The Russian Five

 

There has never been a team in my history of sports viewing that I have been more interested in than the 1990s Detroit Red Wings and the Russian Five. In the early 1990s, hockey was not a sport that received any attention in southern Indiana. I learned the sport from playing NHL '94 on the Sega Genesis, and picked the Wings as my team (1) because they were a good team on the game and (2) because I liked their symbol. After learning the teams and players from the game, I started to watch hockey on TV, following the Wings specifically. I remember the Wings being knocked out of the first round as the top seed in '94 against San Jose. I remember being swept by New Jersey in the Cup finals in 1995. I remember being beat by Colorado in the 1996 Western Conference finals, and the violence that came with that series and subsequent games against the Avs. I remember all of the discussion that surrounded these playoff disappointments, the utter nonsense about this team not being able to win a Stanley Cup because of all their Russian players being soft. And then I remember the Stanley Cup championships in 1997, 1998 and 2002. The story of this team is so intriguing, the ups and downs, and their unique roster of five Russians was game changing for the NHL and North American hockey. In addition to all of that history, they were just a fun team to watch. Their style of play, which emphasized puck possession instead of the traditional dump and chase attack, allowed them to dominate the NHL for nearly a decade.  

The Russian Five is a documentary film on Amazon Prime based on a book by Keith Gave (or maybe it's the other way around). I initially watched the show for nostalgia purposes, to relive the glory days of the 1990s Detroit Red Wings and the Russian Five. I was born in the early 1980s, but I don't have any real memory of the Cold War or the Soviet Union. I have since heard stories about how the Wings acquired some of these Russian players, but I had no idea at the time how big of a deal this roster was. This part of the story, the part on what the Wings did to get these players, was the most interesting part of the book and the documentary. It involved secret meetings with the players, faking medical diagnoses, and other semi-shady activities. At the time, most of these Russian players were enrolled with the Soviet military, and leaving their country could be considered treason. Not only could the player be penalized, but they were fearful for ramifications against their family if they left as well. Subsequently, getting these players to North America to play hockey was nearly impossible. 

The Red Wings drafted Sergei Fedorov (my favorite player of the Russian Five and one of my all-time favorite athletes) and Vladimir Konstatinov in the 1989 draft. They secretly met with both players during an exhibition match in Helsinki, Finland. Fedorov eventually left his Russian team when they were in Portland, Oregon for the Goodwill Games. Konstatinov left Russia to seek medical treatment in the United States for a made-up illness. Slava Kozlov was later drafted by the Wings, and Fetisov and Larionov came to Detroit via trades. After signing Scotty Bowman as their coach, he put the five Russians together on the same line, and the rest is history, as they say. As I mentioned above, the team had tremendous success, albeit with some early playoff failures. In the end, the team was tremendously entertaining to watch and changed the game of hockey forever, at least in North America. The book and documentary are especially interesting to Red Wings fans, but I think would be worth a watch/read to any sports fan. The story of how these players came together from the Soviet Union and past the Iron Curtain, is truly an amazing sports story.