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"If Tarasov had been our coach, he would have noticed our over confidence. But Bobrov wasn't very experienced as a coach and he didn't see that our team was 'swimming in glory'. We weren't training as hard as before. A few of our players even left our training sessions to visit their wives for a while! That had never happened before."
Vladislav Tretiak
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TEAM USSR Players in 1972:
Facts and Stats
USSR Elite League 1971-72:
- Champion: CSKA Moscow
- USSR Cup Winner: Dynamo Moscow
International Tournaments:
- Olympics'72 in Sapporo, Japan: USSR (1)
- WC'72 in Prague, Czechoslovakia: USSR (2)
- WJC'72: USSR (2)
- Izvestia Cup: USSR (1)
- European Champions Cup: CSKA Moscow
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Team USSR: Were They Really the Best
In Russia'72?
Unlike most of the Impressions's
articles, this section skips author's personal comments
in favor of statistics.
Prior to the Series, the Soviet squad managed to win
the Olympic gold medals in Sapporo
and silver medals in the dramatic competition against
the Czechoslovakian team at the WC'72
in Prague; went through a radical coaching change
when Tarasov and Chernyshev
were replaced by Bobrov
and Kulagin.
One of the questions that the 1972 Summit researchers
are constantly asking is whether the coaching changes
and absence of several world-class players affected the
performance of the Soviets in the 1972 Summit Series.
Obviously, the Olympic Champions Igor Romishevsky, Vitaly
Davydov and, especially, Anatoly Firsov could have been
a powerful addition to the Soviet team in the 1972 Summit.
The reasons they didn't play in the Series go way beyond
the subject matter of this section of the Impressions.
It's rather a statistical snapshot of Team USSR persformance
prior to the first series played against the NHL stars
in 1972.
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