Ice hockey player Valery Vasilyev: biography

The great athlete was born at the Volkhovo station of the Novgorod region on August 3, 1949. His father was Ivan Vasilyev, and his mother was Vasilyeva Valentina Petrovna.

Defender and by vocation, and by character

Such knights as Valery Ivanovich Vasiliev are needed on the ground. They are defenders by vocation, according to their human nature, as they say, from God. Obviously, Vasilyev managed to take place, to show his impressive potential. Knowingly the world ratings, naming the players of the symbolic World Team, assigned to it the role of the defender of the hockey player from Gorky as many as five times: in 1974, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981.

At home, eight times (in 1973-1979 and in 1981) was listed in the six most naive Soviet stars Valery Vasiliev. A photo of him, the winner of the Canadian Cup of 1981, is adorned by the NHL Museum of Fame.

The life credo of such bogatyrs is to be like an icebreaker: to take on the blows of fate, sparing, protecting them from others, to be kind and strong, to assert justice, to be a support for relatives and friends, to endure suffering ...

This was the fate of the great athlete, world and European champion 1970, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, Canadian Cup winner 1981

This was remembered by everyone who died in 2012 with a heart seared with traces of three heart attacks, Valery Vasiliev.

The biography of an outstanding sportsman in its official form, from our point of view, contains a number of myths that we will try to dispel.

Myth 1. Death of the father from an accident

It is mentioned that his father, Ivan Vasilyev, was prematurely "killed as a result of an accident ...".

This is not quite true. The father of the future sportsman was a worthy man, an officer in the rank of captain, a veteran who passed the Great Patriotic War. He served in the military unit, located near the station Volkhovo, and studied at the Leningrad Military Academy.

Valery Vasiliev always told the story with pain. His father, Ivan, went to classes on trains passing the direction. On that fateful autumn day on September 27, 1949, he jumped into the train of a freight train. There were convicts in it. When one of them asked his father to get drunk, he did not refuse. The guard here, too, began to shout that it was not allowed. Ivan Vasiliev also began to prove to him that one can not treat people like that. Hardly before the fight did not come.

At this time, Ivan Vasiliev drove up to the desired station (Volkhovo). He jumped off the side of the train and ... got a deadly bullet in the back. The criminal (vertuhai) then brazenly lied that he accepted the officer for escaping prisoner. But his words became the basis for an official explanation: Ivan Vasiliev was killed in an accident, they say, was a guard.

We paid so much attention to this story, because up to now this false wording "accident" appears in the official biography of the athlete. Is not it time to change it? At least out of respect for the memory of Valery Vasilyev.

Myth 2. Hooligan's youth

In the history of hockey, he entered with a nickname, invented overseas. Canadians, fully experienced him in power fighting, were called with respectful apprehension "master of the taiga". Comrades in Moscow, "Dynamo" and the USSR national team, closest friends (Valery Kharlamov and Alexander Maltsev) jokingly said that Valery Vasilyev - is "Gorky punks." But it was nothing more than a friendly banter.

To the delight of millions of spectators, he realized himself in sport, and with the Criminal Code the hockey player always lived in friendship.

His mother worked as a salesman in the dairy department of the store. Lived not rich, but not hungry. Valery and his elder brother Oleg earned money, catching birds, and then trading them: a piece of chervonetz. The brothers Vasilyev grew and grew up on the street. Among the brothers' friends there were also criminals. However, Oleg and Valery did not allow themselves illicit. But they learned the main thing in science: always remain themselves, sincerely be friends, be able to stand up for oneself and not give friends offense.

It is possible that the young Valery Vasiliev would have had conflicts with the law, do not practice hockey and play in the children's sports team Dynamo (since 1961). The first coach of young talent was Troitsky Igor Petrovich. He managed to forever invest in the boy's heart the love of hockey. And sports data from that was even more abundant: the guy already then differed by natural remarkable force (transferred to him by the family from his mother's grandfather). This power was special, family, it is given with a birth, this can not be obtained by training. Young defender Valery Vasilyev quickly progressed.

The beginning of sports career

Fifteen-year-old athlete was entrusted to play in the class "B" Gorky "Dynamo".

In the season of 1966/1967, after playing a few matches for Gorky's "Torpedo", he got into the field of vision coach of the Moscow "Dynamo" Arkady Chernyshev. He invited him to play for his club.

This was a new milestone in the athlete's biography. He found a club that became his family for seventeen seasons.

Still staying in the status of a junior, Valery Vasiliev loudly declared himself, being recognized experts of junior world championships in 1968, 1969. The best defender, where the Soviet team won first II, and then I place.

USSR national team

On 25.02.1970 the sportsman played his debut match for the USSR national team. However, soon, "breaking the regime," was suspended from the game hockey player Valery Vasilyev. The biography of the athlete precisely in this formulation expounds this fact. How did this "violation of the regime" really look like? What is hidden behind a suspiciously streamlined formulation. We find the answer in one of Vasilyev's later interviews.

On the eve of a foreign tour, finishing his first hockey season with the conquest of the Izvestia Prize, the lucky recruits of the USSR national team Valery Vasiliev and Viktor Polupanov "at Maltsev's apartment" drank a couple of bottles of wine and had fun. I did not even talk about strong alcoholic beverages, because the next morning I should leave. Valery and Victor were sober and just a little late for the departing bus for fifteen minutes. However, they were treated excessively severely.

Myth 3. Tarasov shore Firsova and Kharlamov, not putting them on training with Vasiliev

Left for the senior team, defender Davydov and striker Firsov reacted differently to what happened. Davydov acted wisely, because the guys came not drunk, without fumes, but only with a slight smell of wine. Firsov also encased the incident in the form of an incident and reported to Tarasov. That take and expel recruits from the team.

Vasiliev Valery Ivanovich was then again invited to the main team of the country, and his friend Polupanov "broke", completed his career.

After that slanderous Valery, having said in the face of Firsov that he is wrong, for some time reasonedly played in training against him in a rigid power manner.

Tarasov therefore really separately planned training Firsov and Vasiliev, but not because of the rigidity of the "Gorky barge hauler", but because of the conflict.

With Kharlamov, Vasilyev got on very well. He on the eve of the game warned the namesake who played on the opposite side: "Harlam, do not go to the center." And Valery Kharlamov attacked from the edge. At the same time, he did not have any training injuries.

The Vasilyev family

In 1973 Valery Vasiliev married.

His wife, Tatyana, he met in the May Day celebrations in 1972. "It seems that hockey weddings are a contagious thing!" - joked with some reason the player of "Spartacus" Alexander Yakushev. After April 30, he invited Vasilyev and Anatoly Motovilov to his wedding. After spending the night with Motovilov, Valery and his friend's family and his wife's friend went to a demonstration the next day. So with the light hand of the Motovilov family, the hockey player met his fate - Tatyana Sergeyevna. Vasilievs raised two daughters Lena and Katya. And they were happy grandfather and grandmother with four granddaughters and one grandson.

Myth 4. Vasilyev - impenetrable block

Frankly speaking, they did not protect either their own or others'. He was not just strong, he was powerful, and, without hesitation, took on the resolution of the situation at the most critical moment. According to the memoirs of friends, Valery Vasiliev was a huge physical force. (The hockey player on the dispute, according to the brother of Alexander Maltsev, broke a fist with an impressive thickness board.)

Soviet super-defender loved the courage of martial arts with hockey players. Countries of maple leaves. And the Canadians were aware that Valery Ivanovich would not get into a fight, but he would respond to rudeness rigidly, and within the rules. In response to the rudeness and unsportsmanlike cruelty for the ruffled hooligans, the famous "mill" Vasiliev followed, when the rival flew over his back, sometimes even breaking his shoelaces and flogging.

Vasiliev was a very brave man. He had more courage than strength and health. Trainers should have more to protect the best defender in the world.

In 1976, at the World Championships in Katowice (Poland), the defender injured his arm. However, the USSR national team performed there unsuccessfully, and Vasilyev felt that he needed it. He did not get off the ice. And after the match, already in the locker room, when the defender after the match won the game, the comrades were dumbfounded: it was filled with blood.

The second episode showing the courage of the athlete. Right at the 1978 World Championships in Moscow on the ice suffered a heart attack Valery Vasiliev. The hockey player fought in defense against fresh rivals, he practically did not change. He stood for himself, and for those who left with fractures Tsygankov and Lutchenko. After all, it was necessary to win gold, retaining the advantage of two goals.

At the same time, as if not paying attention to the fact that the "master of the taiga" is playing "for a break," Yurzinov and Tikhonov did not make a correction in the replacement. Vasiliev paid the same honor for the country's health.

A few days later, upon returning to Moscow and confirming the diagnosis, the athlete again played. He did not tell anyone about the transferred heart attack.

Genius defender Valery Vasilyev could still play at least five years. After leaving the USSR national team Boris Mikhailov, Yurzinov and Tikhonov chose him captain of the team. However, this was only a tactical move.

Vasilieva - to retire!

Since 1984, the attitude of coaches towards him begins to resemble a conspiracy. Tikhonov does not invite to the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo, they began to harass Dinamo. Tendenziozno distorting the facts, accused of uncontrollability and violations of the regime.

"Valery Ivanovich Vasiliev - hockey player is still promising!" - says the new coach, "Dynamo" Moiseev, but he very soon in the club's leadership explained that the basis for a different opinion, and that Vasilyev - the candidate for the flight. Formally, defender-hero was respected: the farewell match between the USSR national team and the European team of 1984 ended with a score of 7-3.

The defender, still full of energy, skillfully connected to the attack, perfectly folded, maneuverable on skates, virtuoso power confrontation ignored in preparation for the fundamental hockey competitions in 1984, as if it does not exist.

This hockey player told about this all unseemly act with pain and anguish. Valium Vasiliev was a powerful, but very mentally vulnerable person.

The cause of his death - three heart attacks, two of which caught up at the time when he (in his own words) "gnobili."

About Vasiliev after a sports career

Valery Ivanovich in 1996-1997 years. Worked as a coach of the Moscow "Spartacus", and in 1998-1999 - Podolsky "Varyag". Then deputy chairman of the board of guardianship "Varyag". Since August 2011, served as adviser to the president of the Moscow "Dynamo". It hurt. He died on 19.04.2012. He was buried at the Troekurovsky cemetery (Moscow).

Instead of concluding

Doubtful are the statements of coaches about the passion of defender Vasiliev to alcohol, which served as a formal reason for excommunication from a big hockey. Extremely questionable. According to the memoirs of his friends, Valery with them (not so often) noted significant victories with champagne. He recognized only this drink. I could not afford strong drinks captain of the team, enjoying authority for devotion to the game, for justice in relation to colleagues in the club, for the peculiar humor of a strong person.

His game had a unique drawing. He contributed to the high status of Soviet hockey. He was respected and loved in the "Dynamo" and in the team. He had very worthy friends: the Maltsev brothers, Valery Kharlamov ("Tell me who your friend is and I'll tell you who you are."). It was Valery Vasiliev and Alexander Maltsev, masters of the highest qualifications, who gave the Moscow "Dynamo" the uniqueness, thanks to which this team quite worthily opposed CSKA.