Miracle On Ice - Soviet Aftermath

Soviet Aftermath

In the Soviet locker room Tikhonov singled out first-line players Tretiak, Kharlamov, Petrov, and Mikhailov, and told each of them, "This is your loss!" Two days after the Miracle on Ice, the Soviet team crushed Sweden 9–2, winning the silver medal. The Soviet players were so upset at their loss that they did not turn in their silver medals to get their names inscribed on them, as is custom. The result stunned the Soviet Union and its news media. The day after the loss, the TASS news offices at Lake Placid's International Broadcast Center were closed, with a handwritten note taped to the door of the office stating "Today Closed We Are." Pravda did not mention the game, either in its next daily issue or in its Lake Placid wrap-up.

Despite the loss, the USSR remained the pre-eminent power in Olympic hockey until its 1991 break-up. The Soviet team did not lose a World Championship game until 1985 and did not lose to the United States again until 1991. Throughout the 1980s, NHL teams continued to draft Soviet players in hopes of enticing them to eventually play professionally in North America, but it was not until the 1988/89 season that the NHL saw its first Soviet player, when veteran Sergei Pryakhin joined the Calgary Flames.

In the 1989/90 season, several 1980 Soviet Olympians joined the NHL, including Helmuts Balderis, Vyacheslav Fetisov, Alexei Kasatonov, Vladimir Krutov, and Sergei Makarov. Fetisov was a teammate of Mike Ramsey on the 1995 Detroit Red Wings team that lost the Stanley Cup Final. Fetisov completed his career by winning Cups with the Red Wings in 1997 and 1998; the first Cup win also made Fetisov a member of the Triple Gold Club, consisting of individuals who have won a Stanley Cup plus gold medals at the Olympics and World Championships. Makarov won the Calder Memorial Trophy as NHL Rookie of the Year in 1989/90, becoming the oldest player to win that award. That same season, younger Soviet stars Alexander Mogilny and Sergei Fedorov defected to play for the Buffalo Sabres and Detroit Red Wings, respectively. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a flood of ex-Soviet stars joined the NHL, including Igor Larionov and Vladimir Konstantinov. Since then, many of the NHL's top players have come from the former Soviet republics.