The Ice Hockey World Championship 2016 recently finished in Moscow. Canada took the gold medal, Finland was second, and the home-town Russian team took the bronze.

In Russia, sport has always played a very important role in the lives of the Russian people. Nowadays Russia is becoming an epicenter of international sports. In 2014, we hosted the Winter Olympic Games, which took place in Sochi and were very successful.

In 2018, we are going to host the World Cup of Soccer.

Actually today Russia, as well as its predecessor the Soviet Union, is known throughout the world as one of the leaders in ice hockey. The Soviet ice hockey team won almost every championship in which they participated. After the collapse of the USSR, the Russian players have always been among the most recognizable names in the world of hockey in the world. Take superstars like Alexandr Ovechkin or Evgeny Malkin for example.

Anatoly Tarasov is known as the godfather of the Soviet hockey. He led and coached Russian Olympic and international teams and created the style of Russian hockey. During the game Russian’s payed more attention to passing, skating and team play. Tarasov developed a system, in which each player knew and specialized in only one position on the ice rather than being universal and playing any position. So each player knew the strong sides and flaws of all his teammates. This system remained in place for the entire life of the Soviet hockey team.

One of the greatest stars of the Soviet ice hockey was Vladislav Tretryak, he is still known as one of the best goaltenders of all time.  

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the first real win of the Russian hockey team took place in 2008 only. Probably it is because many sportsmen preferred to play for NHL where the financing was better, whereas in Russia in the 1990’s the situation was unstable.

St Petersburg has a local team – SKA Saint Petersburg. If you come during hockey season to St Petersburg we can arrange tickets for you to the game.

Photo by Генконсульство США в СПб