Yakushev72
Registered User
- Dec 27, 2010
- 4,550
- 372
Seeing as though Russia has been going downhill in pretty much all areas (except billionaries, corruption, etc.), I guess one cannot expect more. Larionov is a winemaker (and a former great hockey player), but certainly not a hockey coach. Most hockey officials are corrupt and do not understand the game. The whole system just isn't working, many Russian parents simply can't afford to have their kids play, I've also heard that "blat" and corruption is relatively widespread in roster selection. The old Soviet days of dominance are gone, as is the ideology and the social system that made the former success possible. I would not be surprised if this trend of poor showings continues, to be honest, under the given circumstances. The system in Russia has to change in order for hockey to get better, imo.
Could Larionov be Rotenberg's Rottweiller? Sorry, bad try! It kind of rhymes, but it doesn't fit, because Rottweiler's are actually pretty macho dogs, and Larionov's puppies looked anything but macho against their "trainers" from Canada.
In the West, there is a well-worn cliche that if something is produced in Russia, it must be of poor quality (vodka excepted, of course). Some of it is no doubt prompted by anti-communist ideology from the past, but it is all based on the premise that the average person in Russia has little or no incentive to produce high quality products and services, and that the means of production are too shabby and substandard to make high quality products possible. That may or may not be fair, but when these cliches live on for decades without being credibly disproven, they come to be popularly accepted as established fact. Aside from substances extracted from the ground (oil, gas, minerals), there are few exceptions to the premise.
What was so great about the Soviet hockey created by Tarasov and his associates was that it was a clear exception to that premise. In the rough and tough world of hockey, it was a thing of almost artistic and elegant beauty to watch and behold, almost like the Bolshoi. It soared to the top of the world at a time when other Soviet enterprises were just barely surviving. Sadly, it seems to me that those traditions are near-death, and my hopes of seeing them resuscitated are gone. Russian sport overall, and hockey in particular (since it was among the most noteworthy achievements of Soviet sport), are now languishing in mediocrity, with no sign of any initiative to make them competitive on a world stage. Nothing special, just average. Today, the Russian junior team, a group of really good kids that seem to have a lot of talent, will compete in a kind of "losers derby" for 3rd place (what a ridiculous money-making scheme it is to award Bronze medals, as if it were the Olympics, to squeeze more revenue out of a kids tournament). The tiny country of Finland will challenge the behemoth-sized Russia on even terms, and even have a good chance of winning. That says everything that needs to be said about the status of Russian hockey.