Vitaly Davydov, a Soviet player in the 1960-70s (three-time Olympic champion and nine-time world champion) and a Friendship Series and Super Series defenseman, is one of the sport's most successful executives as well as a Hall of Famer. The Vice President of Dynamo Moscow reminisces about the Soviet-NHL battles and the formative years of Washington Capitals left wing Alexander Ovechkin, the latest Calder Memorial Trophy winner.
Makarychev: Now that the Dynamo-bred Alexander Ovechkin has probably become one of the most exciting players in the National Hockey League, can you say he has always been an outstanding talent?
Davydov: First of all, I am very happy that Alexander feels good on a team like the Capitals. I oversaw him in his early years, when he went to Dynamo's Chernyshev Hockey Academy. After Ramil Valiullin, his first coach, he underwent individual training with Alexander Maltsev, a Soviet hockey star and two-time Olympic champion.
Before his NHL endeavor, I jokingly called Sasha [Ovechkin] a "starlet," though he was a first-string Dynamo wing since the age of 16 and played an important role in our 2005 championship victory. Now people on the other side of the pond also see his talent developing in the NHL, arguably the world's best league, and I wish him every success there.
Makarychev: There have been reports that before the last match of the under-14 Moscow championship Alexander learned he had to score at least four goals to beat Pavel Bure's record—and he scored six, just to make sure. Can you name his other outstanding features, besides commitment and leadership?
Davydov: Sasha has been head and shoulders above his peers since his early days in the sport; after some time he outperformed even many boys a couple of years ahead of him. Like his teacher Maltsev, he swept all top scorer and most valuable player awards in all under-21 tournaments and was always in top physical shape. Apart from having excellent individual skills, he is always creating and capitalizing on scoring opportunities. Even though he clearly needs some improvement in passing and teamwork, he has created many opportunities for his Dynamo teammates.
I think family is also part of his sporting drive: his mother Tatyana is a two-time Olympic basketball champion—a renowned player and, importantly, a very bad loser. I think he has inherited that bad-loser gene, too.
Makarychev: How come Dynamo hasn't received any compensation for Ovechkin from the Capitals?
Davydov: Of course we are a little frustrated at getting nothing in return for Dynamo's 14-year effort with Ovechkin, but neither Washington nor Dynamo itself is to blame. After all, we are not alone: look at Metallurg's story with Yevgeny Malkin. This is all about the lack of direct financial links between Russian clubs and the NHL.
Under the current rules, the NHL pays $12 million to the International Hockey Federation (IHF), which forwards part of the money to European clubs whose players opt for North America. But this is chicken feed; when Ovechkin was drafted first overall, we got a mere $250,000 for him, a fraction of what the club had spent to train him. This system should change; to determine fair compensation, we need direct negotiations between an interested NHL club and a Russian club. Under the existing system, Russian clubs still do outstanding work but get little in return.
Makarychev: How would you assess the role of Russians in the NHL since the first Russian influx?
Davydov: I think we should speak about several Russian waves in the NHL. In the early 1990s, it was led by Fetisov, Larionov, Kasatonov, and others—already well-known people who went to the League as mature players. Rising stars such as Bure, Fedorov, Gonchar, Kovalev, and Kasparaitis followed later, playing a key role on every team they signed with. The third wave, which we are experiencing right now, involves very young players like Ovechkin, Malkin, and Syomin, who are just beginning to climb the ladder and will surely associate their biggest achievements with the North American league.
Makarychev: In retrospect, would you like to see the Soviet-NHL Super Series—surely a classic chapter in world hockey history—make a comeback?
Davydov: I personally did not think of the Super Series as an ideological standoff. Matches between Soviet and North American clubs were a genuine breakthrough which promoted hockey around the world. I think sometimes diplomacy is better done with a stick and a puck than with pen and paper. In our case, people in North America saw that the people on the other side of the rink were normal, not the aggressive monsters they had been portrayed as. Meanwhile, Soviet people, as well as Soviet hockey, were gradually opening up.
I remember Dynamo's Super Series very well. Sometimes we played five to seven matches in a row, always to overcrowded stands and exploding TV ratings. When we were winning, the Americans would blast their teams, asking them, "What are our people paying money for? Why are you inviting those Russians to play if you can't win?" One U.S. reporter said that if we won he would eat his newspaper with tea. Well, he kept his word...
I think it's not only reasonable but absolutely necessary to think about a new Russian-NHL series. This would be good for the NHL as well as the Russian League. I am authorized to say Dynamo is ready to talk about it, and I hope other leading Russian clubs will support me in this.
By Maxim Makarychev