Former head coach of the Russian national hockey team Vladimir Krikunov told in an interview with Sport how he gets along in this is a warlike time with the Latvians in Jurmala, why it is better for Alexander Ovechkin to become the Minister of Sports, and not a coach, why it is unrealistic to defeat vodka in Russia and how he was asked to play a fixed match.
Dynamo was afraid pay two million dollars for Ovechkin»
— Vladimir Vasilyevich, you gave tickets to big hockey for Sergey Fedorov, Pavel Datsyuk and Alexander Ovechkin.- No, Ovechkin is the merit of Bilyaletdinov. But there was such a situation: Sasha wanted to go to play in Omsk, I knew what he said, if Dynamo confirms the financial offer of Avangard, then he will leave for the NHL. And then we didn’t have much money at Dynamo. I tell Kharchuk: «Anatoly Georgievich, confirm this amount (2 million dollars).» And he: «What if he stays, where will we get the money?» I say: «I know that he will leave for the NHL. Let's not strengthen Omsk, let him go overseas better.» We confirmed this contract, and it's good that Sasha then left.
“Physically strong, plays well and can score. I will tell you that it is almost impossible to teach to score. Everyone knows where Sasha throws from, and what? No one can close it in this place. Everyone knows, but he still scores. Maybe he'll catch up with Wayne Gretzky too.Sasha is a great player. This is a talent, it is given from above. Like Maltsev. I first saw him in football when he played in goal. He was 11 years old, I was 10, and in the camp I heard adults say: «There is a kid at the gate, all the adult men cannot score a penalty for him. He takes all the balls jokingly.» His first nickname was Shutya. He was so gifted that he achieved success everywhere: in swimming, in basketball, in any game. And according to Ovechkin, already in 2004 it was clear that he would be a big player. And his main quality is his willingness to train from morning to evening, he is indefatigable at work.
— No, we had a good team then. And Ovechkin already had a permanent place in the squad, although we had a lot of strong players. He is a fighter, which he proves in the NHL. If necessary, he can fight and punch someone in the body. And now he has generally matured.
“There is a lot of psychological pressure on him. Does this bother him or does he take it easy?
— I think that nothing bothers him, because in the NHL the club protects him so that he is left behind. Yes, they are trying to put pressure on him, but the clubs in the league have taken the right position so that the Russians are calm and go about their core business.
—Who would you call the best defender of Soviet hockey when you played?
— Vyacheslav Fetisov. He has done well with us and in the NHL. Perhaps if he had left at the age of 25-26, he would have been the number one star there. And Vasya Pervukhin. Because of his modesty, he was an absolutely underestimated talent. This is a unique player, he gave a pass to the touch exactly on the hook at any distance. It seems to be not a very strong defender, but he had very fast hands, like Pavel Datsyuk. Once, during testing, he ran in tandem with Bilyaletdinov. Vasya seems to be not particularly tense, but Khaidarych vomits and thrashes, pieces of ice fly from under his feet. Pervukhin was the first to arrive.— Who else would you include in the symbolic six of those years?
— Goalkeeper — Vladislav Tretiak.
img src=»/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/de886a20a64831a216f8db47986707c0.jpg» >— You also caught Vladimir Myshkin?- Myshkin and I are generally from the same yard in Kirovo-Chepetsk, I also taught him how to fight. After all, I started with Alexander Maltsev, but I didn’t play hockey with him in my youth, because in terms of age he was a year ahead. But they played football together, and I'll tell you — he has unique data. Probably, I will name Maltsev, Kharlamov, and from the central ones — Volodya Petrov. Or Igor Larionov. But the trio Mikhailov — Petrov — Kharlamov was simply amazing and outstanding. They constantly cursed on the bench, and on the ice they could tear anyone for each other. But our Dynamo regularly took away points from them. We even beat Viktor Vasilievich in Riga 3:2, when in 1977 he had practically the national team in CSKA. Wow, how he soared!
— Many showed great promise, but then faded from problems with alcohol.
— It's all from specific person depends. Someone tried it once, he liked it, like Viktor Khatulev (the legend of the Riga Dynamo, who died in 1994 at the age of 39 — ed.). He got into this business. But vodka is impossible to defeat, many people have disappeared because of it.
— When football players are asked how much they drank, they sometimes answer: «How much? Look at the hockey players.» br> — Yes, ours probably drank more — they are physically stronger than the players. But now the drinking is mostly gone for the new generation.
— We had our own film installation, our goalkeeper Misha Vasilyonok will go to the film studio and bring different films. We watched many that have not even hit the rental yet. Therefore, in this regard, our life was more diverse than others. We played billiards and table tennis. But mostly just training. When we went overseas for the first time (in 1977 as part of the Wings of the Soviets — ed.), we were told that you would receive $ 260 per game. But if you win all four, we will still pay only for three. Here we are three and won.
— Not really. But considering that in the USSR there were problems with shoes and clothes, the money was spent on this.
The general was angry when he saw my salary
—What was it in Dynamo standard rate? Rubles 220?- 220 rubles were in the hockey federation from the members of the national team. But we were officers, we received money for the rank, for one thing, for another. Rubles four hundred in total ran. One general once saw how much I get when I worked at Dynamo Minsk and got angry: «Why does he have such a big salary, almost like me?» And then the border guards gave us money both for the stars and for the length of service. And as a result, the general received only 30 rubles more.
— Then the average salary in the USSR was about 120-130 rubles? Yes, somewhere like that.
— No, major. It so happened that in 1991 I left the army and went to work in Slovenia. In November he was supposed to get a lieutenant colonel, but he quit three months before that. My assistant in Slovenia asked me to buy a bicycle for his son in Moscow. A friend bought it and, at my request, took a certificate from the bank on the exchange rate and a check. The Slovenian border guard says that you have to pay for it at customs. I say, «No problem,» and I give him one DM. He began to shout: «What are you giving me?» And I knew that the main bosses on the border were Serbs, and I said: «Let's go to your boss.» They came, I gave him all the documents, he looked and said to his subordinate: «He gave you a lot more.»
— What do you remember in Slovenia?
— I had guys in my team who cursed in Russian. It turns out that all of them used to work in Zagreb with our coach Anatoly Mikhailovich Kostryukov. They called him only one word — Stalin. They smashed everyone there, but considered him very tough and demanding.
SKA was ordered from above to play an agreement
— Sergei Fedorov, who won the Gagarin Cup, did you start with Dynamo Minsk? at the age of 16 in the first link. He studied well, I saw him constantly with books. He has an analytical mindset.
— What can you say about Pavel Datsyuk's talents?
— We took him to football in Yekaterinburg, and I saw that he had a good pass, he sees the field, reads the game and can beat. When he went out on the ice, I was just stunned. His puck is like a tied one, he deals with knowledge of the matter in all situations. He is a very technical player, he just has golden hands. And there is a sense of distance, it is very hard to crash into it. A very smart guy, he calculates everything several moves ahead.
strong>- In football, after the end of a career, people sometimes say: «Yes, we had match-fixing, but I did not participate in this.» Were they in hockey?
— Previously, yes. SKA was almost always at the bottom of the table and stood for relegation. Once, at the end of the season in Leningrad, when I was the captain of the team, the referee told me: «Volodya, we need to draw, this is an order from above.» I said, «I need to talk to the guys.» I told them, and they say: «Why do we need to help them out every year?» He returned to the referee and said: «We will play.» And he: «I won't let you win.» At the end we win with a score of 3:2, the final whistle sounds, our goalkeeper left the gate, and their defender threw it in our direction with anger. The puck crawls slightly, any of our players could stop it, but the game is already over. She hits the goal, the referee says: «Goal» — and points to the center, can you imagine? And the score becomes 3:3.
— Was it impossible to challenge?
— How do you argue? This referee was disqualified, but the following season he was again allowed to referee. There have been cases like this before. In matches at the end of the season, when one team no longer needs anything, and the other.
— Are you not afraid to speak so frankly?
— It was a long time ago, and there were few such cases. And when the KHL was created, it no longer made any sense. I have not even heard that someone «cheated» with this case.
— Do you have any understatement in your coaching career?
— I would like to win the 2006 Olympics, when we have already knocked out the Canadians. This is what may have killed us. After that, we were already knee-deep in the sea. The Swedes then became Olympic champions, and we defeated them in one wicket at the preliminary stage — 5:0. Maybe if we had played with the Swedes and not the Finns, we would have become champions. By the way, then the head coach of the Swedes was asked: «How should you play against you?», and he replied: «Ask Krikunov, he has not lost a single game to us.» br>
«My neighbors are Latvians and Russians. We live well»
— You have a lot to do with Riga. Now it doesn’t pull?
— And we have a house in Jurmala, next to the sea. But we don't go there very often.
—How are you treated in Latvia after the beginning of the NWO?
— Normally, the attitude has not changed, as in other countries where I worked. After all, everyone has enough of their own problems, and the situation with Ukraine is probably pretty tired of many already. After all, all people are not stupid and understand how it all began. I recently helped my eldest son build a small distillery in Kraslava, not far from the border of Latvia and Belarus, which will produce whiskey. There is a good spring, the water is very soft, and there is a small amount of silver in it. They will also produce vodka products there. The Latvian ambassador to Poland was at its opening and asked me: «How do you feel about this?» I answered: «And who treats you well, who wants to fight?» Russia certainly does not want to fight.
On the one hand, I have Latvians in my neighbors, on the other, Russians: we lived well with them, and we live.
>—Czech Dominik Hasek now sharply opposes the Russians. Have we always had such tough relations with the Czechoslovaks?
— When I played in the Saratov Kristall, in 1972 we came to Czechoslovakia. And someone said that we were the first team to come to Czechoslovakia after the events of 1968. And everything was fine with us, there were no provocations or aggression. And at the same time, ours were, perhaps, the calmest army, the Germans from the GDR acted much tougher.