I was 10, and my specific memories of that game are lost in time's murk. But one thing stayed with me about that game: the Russians. At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union, its way of life and its hockey team were the enemy. But I remember the players well: dressed in red, bearing the hammer and sickle on their uniforms, pale-faced and almost robotic in their lack of emotion. They were, above and beyond their actions on the ice, the human incarnation of the dreadful foe on the other side of the world.

What I don't remember about the game was perhaps one of the subtlest footnotes -- at least to Americans -- in hockey history. That was the replacing of Team Soviet's goalie, Vladislav Tretiak, with back-up goalie Vladimir Myshkin, after Tretiak allowed a "soft" (easy) goal to tie the game 2-2 at the end of the first period. Tretiak, even then, was considered the greatest Russian hockey player of all time. But that night he watched from the bench as the Americans scored two goals against Myshkin to pull off the most stunning underdog victory in the history of international hockey.

Today, the 49-year-old Vladislav Tretiak works as the Blackhawks goaltending consultant, splitting his time between Chicago and Moscow, where his wife Tatiana and two children live. Since 1990, he's coached every Blackhawk goaltender from Ed Belfour to Jocelyn Thibault. In fact, Belfour goes so far as to credit Tretiak with making him the goalie he is today, and even honoring him by wearing the number Tretiak wore (20).

I meet Tretiak at the Blackhawks practice facility in Bensenville, exercising the only time Tretiak has available to speak; the next day he's off to Norfolk, where he'll work with the Blackhawks' minor league goalies, Michael Leighton and Craig Andersson. The day before, he was in Moscow. When we meet, he tells me that sometimes his English isn't so good. I tell him that, although at one time I knew Russian very well, it's a bit rusty. We agree to meet somewhere in the middle.

Tretiak began playing hockey just like everyone else: as a young boy. But unlike the United States or Canada or even Sweden, he was playing in Russia, where talented players were sniffed out at a young age and forged -- by and for the Central Red Army -- into professionals who played as amateurs.

"I start playing at eleven years old," he says, "because I like hockey very much. Hockey is number one sport in Russia. And also, my mom, she play hockey -- hockey for women." Despite American propaganda that, during the Cold War, would have had us believe good Russian players were forced to play whether they wanted to or not, young Tretiak wanted to do nothing else. "My family, my father, my mom, my brothers, like hockey very much. When I was young, I would like to play for Red Army, because my father was a pilot in the Air Force. He was a very tough, very disciplined guy. He pushed me all the time to work hard all the time."

Surprisingly, the man now considered the greatest goalie of all time didn't actually start out as a goalie. In fact, simple necessity forced him into the net. "For me, it doesn't matter what position, because I like hockey very much. OK? And maybe, three or four months I go to practice everyday, I don't have uniform. OK? Because they are very expensive, and not possible to buy?it was long time ago. So all the time I have problems with my legs," he stops and points to his shins and calves. "Because of shots off my legs."

Like any young boy's mother, Mrs. Tretiak wasn't thrilled by the idea of her 11-year-old son potentially being crippled. "My mom says, 'OK, maybe play no more, because in hockey equipment it is very important.' I go next day to coach and say, 'Hey coach, my mom has problem at home, please to give me equipment.' He goes, 'Oh, I don't know, for you maybe next year.'" His coach, it seems, was unwilling to part with a uniform for such a young player, especially considering that Tretiak was still two years away from beginning international play.

"But then coach goes, 'Oh yes, we only have goalie equipment,' because nobody wanted to be goalie. For me, it doesn't matter: goalie, forward, defenseman -- I just want to play, so I go 'Bring me equipment.'" Tretiak stops, smiles briefly, and with typical Russian directness shrugs and says, "And I'm a goalie today."

It wasn't long before Tretiak showed his coaches that he was something special. By the time he was 15, the coaches were impressed enough to make him the back-up and practice goalie for the Red Army Junior team, where he faced players two years older than himself. "I was very lucky boy, because older team don't have back-up goalie. One coach looks at me and says 'Well, he's not bad and he skates very well. OK, I bring him in.'" At age 17, he was starting in the Soviet Union's hockey dreadnought, the Central Red Army.

During the sixties and seventies, Russian hockey dominated the international arena. And whether he was in net for the Red Army team or Team CCCP, Tretiak was the backbone of Soviet hockey. In fact, when he retired in 1984, Tretiak had more than ninety medals, winning everything from Olympic gold to European and Russian championships, all in addition to countless individual awards won throughout Europe and the Soviet Union. The success, however, came with a cost.

"I played professional for fifteen years, OK, and my focus only for hockey, and for my family." He stops and shakes his head, "Because, after that, no more time. In Soviet Union, it was a different life for hockey players. In NHL, players are home before game, play, go home after game. In Soviet Union, no possible. For nine months, we live in special house. All the time, without family. We practice two times every day."

Though during his career Tretiak won so many medals he lost count, he notes that two moments stand out: The "Miracle on Ice" in 1980, and the "Summit Series," an eight-game series pitting Team Soviet against a collection of Canada's finest NHL players.

For Tretiak to be pulled from a 2-2 game is like pulling Roger Clemens out in the fourth inning of a 1-1 game, or benching Bret Favre after he throws an interception in the second quarter?you just don't do it, and if you do, you lose. The man who did do it during the "Miracle on Ice" was Viktor Tikhonov, coach of Team Soviet and Russia's answer to Vince Lombardi. I ask Tretiak if he knows why Tikhonov pulled him.

"I don't know why, I guess just bad decision for Tikhonov," he responds, a big smile creasing his face. "Maybe Americans would like 'thank you very much' for me, maybe it's 'thank you very much' for Tikhonov. Nobody knows. If I play second period, maybe we win Olympic games, nobody knows."

Did the move come as a surprise? "For me, big surprise. After two-two -- I never in a two-two game see the bench. I remember three, four goals, OK, I go to bench."

Tretiak still remembers what went through his mind when it happened. "Tikhonov says, 'Vladislav, you play bad goal on last goal, you sit on bench, Myshkin play.' I think, what's this?" he pauses for a moment, looking strained, even shocked. "I don't play against USA?" Tretiak theorizes that Tikhonov refused to believe his team could lose to the Americans, with or without the best goalie on the planet, a thought fueled by the fact that Team Soviet had pasted the same American team by a score of 12-3, just five days earlier. "Maybe Tikhonov thought, OK, back-up goalie, we still win. But a back-up goalie is no help for team, and we lose Olympic games." (Worth noting: Though Tretiak believes they lost the Olympic games, Team Soviet still took home the silver medal.)

Tikhonov's decision almost ended Tretiak's playing career. He recalls his reaction. "For me, at first surprise, then anger. I go to my room in Olympic Village, and I think maybe I no play no more. I wanted to retire right away." To this day, Tikhonov has never explained his decision, neither to Tretiak or to anyone else. "He wrote in his book," Tretiak says, "'I have mistake, pull Vladislav.' Yes, big mistake. But he never say to me."

But to Tretiak, the more important game, or series of games, was the Summit Series of 1972. "The most important thing for hockey in the world," he calls it. The Summit Series was Russian hockey's coming-of-age, its first chance to show the world that they could compete with the world's best?the National Hockey League?just like they competed against amateurs during international competition. Though the Soviet Union lost the series, four games to three with one tie, its importance stretched beyond who won or lost.

"It was the best hockey I ever seen," he says emphatically. "Because then, nobody knows who will win. The Canadians talk too much, even said goalie was too young [Tretiak, age 20]. Before game, people didn't know who the Soviet players were, but we show everybody who is who."

More importantly, however, is that series' bearing on today's NHL. "After 1972, we open door for everybody," Tretiak explains. "Look at Blackhawks today: Russians, Swedes, Czechs, Canadians. The NHL is better now because the world's best players play in NHL. In 1972, nobody win, [now] everybody win, because everybody sees great hockey."

For the majority of his career, Tretiak didn't have the option of playing anywhere but the Soviet Union. In the seventies and early eighties, leaving the Soviet Union to play hockey in the NHL would have branded him a defector.

But in 1982, something very unlikely happened: the Montreal Canadiens drafted Vladislav Tretiak, and tried to bring him to Canada. "I want to come," he recalls. "Because, I already have ten world championships. What matter is eleven? In Europe, I play everywhere, many years. For me, is no more exciting. I would like a little bit of change, maybe big change."

After thirteen years, he was bored. "My focus was on NHL, because for me, NHL is good exam. I play against best players in NHL for many years in exhibition; I like very much to play against NHL because of rush. In Soviet Union, is no more interesting."

Then-General Manager of the Montreal Canadiens, Serge Savard, traveled to the Soviet Union and attempted to wrest him away. But the Soviet Ice Hockey Federation wouldn't hear of it. "They told him, 'Vladislav no want to go to Canada, because Vladislav's father is big general. He like father, don't like go to Canada.'" He pauses for a minute. "But that was a different time. Maybe if I wait five years, I go."

Tretiak's time in North America did come, albeit five years after his retirement. In 1989, he traveled to Toronto to be honored in a ceremony at the Hockey Hall of Fame: his induction marked the first time a player who had never played in the NHL was honored as one of the world's best. Additionally, he became the first European-born player inducted into the Hall. It was there that he had a chance meeting.

"After show I go to a bar, and Bob Pulford [Blackhawks' General Manager] come to me and go, 'Vladislav, if you're ever available maybe you can help us out, because we have seven goalies.' I will go, but nobody ever invite me, because everybody knows don't touch Vladislav because he stay in Soviet Union whole life. But nobody ever ask me. So Chicago ask me and I sign contract right away and go to Chicago Blackhawks."

His voice lowers and becomes almost grave. "I very much appreciate Mr. Wirtz and Mr. Pulford for giving me opportunity. Now, my life continues. It's very important to me. I like giving my experience in goal."

Beyond Tretiak's experience on an international stage, he has left an even more impressive legacy: his goaltending style. Virtually every goalie in the NHL, including the all-time win leader Patrick Roy and Tretiak's former pupil, Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils, uses the style of goaltending invented by Tretiak, the full butterfly. A goalie who uses the full butterfly protects the net by playing with his torso straight up, but with his legs at a slight outward angle, like an upside-down V. On any puck that comes to the corners of the net, the goalies legs are splayed to prevent the score. Though it looks unnatural (and even physically impossible), the style has become a textbook example of how to stop a puck from going in the net. It's an accomplishment of which Tretiak is understandably proud.

"I was first goalie to make full butterfly," he says almost sheepishly. "A long time ago, in Canada they say that when I was young boy in Soviet Union, I get special operation on my legs to make me goalie. But it's no true."

And equal to his past accomplishments, he is proud of what he does now. During the hockey season, he spends approximately twenty-two hours a month inside a plane, flying back-and-forth from Chicago to Moscow. He has two schools: The Vladislav Tretiak Elite School of Goaltending in Minnesota and Toronto, where he instructs more than 500 young goalies every year, all in an effort to "help them play very well."

But to fly from Russia to Chicago and back, every month? "If you think about it, it's very tough. If no think about it, very easy. And when I go inside aircraft, it's like I'm working. It's very important for everybody -- hockey, newspaper writer, engineers -- to enjoy profession. If you like it, you never get tired."

Also by Dave Chamberlain

RAW MATERIAL
Count the season for year-end best-of lists officially open. I'm getting an early start this year, because there's one best-record list in Chicago that I've always wanted to do, but never planned with enough time: the best records released by a Chicago label, but NOT from local artists.
(2001-11-29)

ON THE MAKE
We're offering three ideas of gifts you can make (complete with accurate, tested directions) that will not only impress the hell out of family members and friends, but will also fit into any scaled-down holiday budget. If it's not the gift, but the thought that counts, then a great gift made by your own hand should count for double points.
(2001-11-15)

RAW MATERIAL
When you think of artists who dabble in high-end electronic music, the picture that comes inevitably to mind is of a smallish, pale figure with horn-rimmed glasses and airs so pretentious that breathing becomes difficult. With Telefon Tel Aviv, nothing could be further from the truth.
(2001-11-15)

RAW MATERIAL
I'd call this a local record roundup, but it's not really a roundup. Instead, it's an update; the round-up comes at the end of the year, after the horses jump the fence. First up, an odd little supergroup, so to speak. Vortis, which includes in its ranks drummer/Sun-Times music critic Jim Derogatis and lead singer/Purdue political philosophy professor Michael Weinstein, is a highly political punk rock band.
(2001-11-08)

RAW MATERIAL
(2001-11-01)

RAW MATERIAL
(2001-10-18)

RAW MATERIAL
(2001-10-11)

WEASEL WORLD
(2001-10-11)

RAW MATERIAL
(2001-10-04)

RAW MATERIAL
(2001-09-20)

RAW MATERIAL
(2001-09-13)

CLOSE CALL
(2001-09-13)