The Soviet Union began to dominate international ice hockey as early as the end of World War II, but it wasn’t until the 1954 World Championships in Sweden that the average Canadian discovered the Russians had become a hockey powerhouse.
While represented by the East York Lyndhursts, a senior amateur team racked with injuries, when the two national teams faced off in the tournament, Canada was the clear favorite of the bookmakers. It wasn’t until the 1990s that professional players were permitted to begin competing in both the world championships and the Olympic Games.
In the first period, the Soviets scored four goals. The Canadians, befuddled by the Soviet style, never got back into the game. Final score: Soviet Union 7, Canada 2.
The Soviets won six of seven games in the tournament. The lone “blemish” on their record was a 1-1 tie with Sweden. They took home the gold medal, emblematic of their first world hockey title.
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Vsevolod Bobrov was one of the Soviet Union’s greatest all-time players, scoring 91 goals in 57 national team games from 1954 to 1957. |
By the end of the Cold War and the breakup of their country, Soviet hockey squads would win 22 international world championships.
The ’54 World Champions was the coming out party for the Soviets’ first truly international hockey superstar. In those seven games, left wing Vsevolod Bobrov scored eight goals.
Bobrov went on to help his teams win seven Soviet championships in his first 10 seasons in the USSR’s elite league. In 130 league games, he scored an amazing 254 goals!
Bobrov had blazing speed as a skater and was a gifted playmaker. When his team needed a goal, the 6-foot, 1-inch, 185-pounder would muscle in close to the opposing team’s net and yell to whichever teammate had the puck to pass it to him. Even though the opponent’s defensemen knew what was coming, they still couldn't shut down Bobrov.
In that respect, his style was similar to what Phil Esposito would use to lead the Boston Bruins to two Stanley Cups in the early 1970s and a narrow Team Canada triumph in its historic eight-game Summit Series against the Soviets in ’72.
Bobrov was named one of the best players at the ’54 World Championships, along with Lars Bjorn, a defenseman for Sweden, and Don Lockhart, a goalie for the Canadian team.
Some 16,000 people watched the championship game, and it is safe to say that all the Swedes in the crowd went home disappointed.
Why? Had Canada beaten the Soviet Union, it would have had to play Sweden the next day in the championship game. As it was, the USSR captured the world title with its win over the Canadians.
After he retired from playing hockey in 1975, Bobrov was named the coach for a team in the capital city of Moscow.
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