Russia (bbabo.net) - In 1954, our team went to the World Ice Hockey Championship for the first time. The main test for the Soviet national team was the match with the founders of hockey - the Canadians. "Maple Leaves" by that time bore the title of 15-time world champions, and even looked very confident in Stockholm, defeating the Swedes with an indecent result - 8: 0 during the tournament. Before the match with the Soviet national team of North Americans, in order to once again become world champions, even a draw would suit, but our guys had to win - this was the only way we became the first in the world.

On the eve of the decisive battle for gold, the newspapers ironically wrote: "Canadian masters will not leave a stone unturned from the" Russian bears "and will show real hockey." The huge arena of the royal stadium supported the overseas team, but the USSR national team throughout the match demonstrated an incredible game with crazy combinations and amazingly beautiful goals, literally crushing the Canadians - 7: 2. Well-known Canadian journalist Bob Hesketh wrote at the time that in Canada "offended screams began to be heard from everywhere." “Probably exactly the same cries,” he continued, “would have been raised if someone in the United States had announced that Edison was born in Minsk” ...

So from the first attempt, Soviet hockey players from the debutants stepped onto the "golden" podium of the world championship. And although at that time only amateur teams came from Canada to the world championships, the victory of our hockey was worth a lot. It became clear to the entire planet: a new force has appeared in world hockey - the Soviet Union, which will have to be reckoned with and which is capable of sweeping anyone out of its way, regardless of titles.

However, for the sake of historical justice, it is worth noting that the new order in hockey was not obvious to everyone. So, the committee of the Swedish tournament with great reluctance introduced the only representative of the USSR to the list of the best players in the tournament. It was the legendary Vsevolod Bobrov, who scored eight goals in seven matches. Our forward was named the best forward of the tournament, despite the fact that Bobrov was far from the most productive hockey player in the championship. For example, the top scorer of the Swedish championship, Canadian Maurice Galan, sent 16 goals to the opponents' goal.

The return home was truly triumphant for our hockey players. The whole country knew the heroes of the ice battles. Goalkeepers Nikolay Puchkov and Grigory Mkrtchyan, defenders Alfred Kuchevsky, Dmitry Ukolov, Alexander Vinogradov, Pavel Zhiburtovich, Henrikh Sidorenkov, forwards Vsevolod Bobrov, Viktor Shuvalov, Alexey Guryshev, Yuri Krylov, Mikhail Bychkov, Alexander Uvarov, Valentin Kuzin, Nikolay Babysov , Alexander Komarov. According to witnesses, after the victory in Stockholm, the Union was seized by a real "hockey fever". On numerous ice rinks in the courtyards, the kids played a "match against the Canadians", and since no one wanted to play for the "Maple Leaves" ... leadership in world hockey for many years ...

In the 1940s, people in our country only heard about this game - then, with clubs on the ice, they drove a rubber disc: football was a really popular sport. To remedy the situation, in the spring of 1946, the chairman of the All-Union Sports Committee, Romanov, reported to K. Voroshilov personally about "a serious lag in the field of Canadian hockey", who then supervised physical culture and sports on behalf of the Politburo. He, having read the collected materials telling about the history of the sport and its popularity in the world, reported to the leader: they say, the whole capitalist world plays a strange sport, and our neighbors, the Czechs, have established themselves as a very solid team, but we have big flaws. “We need to learn to play and play,” concluded Voroshilov. They say that Stalin then kept silent, but soon an order from the Sports Committee was issued to hold ice hockey competitions in the USSR.The birthday of ice hockey in Russia is December 22, 1946, when the first matches of the first USSR ice hockey championship were played in Moscow, Leningrad, Riga, Kaunas and Arkhangelsk. Today one cannot recall without a smile, for example, the immense harem pants of the players, the awkward attempts of hockey players to throw the puck into the air, the suffering of goalkeepers burdened with a heavy, stubborn stick, the penalty box, nicknamed "punishment cell", and "cage", and "frontal place". The courage of the hockey players who performed without any protective equipment is also striking. True, after the first matches, articles appeared in the Soviet press "exposing a game alien to the Soviet man," but they soon disappeared, since the number of spectators in the stands began to increase every day. Along with the interest of the fans, the hockey economy was slowly improving. From quilted jackets they got the hang of sewing protective equipment, hockey pants. The field players donned bicycle helmets. Workshops appeared in Moscow and some other cities where hockey sticks were made - "to order".

Canadian hockey on Russian soil took from football a taste for the game of passing, an addiction to multi-pass combinations, and from ball hockey - space speeds, virtuoso skating. It is interesting that the very first championship took place only for a few weeks and was won by ... the football team of the Moscow “Dynamo”. Since 1948, teams from the friendly Czechoslovakia have become frequent guests in our country, which, in addition to educational films about the game of hockey and original master classes, were remembered by many of our hockey players for.jpgts that they gave before friendly matches. Our hockey players were happy to receive ratin cuts on their coats from the hands of their Czech comrades, in return giving ... badges and pennants. The Czechs, by the way, ended up offended and presented our team with a bag with badges before the next game.

In the spring of 1953, the Soviet Hockey Federation was admitted to the International Ice Hockey League. And already in January 1954, the Soviet squad played its first ever international match, defeating the Finnish national team in Tampere with a score of 8: 1. Then there was the same triumph in Stockholm, after which "Canadian hockey" finally became its sport for the entire Soviet Union.

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