The thesis is an invaluable source of information. Some interesting excerpts:
Concentration of talent:
The principle means used by the Army team, and, to a lesser extent, by Dynamo, was the military draft. Not only did the TsSKA and Dynamo teams represent their respective parent organizations, the players, coaches and staff were also enlisted members or officers in either the Armed Forces, the Ministry of Interior, or the KGB. As the Soviet Union practiced universal military service the simplest way to acquire a talented teenager was to draft him – literally. Once in the army, the youngster would serve out his two years not in Eastern Europe, or at a godforsaken outpost on the Chinese border, but rather on the ice. Once his two years were up, it was simple enough to sign him on to an officer's contract, and to keep him in the organization for the rest of his playing days. Recruiting players from other teams was also simple enough. Upon being discharged from the services, like all Soviet males, they were still enlisted in the reserves and could be recalled to active duty. (…)
So were the Army and the KGB the real architects of the centralization system that helped win the USSR glory abroad? The answer would appear to be no. (…) The centralizing system employed in hockey to such great effect was never implemented in football – or any other sport for that matter. Upon careful consideration we see that in building TsSKA and Dynamo dynasties in Moscow, the military was not the architect, but rather a tool. The true originators of this system were none other than the longstanding national team coaches, Colonels Anatoly Tarasov and Arkady Chernyshev. (...)
Centralization...was never a policy of the Soviet sports bureaucracy. Rather, it was executed by leading Moscow coaches, on their own initiative. (…) As early as 1957, the Hockey Section resolved to petition the Army to defer the draft of talented young players, and leave them on their original clubs... most members of the Hockey Section were genuinely concerned with the further development of mass hockey participation, and the improvement of elite hockey outside the capital. Many realized that although player concentration may have helped the Soviet national team in the short term, the national program suffered long term damage from this policy. With the most talented players, coaches and specialists constantly migrating towards Moscow, hockey development in all other areas of the country was severely Pejorative Slured... Ultimately, there was little the Sports Committee could do to stop the Army from drafting whom it chose to... The pillage of the provincial hockey clubs was made very clear by the fact that while the Moscow teams remained dominant in league play throughout the Soviet period, they lost their dominance at the junior level by the mid 1960's.
Material situation of the players:
The material starting point for all Soviet players was their salary, which was euphemistically referred to as a stipend. During the 1960's and 1970's a Soviet player on one of the nation's leading teams had an official salary that was two to three times the sum the average worker could expect to earn. Players on lower level teams could expect to earn a decent worker's salary... In addition to their official stipends, players for the Soviet national team were paid substantial bonuses for important international victories. Winning an Olympic gold, for example, brought the players an official bonus of one-thousand rubles (one year's wages for many workers). Winning league championships and a variety of minors championships also brought sizable cash bonuses... Players were also rewarded – or enticed – with a variety of generous gifts, which were provided by the club teams. For example, as a sort of signing bonus, junior prodigy Aleksandr Maltsev was given a car by Moscow Dynamo: “For the first time in my life I received a car. I didn't buy it – I received it. It was done this way: players who distinguished themselves were given a personal car.” …[Valery] Vasilev...recalls that after joining Dynamo, he was given a one-room apartment to himself, something totally inconceivable for [an] average twenty year old bachelor. And, after he established himself as a[n] international star, his position improved further: “Later on, I was presented with a luxury apartment by
Yuri Vladimirov Andropov. Naturally, I didn't get [this] for having pretty eyes.” And, in addition to expensive gifts, leading coaches and players had access to hard currency stores and, presumably, hard currency to spend there. (...)
But the true riches were reserved for the players who where the elite of the elite: players good enough to play on the Moscow core teams, and make it onto either the first or second Soviet national team. This group of players and coaches were given free reign – within the limits of reason – to engage in lucrative black market trade... a trip abroad was almost always a chance to enhance one's material situation. The principle was simple: using souvenirs, caviar, vodka and other Soviet goods which were desirable in the West, the players would obtain consumer goods for resale in the USSR, or hard currency... Fortunately for the history of Soviet hockey, the Party was pragmatic enough to bend the rules in this instance and made no effort to punish what would otherwise be considered very serious violations of Soviet law. (...)
Scientific approach:
Every year, lengthy training and activity programs would be developed and approved, which were binding on a nation-wide scale. The first such reports appear in the archival record beginning in 1956. In addition to setting – or at least approving – training approaches in general terms the Hockey Section passed concrete targets for individual players, to guide their off-season training. For example, in 1957/58 players were expected to be able [to] sprint a distance of fifty meters in 5.8 seconds, and one-hundred meters in 11.9. (...)
In addition to target setting, the Hockey Section organized a seemingly endless succession of conferences and planning sessions, which focused on theoretical matters of training and tactics. A national education program for coaches of all levels was set up, with the hours to be spent on each subject carefully delineated, for the purpose of teaching correct approaches to training, technique and strategy. In addition to these conferences, the Hockey Section oversaw the production and distribution of a wealth of technical and educational literature on the sport. From the earliest days of Soviet hockey, committees of coaches were periodically convened to collaborate on books: first studies about hockey in Canada and in other countries, and then, as the Soviet program advanced, more inward looking studies. Finally, the Hockey Section maintained full academic programs dedicated to the study of ice-hockey at all the nation's leading physical culture institutions.
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Will post more the upcoming days.
