Vladimir Vasiliev, a former head coach of the Russian mens and U20 national team, died on 8th August at the age of 71 as a result of a heart attack.
Vasiliev was coaching Russia in three IIHF events, including a perfect record for World Junior gold in 1986, but also the infamous Piestany punch-up one year later.
For years Soviet coach Vasiliev blamed dirty tactics by Canadians for provoking the bench-clearing brawl in a game between the Soviet Union and Canada at the 1987 IIHF World Junior Championship.
However, the Canadian team, coached by Bert Templeton, said it was Vasiliev himself who touched things off by opening the gate on the bench to let one of his players, Yevgeni Davidov, joined a fight which had already started on the ice.
Canada was still in line for a medal when the two teams faced each other on the final day of competition in Piestany, Czechoslovakia. The Canadians needed a win by five goals to win the gold medal, while the Soviets with an uncharacteristically poor record of 2-3-1 were out of contention.
With Canada leading 4-2 at the 13:53 mark of the second period, the brawl started after Soviet player Pavel Kostichkin slashed Theo Fleury of Canada.
Referee Hans Ronning of Norway and his linesman made an effort to separate the fighters, but eventually left the ice and the lights in the arena were turned off.
At a meeting later the IIHF suspended the game. Then at a second meeting after the tournament was over, the IIHF decided to suspend all players on both teams for 18 months and the coaches for three years. The players suspensions were later rescinded.
Canada and the Soviet Union were both disqualified from the tournament and Finland beat the Czechoslovaks 5-3 on the final day to take the gold medal.
Vasiliev was accused by Canadian coach Bert Templeton, who died in 2004 of cancer, of opening the doors to the Soviet bench to let his players join the brawl. Vasiliev was later fired by the Soviet Ice Hockey Federation, but the federation said his dismissal was more as a result of the teams poor showing in the tournament than it was because of the brawl.
Vasiliev and Templeton both ruled their teams with an iron fist. The Russian coach was from the old school as taught by the legendary Anatoli Tarasov, who worked his players until they dropped during training sessions in the 1960s.
In his book When The Lights Went Out: How One Brawl Ended Hockeys Cold War, Canadian writer Gare Joyce reports there were rumors of Vasiliev making his team run in the middle of the night after poor performances and forcing them to miss meals.
Canadian TV commentators suggested the Soviets started all the fighting to get the Canadian players ejected and prevent them from winning the gold medal.
Templeton refused to apologize. "We're convinced in our own minds that what we did was right," Templeton said at the time.
A public opinion poll taken showed that 90 per cent of Canadians supported what the team did.
The incident is listed as number 34 on the IIHFs list of top 100 international hockey stories, put together in 2008 as part of the organizations 100th anniversary.
The year before Vasiliev had coached the Soviets to a gold medal at the World Junior Championship in Hamilton, Canada, in one of the most dominating performances a gold medal team ever has given.
The Soviets posted a perfect 7-0-0 record in the single round robin event and shocked Canada, the defending champions from 1985, 4-1 in front of almost 18,000 fans and a national TV audience at Hamiltons Copps Coliseum.
Eight players from that Soviet team Valeri Kamensky, Vladimir Konstantinov, Alexander Semak, Igor Kravchuk, Mikhail Tatarinov, Yevgeni Davidov, Pavel Torgayev and Igor Vyazmikin went on to play in the NHL. Sadly, three goalie Yevgeni Belosheykin, Yuri Nikonov and Vyazmikin died at an early age.
At the 1986 tournament, Hamilton Spectator sportswriter Larry Sicinski was highly critical of Vasiliev in the newspaper, claiming he was shielding his players from talking to the media.
As a player Vasiliev played for Khimik Voskresensk, CSKA Moscow, Krylya Sovietov Moscow and at the end of his career in Austria for Klagenfurt. Although he never played in a World Championship or Olympics, he was one of the better wingers in the Soviet Elite League, scoring 200 goals in 415 games.
Three years ago Vasiliev wrote a book in which he said officials in the Soviet Union withheld all but 5,000 of the 35,000 Austrian schillings the Klagenfurt club paid to the Soviet Ice Hockey Federation for his release.
He later coached Khimik to silver and bronze medals in the championships of the old Soviet Elite League.
Vasiliev was named head coach of the Russian national team in 1995 and was behind the bench when Russia placed fourth at the 1996 IIHF World Championship in Austria.
The Russians finished the preliminary round with a perfect 5-0 record, but lost in the semi-finals to Canada and in the bronze medal game to the United States.
In 1995 he coached Klner Haie to the German championship.
He helped prepare several players from Voskresensk, including Slava Kozlov, Valeri Zelepukhin, Sergei Berezin and German Titov, for careers in the NHL.
In recent years Vasiliev had acted as a consultant to the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, making recommendations on players he thought should be considered for the national team. He is given credit for helping to build the Russian team that won back to back gold medals at the World Championship of 2008 and 2009.
Vasilievs funeral service was held Aug. 10 at the Podmoskovskoye Ice Palace in Voskresensk, where many great Soviet players like Igor Larionov and Valeri Kamensky also got their start in hockey.
DENIS GIBBONS
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