RED ARMY – The Review

Anyone over the age of 40 remembers one of sports’ most famous moments, the “Miracle on Ice” – when the United States Men’s Hockey Team beat the Soviet Union in a breathtaking upset at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, NY.

Knocking out the Soviets led the U.S. team to the Gold medal round against Finland, where they triumphed and relegated the Soviet Union to second place and the Silver medal.

The Silver medal was definitely not what the Soviet team was expecting, and it marked the end of what had been the Soviet Red Army hockey dynasty – the most successful dynasty in sports history.

Told through the eyes of team captain Slava Fetisov, RED ARMY is a gripping tale of both sports and politics in the former Soviet Union. For them, hockey was everything. Parents would send their sons (some as young as 5 years old) to the yearly tryouts in hopes that they would be chosen to spend the next 20 years in a strict and sometimes brutal “hockey camp” where they had limited contact with their families and the outside world.

A Red Army recruit from the age of eight, Fetisov talks about his career and the bond he shared with the other members of the Russian Five – defense partner Alexei Kasatonov and forwards Sergei Makarov, Igor Larionov and Vladimir Krutov.

Fetisov tells of players (including himself) who were not allowed to see their families for extended periods of time, and one in particular that was not allowed to see his dying father because they had to prepare for the next game.

After the stunning loss at the 1980 winter games, the Soviet government tried to tighten its grip on players, cutting from the team all but a few for losing to the Americans, who were half the age of the average Red Army player.

It wasn’t long before Soviet players began to jump ship to chase the glory and huge salaries of the NHL. Some would defect, others went with their home country’s blessing – provided they gave huge portions of their salaries to the Soviet Union. (It should be noted, Fetisov would be one of the last to join the NHL, as he insisted on neither giving the government ANY of his salary nor defecting and never being able to return to his home country. He eventually was allowed to leave the Soviet Union on his own terms.)

Director, writer and producer Gabe Polsky, himself the son of Russian immigrants and a college hockey player at Yale, seamlessly combines archive footage and emotional interviews with Fetisov and other players and coaches who survived that era.

One of the most poignant moments in the film is when Polsky goes through footage of the game between USA and Russia at the 1980 Olympics. The now older and grayer but still charming Fetisov looks both disgusted and despondent. By the end he has tears in his eyes.

This film is a must see for hockey and sports fans in general, if for no other reason than to hear a story that has never been told.

5 out of 5 stars

RED ARMY opens in St. Louis on February 20