ZAKHARKIN: CANADA SURPRISED US IN VANCOUVER

Igor Zakharkin gave a detailed interview to russian sport press following Russia’s painful loss to Canada in Vancouver.


"I still cannot forget that awful atmosphere in our locker-room after the match with Canada", Russian team’s senior coach said. "It was the most unpleasant moment in my life".

"The best Russian hockey players were sitting with their heads down and they didn’t understand what had happened. Vyacheslav Bykov went to the press conference in this deathly silence".

"We were aware that people were watching us closely. Some our opponents waited for our defeat in Quebec and Berne, and we gave these people food for talks by losing to Canada".

"Now people criticize Russian hockey team for 3:7 loss to Canada, but we have something to respond to critics. We are ready to analyze all our matches at the Olympic games, including one against Canada".

I don’t know who initiated talks about our coaching staff’s inability to offer their Canadian counterparts something new in tactical way. Maybe they were those people who say that Bowman knows all six hundred NHL players, while we don’t know them at all. In reality we had much information not only about them, but about the same number of KHL players too".

"We possessed detailed information about all players from Canada’s Olympic roster. Ahead of our head-to-head match we showed videotape with key moments of their game, so we analyzed their hockey style".

"Ahead of one of our matches Sergey Gonchar came up to us and said that they watch many videotapes about each of their opponents in Pittsburgh, and we used this information. In particular we prepared 18-minute video, which we showed to our links".

"We paid great attention to goalkeepers, because we were afraid that Canada would feature their best goalie Brodeur against us and it would be almost impossible to fire in a goal behind him".

"Luongo was Canada’s first-choice goalie and we assessed this possibility as very high".

"Summarising everything I said before I should admit that despite our thorough preparations, Canada managed to surprise and press us".


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