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Larionov has a special place in hockey history

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Al Strachan

Veteran sportswriter Al Strachan is a hockey contributor for FOXSports.com and appears regularly on "Hockey Night in Canada," "The Score" and Sirius Radio. He is the author of "Go to the Net" and the coauthor of Don Cherry's "Hockey Stories and Stuff".MORE>>
Updated Dec 6, 2008 6:27 PM ET
     
 
In 1984, when Team Canada faced the Soviet Union in the Canada Cup semifinal, Wayne Gretzky and his Canadian teammates felt secure in the knowledge that they could shout instructions to each other without the Soviets understanding them. This was, after all, the era of the Iron Curtain and the KGB. The Soviet players were basically prisoners within a system, their movements monitored and their activities ordained by their coach for 11 months of the year. They were always under KGB guard when they were allowed out of the Soviet Union, which wasn't very often. After that memorable 1984 game, which Canada won in overtime, Gretzky arranged to meet Igor Larionov and one of his teammates. The pair snuck down a back elevator in their hotel and were taken over to Calgary's lively Electric Avenue area by a friend of Gretzky's. "Igor was standing there talking to me," recalled Gretzky, "and the whole time, I'm thinking, 'This guy is talking to me and the whole time we were playing against him, I was thinking he didn't understand a word I was saying.' "I would talk to our guys and say, 'Coff [Paul Coffey], you stand there and I'll get the draw to you,' or say to someone else, 'You go over here and I'll throw it to you up the middle.' The whole time, Igor knew exactly what I was saying! "The first time he spoke English was when we were standing there having a beer. He started telling me, 'We all want to play in the NHL and maybe one day it will happen.'" The man who was most opposed to such a turn of events was the coach of the Soviet Union, Viktor Tikhonov. But Larionov and others, especially Slava Fetisov, persisted and finally the doors opened. Today, it's a delicious irony that the Viktor Tikhonov who plays for Gretzky on the Phoenix Coyotes is the grandson of the man who tried so hard to keep Russian players out of the NHL. I mention all this now because on Monday, Igor Larionov will be inducted into the Hall of Fame, an honor that is long overdue. Even if he weren't going in as a player, he could go in as a builder. He and Fetisov not only broke down the barriers that opened the NHL to players from behind the Iron Curtain, they were instrumental in breaking down the Iron Curtain itself and putting an end to the Soviet Union. They were revered in their homeland and despite the oppression that was the order of the day, they spoke out in support of a new regime. Fetisov was kicked off the national team and sent back into the army. Larionov was put under house arrest and denied an exit visa when the team played abroad. Yet when they came to North America, there were those in the National Hockey League who tried to intimidate them, thinking that as Europeans, they weren't tough enough to play over here. If you're tough enough to stand up to the Soviet Union, you're tough enough to stand up to a few misguided NHLers. Igor Larionov has hundreds of stories about life in the Soviet Union and about life in the NHL. You'll probably hear some of them in the next few days as he is interviewed about his upcoming induction into the Hall of Fame. He lives mostly in Los Angeles now and if you want, you can buy some of the wines from his company — Triple Overtime, Seventh Game and Slapshot are among the labels. He stills remembers the Soviet system, which he calls "unacceptable," and he's outspoken in his praise of the people who allowed him to escape that system for the NHL. The type of hockey that he and his teammates played was so effective that much of it was adopted by the NHL and for that, we all owe him our thanks. The game is a much more attractive spectacle today than it used to be and Larionov's contributions in that regard would be hard to eclipse. The Hockey Hall of Fame has no shortage of worthy inductees, but it's hard to think of a guy who is more worthy — in a number of ways — than Igor Larionov. And the guy who went to Electric Avenue with him in 1984? "Igor kept saying he had to be back by midnight and we got him back by midnight," laughs Gretzky. "The other guy we lost. I don't know if he ever got back. He might still be living in Calgary for all I know. It's funny now, but we were worried then." It was a different era.
Tagged: Coyotes, Viktor Tikhonov

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