How Russia Won Gold At The 2011 World Junior Hockey Championship
Then there was Russia, under a new coach who managed to accomplish something no one before him had ever done: win the Subway Super Series vs. Canada. In naming his squad, he kept a lot of those same players, who played a similar game in that series against CHL All-Star teams. Look at the Super Series roster, and you’ll see a lot of names you might recognize from this team: Bocharov, Burdasov, Golubev, Kalinin, Kitsyn, Panarin, Sobchenko, Voronin, Berezin, Berdyukov, Sergeev, Urychev, and Shikin.
They played a classic counterstrike style, seemingly unphased by any situation put in front of them. Throw in a couple of bonfaide superstars in Vladimir Tarasenko, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Dmitri Orlov and you really did have a complete team, ready to take on any nation. Were they the best nation? Well, they beat all the best nations at least once (aside from the USA) en route to gold, so I don’t think we can fault the tournament format for this one. They played probably the best period of hockey you’ll ever see, and they won it without Canada getting into penalty trouble, which many predicted could be their downfall.
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