The real reason the Canes have been drafting/signing all the Russians.
The next reverse retro going to be the ‘72 Smmit Series “CCCP” jersey
When I first moved to NC, I helped coach a summer league Squirt team in Raleigh Youth Hockey. There weren't as many kids back then for summer leagues so had all the travel kids and house kids play together and they tried to divide up the kids so that each team would have a similar roster and they gave each team a colored jersey so there was a Yellow team, blue team, etc.. and our Jerseys were red. We struggled early as we were the only team without a goalie so if another team's goalie couldn't sub for us, we had to use a skater that wanted to play goalie, always the same kid though.
About 4 games into the season, one of the kids says "We need a name for our team", so we coaches came up with the "Red Army" and allowed every kid to pick a name of a player off the 1980 Olympic Red Army team to put on his jersey, since they had all recently seen Miracle. Kids really got into it and the kid who had Mikailov even put the K on the front of his jersey.
One game, a ref came over to the bench early in the first and said "Boy, your kids sure do have some unusual names." I said "Take a closer look" as he skated away and you could tell when it dawned on him because a few minutes later he broke out laughing on the ice.
That team ended up winning the season championship and to this day, if I run into some of these kids, now in their late 20s, they still bring up the Red Army. Was probably one of the most fun times I ever had coaching.
