Vladislav Tretyak ran into the mixed zone out of breath.
“Come on, ask me questions,” he exclaimed. - I congratulated the players now. He said that they reminded me of the team in which I played.
Is the team of veterans of the USSR, which recently performed on Red Square? But no, Tretyak spoke of a completely different team.
“We returned to the fans the happiness they experienced while watching the Soviet team,” he almost shouted. - Everyone played great. And the goalkeepers really pleased me.
Tretyak suddenly turned to a whisper.
“Of course, I was very surprised when Alexander Eremenko came out for the third match,” he winked intimately to the correspondent. - But, as it turned out, he played great. These goalkeepers can get to the World Cup.
But they will not play. The fact is that Vladislav Tretyak was going on a business trip to Chicago. And not just like that.
“I want to personally persuade Nikolai Khabibulin to take part in the tournament,” he announced. - And indeed, at least five NHL hockey players should play in the team. We need people like Fedorov. With him, we would not lose the shootouts.
It seems that the Tretyak is still in the past. When Fedorov was the best player in the world, and was not in the freelance Columbus. Vyacheslav Bykov also began to make references to the Soviet era. He is increasingly saying that "those times" are returning. And after the match with the Czech Republic, he began to be proud of his nationality.
“I am a Russian,” he recalled for no reason. And then he said out of place again. - Look, there were 13800 spectators in the arena today. This, for sure, is Russia's record.
Hockey players, fortunately, have not yet referred to the times of Kharlamov and Ragulin, but calmly do their job. They say that the guys discussed among themselves the question of how many people really can get to the World Cup. It turned out that everyone was mentally prepared not to get into the tournament. They have Russian experience. The chances of partners, as well as their sensibly appreciated Peter Happy.
“I would have to get to the gathering of the national team before the World Cup,” he said modestly. - And there we’ll see what will happen.
Peter Happy, by the way, ended up in the symbolic national team of the Channel One Cup, in a different position - the central striker. Alexei Morozov became the best rightmost, and Jan Marek - left. In defense, everything seems to be written down normally. Ilya Nikulin became the best right-wing defense player, and David Petrasek would act on the other flank of the symbolic team. There was no mistake with the goalkeeper. The best is Vasily Koshechkin, who did not miss 125 minutes of playing time and made a mistake once in a series of shootouts.
The fact that the positions of hockey players were confused was not surprising. The FHR accredited a couple of dozen journalists to the tournament, who hardly knew the names of any of its participants except Tretyak and Bykov. On the last day of the competition, we already walked openly in the press center: we sang songs and beat dishes. Previously, by the way, no one saw these people.
For some, the tournament was clearly a success.
Alexey Shevchenko