You don’t need Rosetta Stone or an interpreter to translate. The message comes across loud and clear, even through his thick Russian accent.
Slava Fetisov has seen the direction that his country and its hockey program have taken since the fall of the Soviet Union, and he doesn’t like it at all.
“We lost our soul,” Fetisov narrates over a clip of Washington Capitals superstar Alex Ovechkin shooting pucks at Russian nesting dolls filled with “Russian dressing.”
The fall of the Iron Curtain not only changed the country’s moral compass, it left the its beloved hockey program in search of a new identity as its most talented players took advantage of the post Cold War cash grab in search of a better life.
It is a central theme in “Red Army,” a new documentary that chronicles Fetisov’s roller coaster life as told against the backdrop of the rise and fall of the Soviet empire and its hockey dynasty.
“You have to understand, if you belong to the best hockey program then you should follow the history and study and learn what gave us success, which was teamwork. We supported each other and played for each other, respected our teammates and respected our flag. That’s a good learning tool for any player in any country,” Fetisov said in a telephone interview from Moscow.
“We lost that over the last 20 years and we have to get that back.”
With the same determination and ferocity that made him one of the game’s greatest players, the man who was once considered an enemy of the state is on a mission to help his beloved country rediscover its soul by ushering in a new era of Russian hockey, one that builds upon the traditions of the past and instills national pride in a new generation of players.
Under his watch as the minister of sport, a position he held until 2008, Fetisov ordered the construction of 300 new indoor rinks, the creation of a new junior league and an NHL-style professional league. He was also a driving force in bringing the Olympics to Sochi in 2014.
Now, in his new role as a state senator, Fetisov is launching a new hockey academy in the eastern port city of Vladivostok as a way of teaching a new generation of Russian hockey players the same lessons he learned in the Red Army system under the great Anatoly Tarasov.
Throughout the movie, Fetisov tells his story with humor and candor that may surprise many who think of Russians as stony-faced products of a repressive Communist system.
What started as a cameo appearance turned into Fetisov as the central character in a riveting film that is drawing solid reviews because it speaks to people on a variety of levels while keeping hockey front and center.
“For me it’s been a big surprise. It’s received a lot of attention and people are talking about it and love the story,” he said. “It is [a] good promotion for the game. That’s probably the best thing that’s happened.”
Of course no story about Russian hockey would be complete without a passing mention of the greatest upset in the history of sports, which of course means the “Miracle on Ice” at the 1980 Olympic Winter Games. For Fetisov, it is a central theme to the majority of interviews he has done to promote the film. Still, he doesn’t shy away from a dark period in Russian hockey history.
“Sometimes you tire to talk about one game you lost. Nobody wants to talk about all our success, but this is life,” said the two-time Olympic and seven-time World Champion. “That’s called selective memory. It’s normal in the western part of the world.”
Eventually, Fetisov would seek to join that “western world” by following several of his Red Army teammates into the NHL. The hardline stance he took toward his independence would make his an enemy of the state, but would one day open the floodgates for future generations of Russian players to pursue their dreams. But that mass migration, in his words, led to a loss of the “Russian soul.”
“We have lots of struggles, especially in the 90s when people around the hockey program destroyed everything,” he lamented. “They just prepared the kids to turn pro, to make the money. Nobody thought about the system, nobody thought about the history, the Soviet hockey style. For almost 15 years they destroyed the game, which was built by the great Tarasov. It’s not easy to rebuild in two years.”
At the same time, Fetisov watched a transformation of the American game. Buoyed by the upset in Lake Placid, Americans discovered that they truly could compete on an international stage thanks to trailblazing efforts of coaches like Herb Brooks and Lou Vairo, who took from the Russians and Europeans and created a melting pot of training philosophies and playing styles that has served them well on the international arena.
“At every level you can be proud of what you’ve done. You’re now a top nation in hockey,” Fetisov said.
“I think it helped with what happened in 1980 to make it this way. There’s so much attention and so much pride from that, and the kids started to play. You have to give tribute to USA Hockey. They built a great program for developing players. That’s been the result you see now. The U.S. probably is the toughest team to beat now at any level.”
That only adds fuel to Fetisov’s fire to return Russia to hockey prominence.
“We’re moving forward but there’s still a lot of opposition,” he said. “People want to do something different than what was done in the Soviet system. It is a process but I hope we can move forward in the next five years.”
And much like his mentor, Fetisov is happy to keep the dream alive, a dream that focuses on teaching the game the right way, of playing for your teammates and your country, with pride and passion as he did throughout his career. Fetisov hopes that his academy will help to address some of those issues and return Russian hockey full circle to the heyday of the Red Army.
“To be successful you have to put in lots of work, especially in hockey. That’s what Tarasov showed us,” Fetisov said. “He was an unbelievable hockey man who built this unique system from scratch that became very successful. It is a good example for any coach around the world.”