkin is a Center who played like a wing? What Russia needed was a coach who would bench Malkin until he started playing like a member of a team, instead of skating around like he was performing Swan Lake at the Bolshoi. I could be wrong, but I don't see Keenan as an answer to the problem.

 

[Jussi]

The old Soviet coaches like Yurzinov were definitely more oriented toward macro- than micro-coaching, and bench coaching tends to be more micro, granted. Any qualified coach with a pulse could realize that Malkin and Ovechkin should be broken up, but would they realize that Malkin is a Center who played like a wing? What Russia needed was a coach who would bench Malkin until he started playing like a member of a team, instead of skating around like he was performing Swan Lake at the Bolshoi. I could be wrong, but I don't see Keenan as an answer to the problem.

I would expect you'd be more familiar why Mike Keenan's nickname is Iron. No player messes with him. Remember he's the coach who made Kovalev play that long ass shift because Kovalev kept taking too long to come off his shifts.

 

[Yakushev72]

I would expect you'd be more familiar why Mike Keenan's nickname is Iron. No player messes with him. Remember he's the coach who made Kovalev play that long ass shift because Kovalev kept taking too long to come off his shifts.

Being an A**hole doesn't necessarily distinguish him from Russian coaches. Keenan won in the NHL when he had the horses to do it. Russians are like Canadians and Americans - they don't want foreign coaches on their benches. Russia won't hire a foreign coach unless they feel convinced that he will lead them to victory. So far, there is no evidence that they feel that Keenan is a guy who could do it.

Keenan himself got dumped by NHL teams numerous times because his coaching philosophy doesn't work unless he has the right players. The games that Russia lost (Finland and the US) were close enough so that it could have gone either way, but it would have taken more than innate genius to make that happen. I don't think Keenan would have had any more leverage over the players than the Russian coaches had.

 

[Atas2000]

To put it plain and simple. No, we don't want a foreign coach if it's not Scotty Bowman.

 

[Yakushev72]

To put it plain and simple. No, we don't want a foreign coach if it's not Scotty Bowman.

I think you are right.

 

[Alessandro Seren Rosso]

So, as it looks our roster for the WC, it looks like our hockey didn't learn anything from 3 straight Olympic fails...

 

[Yakushev72]

So, as it looks our roster for the WC, it looks like our hockey didn't learn anything from 3 straight Olympic fails...

It takes a lot of heavy lifting and risk to create something different that addresses the causes of repetitive failure to fulfill championship goals down the road. There is less risk in taking the easy way out by continuing to do what has consistently failed in the past. I'm not surprised, because the only talk about change has been found on these boards. After one more game, Anisimov will no doubt be available, and that will complete the puzzle.

 

[Alessandro Seren Rosso]

It takes a lot of heavy lifting and risk to create something different that addresses the causes of repetitive failure to fulfill championship goals down the road. There is less risk in taking the easy way out by continuing to do what has consistently failed in the past. I'm not surprised, because the only talk about change has been found on these boards. After one more game, Anisimov will no doubt be available, and that will complete the puzzle.

If for this year only we had like I said a team made only of Zaripov+Mozyakin and all under 25 players - I think we'd have more chances to win than with all our NHL "stars".

 

[Yakushev72]

If for this year only we had like I said a team made only of Zaripov+Mozyakin and all under 25 players - I think we'd have more chances to win than with all our NHL "stars".

Exactly. The problem with "automatic" selection of multi-millionaire NHL stars is that they have no real incentive to prove themselves to anyone. If they have a bad tournament, ah well, so what - they have tens or even hundreds of millions to console themselves with. If they don't get selected for the next tournament, ah well, so what! Still plenty of millions. There is little or no leverage to drive them to surpass themselves in effort, or to take a bloody nose or two for the country.

If that model isn't working, the RHF has to go to some kind of Plan B. Maybe a national team. I really like that option. Or maybe the model that you propose, which would give under 25 players a chance to show themselves in international competition. In my opinion, they should be willing to sacrifice the WC's to build competition for a spot on the Olympic roster.

I should note, however, that Ovechkin in particular deserves praise for always making himself available and always giving a 110% effort, even if he doesn't necessarily always produce results.

 

[Alessandro Seren Rosso]

Exactly. The problem with "automatic" selection of multi-millionaire NHL stars is that they have no real incentive to prove themselves to anyone. If they have a bad tournament, ah well, so what - they have tens or even hundreds of millions to console themselves with. If they don't get selected for the next tournament, ah well, so what! Still plenty of millions. There is little or no leverage to drive them to surpass themselves in effort, or to take a bloody nose or two for the country.

Here, frankly, I do not agree with you. Ovechkin, Kovalchuk, Radulov. How many billions they have? Yet they love playing for the Mother Land much more than their colleagues from Sweden or Canada. And they deserve respect for this, I do not blame the players for our failures at the Olympics.

If that model isn't working, the RHF has to go to some kind of Plan B. Maybe a national team. I really like that option. Or maybe the model that you propose, which would give under 25 players a chance to show themselves in international competition. In my opinion, they should be willing to sacrifice the WC's to build competition for a spot on the Olympic roster.

Yes. Canada and Sweden and Finland almost every year send a development roster to the WC with some veterans, and it works. We keep on sending our NHL "stars" and this is a problem not because they do not care but because 1) they're tired and injured after the long season and 2) they don't gel well on the big ice.
It's not a case if the latest 2 WCs we won - 2009 and 2012 - were mostly composed of KHL players.

 

[Scotty B]

Yakushev72 :

...Canadians are very forthright in saying that a lot of the special skills training that they do was largely borrowed from Soviet hockey school methodology that they learned back in the '70's and '80's, when they used to travel to the Soviet Union to study it.

Don't think trips to Russia, to study their hockey school methodology, during height of Cold War, was common. One notable exception was Fred Shero who was certainly an avid student of Russian hockey for sure, but I think his own innovations had considerably more lasting impact in NA.

Tarasov was certainly an innovator...Still a goodly share of his supposed innovations actually came from Lloyd Percival's Hockey Handbook, which Tarasov called ' his Bible '

One of my own relatives, Harold Schooley, was invited by Tarasov , behind the Iron Curtain, to help coach CCCP, back in the early fifties, and summarily canned the moment CCCP won their first WC in 1954, without so much as a thank-you.

Russian hockey historians seem better at revisionist history /taking credit, than they are at giving credit, where credit is/ was due.. East/West Hockey innovations have been historically, and continue to be, a two-way street

Contemporary Russians teams could certainly use some fresh ideas/ novel approaches IMO

At the risk of tooting my own horn, here's what I wrote in a thread ranking the top eight

***

On paper I'd still put Russia at #2, in terms of star power...they're NOT well coached, and haven't been for years, they're philosophically bereft of new ideas/ stuck in Vik T era, can't make adjustments on the fly, eg: tend to be clueless when teams like Suomi take lead + play kitty bar the door, keep trotting out same line combos in succession, lack cohesion btwn D and forwards, lack guys like Toews or Bergeron who play a great 200 ft game, won't add dump and chase to their repertoire to back in/ turn opponents D when entering zone, attackers keep wanting to beat D one on one at the blue, leading to turnovers, counter attacks, yadda yadda

In a nut shell, Russians ( both individually and as a team ) can be esthetically pleasing , but frustrating too due to their collectively LOW HOCKEY IQ.

Arguably, Russian five man units once exemplified their status as hockey's cutting edge innovators, but those days are long gone. ..RUS best on best results, or lack thereof, speak for themselves

There's something fundamentally wrong with Russian hockey, which the eye popping offensive talent they produce, year in year out ( with far fewer resources when compared to Canada/ USA ) no longer seems able to compensate for...

Maybe , just maybe, an influx of foreign coaches could be The WAY out of Russia's current malaise...

PEACE OUT

 

[Yakushev72]

Yakushev72 :

Don't think trips to Russia, to study their hockey school methodology, during height of Cold War, was common. One notable exception was Fred Shero who was certainly an avid student of Russian hockey for sure, but I think his own innovations had considerably more lasting impact in NA.

Tarasov was certainly an innovator...Still a goodly share of his supposed innovations actually came from Lloyd Percival's Hockey Handbook, which Tarasov called ' his Bible '

One of my own relatives, Harold Schooley, was invited by Tarasov , behind the Iron Curtain, to help coach CCCP, back in the early fifties, and summarily canned the moment CCCP won their first WC in 1954, without so much as a thank-you.

Russian hockey historians seem better at revisionist history /taking credit, than they are at giving credit, where credit is/ was due.. East/West Hockey innovations have been historically, and continue to be, a two-way street

Contemporary Russians teams could certainly use some fresh ideas/ novel approaches IMO

At the risk of tooting my own horn, here's what I wrote in a thread ranking the top eight

***


Arguably, Russian five man units once exemplified their status as hockey's cutting edge innovators, but those days are long gone. ..RUS best on best results, or lack thereof, speak for themselves

There's something fundamentally wrong with Russian hockey, which the eye popping offensive talent they produce, year in year out ( with far fewer resources when compared to Canada/ USA ) no longer seems able to compensate for...

Maybe , just maybe, an influx of foreign coaches could be The WAY out of Russia's current malaise...

PEACE OUT

The book that Fred Shero claims to have used most often to introduce different concepts to the NHL - concepts that he credited for being an important part of the Flyers' Stanley Cup success - was The Road to Olympus, written by Anatoli Tarasov. Shero claimed that he read Tarasov's book over 100 times. I'm not trying to slight Canadians for their contributions to world hockey, but, in an interview with ABC TV in the US as a part of the 1984 Olympic broadcast, Tarasov claimed that he specifically forbade his subordinates from studying overseas so that they could develop something uniquely Russian. This makes great sense, because international and NHL hockey were so vastly different in those days, and copying what was being done elsewhere (and to be honest, not much was being done) would have been self-defeating and futile.

You are conflating Soviet and Russian hockey, when in fact, there is little convergence other than the foundation of a few really outstanding hockey schools. The first building block in Tarasov's formula was the development of exceptional fundamental skills in skating, stickhandling, passing and overall team play. The few hockey schools that survived the loss of Soviet funding continued to teach exceptional fundamentals, but the other elements that created success in Soviet times were abandoned.

Viktor Tikhonov's greatest contribution was jacking up the speed with which hockey was played. In his practices, he insisted that every maneuver be executed at double speed, so that in games against opponents, including some NHL teams, it would seem as if the other team was playing at half-speed. There is no comparable training and conditioning in Russian hockey today. The coordinated team play that was once such a main feature of the Russian hockey identity is now more of a weakness on Russian national teams, where individual stars more often use the occasion to show off their talents.

The weaknesses of Russian hockey today are a function of lack of investment in infrastructure (a situation which is hopefully being remedied at present) and incompetent management that fails to address obvious trends like the systemic failure to develop adequate defensemen. I am very skeptical that any coach, foreign or domestic, is going to be able to overcome the effects of systemic failures that detract from building depth and quality throughout the system. In the WC or Olympics, all of the teams are so highly motivated that I really doubt that a "motivator" like Mike Keenan would make the difference.

 

[Scotty B]

Yakushev72

I am very skeptical that any coach, foreign or domestic, is going to be able to overcome the effects of systemic failures that detract from building depth and quality throughout the system. In the WC or Olympics, all of the teams are so highly motivated that I really doubt that a "motivator" like Mike Keenan would make the difference.

Dicey infrastructure or Not...Russia develops a plethora of star players, at least star forwards, and lately plenty of fine goalies too and that Vasilevski ( sp? ) kid may turn out to be the best of the best...

Doubtless, many Russians in a national team setting — as opposed to an NHL setting where it’s the norm -- would chafe at taking directions from a foreign ( read Canuck ) coach. Still what about the time tested ( albeit somewhat foreign to Russians ) tactic of matching lines, especially when one has benefit of last change? Rus insistence on sequentially rolling out the same combos, ad nauseam, is just one more example that their braintrust , or lack thereof, is still stuck in a VikT- era rut.

And don’t get me started about adding a little dump n chase, when met by stiff resistance at blue

As for Tarasov, he openly acknowledged his debt to Lloyd Percival, plus went out of his way to entice at least one foreign player/coach ( Harold Schooley ) to help his fledgling CCCP’ers out.

Seems that, that first WC victory in 1954 changed things though...But how do we know, at the height of the Cold War, that it wasn't some Politburo bigwigs, rather than Tarasov himself, who decided ( somewhat belatedly ) that Russian Hockey ( read Russian hockey revisionist history ) should be purged of signs of foreign influence?

***
PS: The Hockey Style which hockey historians ad nauseam see as UNIQUELY RUSSIAN, and strictly Tarasov’s brainchild, was actually invented by Lloyd Percival ( a Canuck ), as Tarasov himself tacitly acknowledged, and Harold Schooley ( who not coincidentally was invited by Tarasov to help coach CCCP in the early fifties was likewise a Percival devotee )

The fact that Toe Blake and the boyz universally ignored Percival, whereas Tarasov instantly recognized his genius, was part of Tarasov’s own genius. And doubtless something similar could be said about Shero’s recognition of Tarasov’s brilliant innovations

PEACE OUT


***.

 

[malkinfan]

Keeping this simple- I think Russia should bring back the 5 man units again - it was always a distinct advantage, even worked in the NHL.

 

[Scotty B]

Keeping this simple- I think Russia should bring back the 5 man units again - it was always a distinct advantage, even worked in the NHL.

Talk about living in the past...Cohesive 5 man units were only possible when CCCP’ers trained together for months on end...

Nowadays, with Russian stars scattered hither and yon, on both sides of the Pond.....that distinct advantage is HISTORY !

 

[Yakushev72]

Yakushev72

Dicey infrastructure or Not...Russia develops a plethora of star players, at least star forwards, and lately plenty of fine goalies too and that Vasilevski ( sp? ) kid may turn out to be the best of the best...

Doubtless, many Russians in a national team setting — as opposed to an NHL setting where it’s the norm -- would chafe at taking directions from a foreign ( read Canuck ) coach. Still what about the time tested ( albeit somewhat foreign to Russians ) tactic of matching lines, especially when one has benefit of last change? Rus insistence on sequentially rolling out the same combos, ad nauseam, is just one more example that their braintrust , or lack thereof, is still stuck in a VikT- era rut.

And don’t get me started about adding a little dump n chase, when met by stiff resistance at blue

As for Tarasov, he openly acknowledged his debt to Lloyd Percival, plus went out of his way to entice at least one foreign player/coach ( Harold Schooley ) to help his fledgling CCCP’ers out.

Seems that, that first WC victory in 1954 changed things though...But how do we know, at the height of the Cold War, that it wasn't some Politburo bigwigs, rather than Tarasov himself, who decided ( somewhat belatedly ) that Russian Hockey ( read Russian hockey revisionist history ) should be purged of signs of foreign influence?

***
PS: The Hockey Style which hockey historians ad nauseam see as UNIQUELY RUSSIAN, and strictly Tarasov’s brainchild, was actually invented by Lloyd Percival ( a Canuck ), as Tarasov himself tacitly acknowledged, and Harold Schooley ( who not coincidentally was invited by Tarasov to help coach CCCP in the early fifties was likewise a Percival devotee )

The fact that Toe Blake and the boyz universally ignored Percival, whereas Tarasov instantly recognized his genius, was part of Tarasov’s own genius. And doubtless something similar could be said about Shero’s recognition of Tarasov’s brilliant innovations

PEACE OUT


***.

Sorry, but your suggestion that Soviet/Russian hockey was actually invented by a Canadian is completely false, and frankly, a bit laughable. I can understand why Canadians would love to claim credit for it, because Soviet hockey in its day was a thing of beauty to watch. Soviet and Canadian hockey could not be more polemically opposite, and you can easily tell from watching film that the styles employed by each country are a total refutation of the other, so any suggestions from Canadian coaches in the early stages were obviously totally rejected and dismissed by the Soviets. If you can't recognize similarities in the style, then there was no influence.

Canadian hockey has always focused on dump and chase - if you are able to touch the puck beyond the center red line, then just fling it in at any angle and go chase it with forecheckers. Not much imagination needed there! Tarasov went exactly in the opposite direction, and created his own uniquely Russian brand, replete with football concepts. Canadians don't play that style of football. For better or for worse, its all 100% Russian!

It is true that Soviet national team coaches didn't go through the same elaborate line-matching that NHL coaches do, mainly because there were 5-man units established, but also because they just didn't know NHL players well enough to match up with them. Offensive and defensive strategy, attack and defend concepts, power play organization, etc., literally couldn't have been more different. And to the extent that Russian hockey is broke today, line-changing strategies won't fix it.

 

[Yakushev72]

Talk about living in the past...Cohesive 5 man units were only possible when CCCP’ers trained together for months on end...

Nowadays, with Russian stars scattered hither and yon, on both sides of the Pond.....that distinct advantage is HISTORY !

5-man units could be re-established around KHL players who trained as a national team in the offseason. I don't know if that will be done, but it certainly could.

 

[Scotty B]

Yakushev72:

Sorry, but your suggestion that Soviet/Russian hockey was actually invented by a Canadian is completely false...

its ( presumably the roots of CCCP on ice strategies + training methods ) all 100% Russian!

Au contraire, the evidence is there, in black and white, for anyone to read. Not only did Tarasov openly admit his debt to Percival, it's well documented that Tarasov invited Harold Schooley ( again another Percival devotee, and incidentally, in the Guiness Book of records, in the early fifties, for most goals scored in a single professional hockey game ) behind the Iron Curtain, to help him put Percival's, PERCIVAL's revolutionary ideas into practice...

From Wikipedia:

...Perhaps his ( Lloyd Percival's ) most long lasting impact upon Canadian sports remains his publication, The Hockey Handbook. Originally published in 1951, and rejected at the time by one NHL coach as “the product of a three-year-old mind,” Lloyd Percival’s The Hockey Handbook went on to have an international impact.... European coaches treated the book as the first analytical assessment of hockey skills, team play and conditioning. In fact, the Soviet hockey powers based their program on the Hockey Handbook. Anatoli Tarasov, the godfather of Soviet hockey once told Percival: “Your wonderful book …introduced us to the mysteries of Canadian hockey, I have read (it) like a schoolboy

Yakushev72:

...( you're contentions are ) a bit laughable...

Tut Tut...stage one is ridicule, stage two anger, at length comes acceptance as per Schopenhauer's Maxim:

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

 

[Yakushev72]

Yakushev72:



Au contraire, the evidence is there, in black and white, for anyone to read. Not only did Tarasov openly admit his debt to Percival, it's well documented that Tarasov invited Harold Schooley ( again another Percival devotee, and incidentally, in the Guiness Book of records, in the early fifties, for most goals scored in a single professional hockey game ) behind the Iron Curtain, to help him put Percival's, PERCIVAL's revolutionary ideas into practice...

From Wikipedia:

Yakushev72:

Tut Tut...stage one is ridicule, stage two anger, at length comes acceptance as per Schopenhauer's Maxim:

At the risk of extending this conversation, Wikipedia authors are permitted to offer personal opinions as long as factual claims are adequately documented. The author's claim that the Soviets based their hockey program on Percival's book is documented by a complement that Tarasov allegedly paid to Percival about his "wonderful book" that introduced him to the "mysteries of Canadian hockey." In fact, you appear to have acknowledged that contemporary Canadian practitioners rejected Percival's book as being a "product of a three-year old mind."

I admit to not having read Percival's book, but his Canadian critics might have some credibility if he simply states the painfully obvious that hockey success is predicated on fundamental skills, team play and conditioning, without laying out a blueprint for producing a winning program through systematic, scientific approaches. Most team sports require fundamental skill, team play and conditioning, so that predicate alone is the same as urging coaches to encouraging their teams to "work hard, stay focused, and play with passion." It is on the verge of being trite if he doesn't follow up with some innovative concepts for reaching success.

In the 1950's, there were no available indoor rinks in Moscow, so Tarasov and his national team trained outdoors, focusing his entire program on simulating on-ice conditions on dry land. That was the adaptation of necessity. If Percival's book elaborates on building a program through dry-land simulation of on-ice conditions, then I would conclude his book was highly influential in the Soviet Union. But if it is just a very good reference source for beginners, then Percival is already receiving as much credit as he deserves.

 

[Macman]

At the risk of extending this conversation, Wikipedia authors are permitted to offer personal opinions as long as factual claims are adequately documented. The author's claim that the Soviets based their hockey program on Percival's book is documented by a complement that Tarasov allegedly paid to Percival about his "wonderful book" that introduced him to the "mysteries of Canadian hockey." In fact, you appear to have acknowledged that contemporary Canadian practitioners rejected Percival's book as being a "product of a three-year old mind."

Keep in mind that those Canadian practitioners who dismissed Percival were likely the same guys who said the Soviets couldn't shoot, had terrible goaltending and would be swept in '72. In other words, about as open-minded as those in Russia who now believe they've got nothing to learn about hockey from foreigners. How's that working out?

I can't speak for Percival's hockey expertise but he was definitely ahead of his time in terms of conditioning.