Athletistic / Hockey. In 2026, the XXV Olympic Winter Games will take place in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo. Italy will host the Winter Olympics for the third time in its history. The first time this happened was in 1956, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, and exactly 50 years later the capital of the Games was Turin. The two Olympic hockey tournaments are very memorable for Russian hockey fans.

In 1956, the USSR national hockey team took part in the Olympic Games for the first time and immediately won gold medals. Soviet hockey players won seven victories in seven matches at these Games (including against Canada – 2:0) and for the first time in history they “hit” the founders of hockey. However, during those years, NHL players (and professional athletes in general, who were no longer permitted by the IOC) were competing in the Olympics. But 50 years later, in Turin, the teams were made up of the strongest hockey players on the planet. For the third time in its history and the third time in a row, the NHL is sending its players to the Olympic Games.

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At that time, the Russian team had never won a gold medal at the Olympic Games (the last gold medal was won by the unified team at the 1992 Games in Albertville). At the previous Olympic Games in Salt Lake City (United States), the Russians stumbled in the semi-finals and won bronze medals. Then the national team was led by Vyacheslav Fetisov, who almost immediately after arriving from the 2002 Olympics led Russian sports. Fetisov was both general manager and head coach in Salt Lake City. Four years later, two different people held these positions: the head coach was Vladimir Krikunov and the general director was Pavel Bure.

Photo source: Alexandre Vilf / “Sport-Express”

During the 2004–05 NHL lockout season, Krikunov led Dynamo Moscow to victory in the Super League, then led the Russian team to bronze medals at the 2005 World Cup in Vienna, Austria ). By the way, this world championship was a rehearsal for the Olympics, because because of the same lockout, the strongest hockey players on the planet were united in the compositions of all teams. Bure was forced to retire from his hockey career on November 1, 2005 due to a knee injury. But in a few days he will receive the post of general director of the Russian team at the Turin Games.

Composition of the Russian national team

The training of the Russian national team took place according to an extremely confusing scenario. Krikunov was essentially responsible for the summons of the Russian Championship players, who did not invite to the Olympics the top scorers of the Super League season – Sergei Mozyakin from CSKA and the current president of the KHL, Alexei Morozov, who later played for Ak Bars. Interestingly, Krikunov took several Dynamo players with him to Turin, for which he was subsequently constantly criticized. Pavel Bure was responsible for NHL players. But even for him, things didn’t go very well. For various reasons, Nikolai Khabibulin, Sergei Zubov, Alexander Mogilny and Sergei Fedorov refused to participate in the Games. According to rumors, not all were eager to work under Krikunov’s leadership, accusing him of Soviet methods of leading the team. In addition, Alexey Zhamnov, injured a few weeks before the start of the tournament, was unable to travel to Turin.

The main stars of the Russians were considered the veterans of the team – Alexey Kovalev, who was appointed captain, as well as his assistants – Darius Kasparaitis and Alexey Yashin. Among others, Ilya Kovalchuk and Maxim Tandiogenov stood out by having an excellent season with their NHL teams. However, they weren’t the ones that got the most attention. Experts and fans had high hopes for three Olympic debutants – forwards Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin, as well as Evgeni Nabokov.

Photo source: FHR

Before the Olympic season, Ovechkin set out to conquer the NHL and wasted no time in completing his mission. In the first three and a half months in North America, Alexander has already become the face of the Washington Capitals and one of the most talked about players in the entire league. In addition, Ovi knew Krikunov very well, with whom they led Dynamo to gold medals at the Russian Championship in the spring of 2005.

At the time of the Olympics, Evgeniy Malkin was a player for Metallurg Magnitogorsk. At that time, the 19-year-old striker was considered one of the brightest talents of the generation and was capable of playing both in the center of the attack and as a right winger.

Evgeniy Nabokov was born in Ust-Kamenogorsk (now Kazakhstan) and for a long time was not called up to the Russian national team. It got to the point that he managed to play for the Kazakhstan national team, which then forced him into a two-year quarantine. It’s funny, but Nabokov’s debut in the Russian national team took place precisely at the Olympic Games in Turin, when he was 31 years old. In the absence of Nikolai Khabibulin, who worked wonders in Salt Lake City, it will be Evgeniy who will be the main goalkeeper for the Russian team at the 2006 Olympics.

Group stage

For the first time in history, 12 teams took part in the Olympic hockey tournament in Turin (previously there were 8). All teams were divided into two groups, where they played in a round-robin system (against each other). To advance to the playoffs, you had to place in the top four of your group.

Group A included teams from Canada (current Olympic champion), Finland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. The winner of the quartet was the Finns, who conceded only two goals in five matches and achieved victories in all their meetings. The Swiss unexpectedly took second place in the group, ahead of Canada (3rd place) and the Czech Republic (4th). By the way, the Canadians were not like them and managed to lose to Finland and Switzerland by the same score of 0:2.

Photo source: IOC

In Group B, alongside the Russian team, were teams from Slovakia, USA, Sweden, Kazakhstan and Latvia. The Russians lost to the Slovaks in the first match in Turin (3:5), but then managed to beat all their rivals (Sweden – 5:0, Kazakhstan – 1:0, Latvia – 9:2 and USA – 5). :4). As a result, Russia took second place in the group, letting Slovakia take the lead and advanced to Canada in the quarterfinals. Sweden took third place in Group B and the Americans finished fourth. It’s funny, but the Swedes could have finished the group stage even in first place, but they deliberately lost in the last match against Slovakia (0:3) in order to start the playoffs with a match against Switzerland .

Playoffs

From the first stage of the playoffs, fans were treated to a hockey El Clasico, a match between the Russian and Canadian national teams. This meeting became one of the highlights of the entire Olympic Games and is still considered one of the best matches of the Russian national team in its post-Soviet history. There was an even fight throughout the match. During the first two periods, the teams failed to score on each other’s goals. but at the beginning of the third 20 minutes, Alexander Ovechkin managed to upset the legendary Martin Brodeur. In the remaining time, the Canadians did not allow Evgeni Nabokov to rest, organizing a real assault on his goal, but the Russian worked miracles and did not allow the “maple leaves” to equalize the score. Already at the very end of the match, Alexei Kovalev will throw the second puck into Brodeur’s goal and eliminate all questions about the winner of the match. The problem for the Russian team was the withdrawal of Evgeni Malkin. Gino will receive a match penalty for a fight with Vincent Lecavalier at the end of the match against Canada, which is why he will not be able to play in the semi-final.

The other three semi-finalists were the Czech Republic, Sweden and Finland. The Swedes beat Switzerland (6:2), the Finns defeated the USA (4:3) and the Czechs broke the resistance of Slovakia (3:1), whose form reached its peak at the start of the Olympic Games.

In the semi-finals, the Russian team went to Finland. After the victory over the Canadians, it was the Russians who were considered the main favorites to win in Turin, but the fans were left disappointed. After the match against Canada, Russian hockey players simply had no moral strength left. Vladimir Krikunov’s team failed to score a single goal in the next two Olympic matches. First they lost to the Finns (0:4), then in the match for third place they lost to the Czechs (0:3). In the final, the Swedes beat Finland 3:2 and became Olympic champions for the second time in their history.

These days

The NHL will take breaks in the regular season for the Olympics five times in a row. However, during this time, the Russian team will never be able to become Olympic champions, showing decreasing results. In Nagano in 1998, the Russians will win silver medals, in Salt Lake City they will become bronze medalists, in Turin they will be one step away from the medals, and in Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014 they will be beaten in the quarterfinals. The NHL will refuse to release its players for the 2018 Olympic Games in PyeongChang (South Korea). There, in the absence of the best players on the planet, the Russian team will be able to become Olympic champions for the first time in history. In four years, the NHL will not participate in the 2022 Games in Beijing (China) due to the coronavirus pandemic. There, in the final, the Russians will lose against Finland (1:2).

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Now that the NHL has officially agreed to release its players for the 2026 and 2030 Olympics, Russia appears to have an opportunity to avenge all those disappointing defeats of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. However, big politics have intervened in this sport, because of which the Russian national team has already missed the last two Hockey World Championships and is still banned by the IIHF. There is a good chance that the 2026 Olympics will be held without Ovechkin, Malkin, Kucherov, Vasilevsky, Kaprizov, Panarin and even without Michkov. It’s a shame, because if this happens, it turns out that two legends of world hockey – Ovechkin and Malkin – showed their best performance on Olympus in Turin.

Nikita Serbakov, Athletistic


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