A Quote by Gabe Polsky

What I found interesting about Slava Fetisov was that he went through three different generations of Soviet hockey. In the late 70's, he experienced the Miracle on Ice, and then in the 80's became with his teammates the Russian Five, the most dominant team in the history of hockey, and then helped bring down the hockey system when the Soviet Union collapsed and became one of the first players to play in the NHL, and then ultimately came back to Russia.
When I looked into the story of Soviet hockey and its players, I realized that it has nothing to do with hockey. It was a larger story using hockey as a window into the story of the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian people, with friendships and betrayals, paranoia and oppression, and the meaning of sports to people and nations around the world, and how sports was used as a political tool.
I played street hockey in Riverside Park when I was a kid. I played goalie. I didn't make the hockey team in college, so I played lacrosse instead. I didn't play hockey again for 20 to 25 years, and then my son became interested in the game. I decided to pick it up again. A friend let me play backup on his team.
Growing up, I didn't know very much about my heritage and the Soviet Union and things of that nature. But when I saw the Soviet Union play hockey for the first time, to me, it was profound.
25 million of Russian people suddenly turned out to be outside the borders of the Russian Federation. They used to live in one state; the Soviet Union has traditionally been called Russia, the Soviet Russia, and it was the great Russia. Then the Soviet Union suddenly fell apart, in fact, overnight, and it turned out that in the former Soviet Union republics there were 25 million Russians. They used to live in one country and suddenly found themselves abroad. Can you imagine how many problems came out?
We can't play stupid hockey, dumb hockey, greedy hockey, selfish hockey. We have to put the team ahead of our personal feelings.
When I did play team sports, I was into soccer and hockey. I loved hockey. And then rock climbing became the thing that got me out of Iowa, and I traveled the world for rock climbing. I really loved the, I guess you would say, dirtbag lifestyle of not eating much and traveling the world and slipping into different cultures and just observing.
My life was going to school, having a snack and going outside to play hockey until dinner time. I would then do my homework and go back out to play, but only if the Canadiens weren't playing that night. That's what I did every day, whether it was street hockey or pond hockey.
Ice hockey is the closest thing to religion permitted by the Soviet Union.
The English play hockey in any weather. Thunder, lightning, plague of locusts... nothing can stop the hockey. Do not fight the hockey, for the hockey will win.
After the Soviet Union collapsed, people thought the last Soviet generation was going to be the great hope for democracy. When that failed, their hopes shifted to the first post-Soviet generation, and then the second one.
My family members were always there and I was very fortunate for that I mean, I played hockey growing up. That was the sport everyone in Charlestown played back then, and I had skates and the equipment, but I was growing so fast, it became hard to afford new stuff every year. But hockey was it for me.
I knew nothing about hockey when I came to Chicago and then became the biggest fan - went to every playoff game.
Obviously ice hockey's much faster. You play street hockey, most likely, with a ball. Where the puck is more difficult to maneuver with. There's not too many things that are different. Playing on the ice is totally, totally different than playing on the street. It's totally a different game in that aspect.
We've [me and brother] been playing hockey for a long time, since we were little kids. I started playing hockey at two and a half. Obviously, playing hockey we want to be known as good hockey players and hard working guys that earn everything they get.
One ironic thing is that although (the Soviet Union) was one of the most oppressive systems, with no respect for the individual, it somehow produced the freest hockey on the planet. These guys, when they got on the ice, it was like watching jazz. They could do anything. I find that a paradox. It's interesting because I think the North American style was a lot less free. It was not encouraged to be creative.
Each team has a net liner, a goalie, and five attackers. We have two defenders on the ice and three forwards. Our forwards are left winger, centre man and a right winger. We work as units of five. In ice hockey you go out and you go as hard as you can for 35 to 45 seconds, then we change.
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