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Posted on 02/11/2022 8:25:28 AM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
Rafael Arutyunyan has guided figure skaters from around the world, under numerous sports systems to the top of their sport...including Alexander Abt, Michelle Kwan, Mao Asada, Jeffrey Buttle, Sasha Cohen, Ashley Wagner, Adam Rippon and Nathan Chen. A graduate of the Armenian State Institute of Physical Culture, Arutyunyan has extensive coaching experience in Armenia, Russia and the United States.
RA: So, you know, what I think has happened is that these two countries [Russia and the United States] have really different mentalities about everything. After fifteen or sixteen years of living in the U.S., I start to realize it more and more. Athletes are more dependent in Russia than in the U.S., which is obvious. In the U.S., all athletes develop themselves. In Russia, they build them up according to systems they live in. So in Russia, you are part of a system, part of a mechanism that develops you as a person, as a human being, as an athlete especially. You will take everything differently than me if I independent person and I want to skate, I skate. If I want to go to school, I go to school. And you guys should realize what’s going on there. It’s so difficult for me to even explain to you.
DL: If the Russian athletes are taking performance-enhancing drugs, do they recognize that they are doing something wrong or are they merely following along with what they are told to do?
RA: No, I don’t think so. That’s what I’m talking about. It’s so difficult to explain...
(Excerpt) Read more at the-skating-lesson.com ...
I volunteer for tribute! Like that kind of system?
The difference here in the U.S. (as it used to be) is that when we are born, we are raised to think of ourselves as dependent on our parents and families first, until we gain adulthood. We used to never think of the government as being our “family” or who was looking out for us and raising us, and training us.
In Communist countries, it’s the opposite. The government is who raises you and who provides for you. The people have no autonomy from the government.
"You can put men on the moon, you can train dolphins to do tricks in a pool, and you have dozens of different types of mayonnaise in your grocery stores ... but you can't pass a puck three meters to another player on the ice."
In communist countries, kids were chosen at a very young age, went to special athletic academies away from home, lived in dormitories, trained all day. They earned increasing bonuses for every competitive win. It was their entire life
And for a poor peasant family, getting a child into one of these academies was a real mark of success. It got a family extra food, offered the chance of travel, a little more money, etc...
Those who didn’t make it to the highest levels nonetheless still had better opportunities. Air China and its state-run airlines, for example, still draw their air-stewardesses from the ranks of female gymnast or ballet/dance academies.
So there was incredible pressure and conformity. You did whatever you were told.
The systems haven’t changed that much, especially in China.
Hard to tell - I actually read the interview, and it was unintelligible. More than half was him not admitting/avoiding anything about doping.
Sounds as though the system in Russia was to have coaches pick out kids at young age, and they trained them for their entire career - they basically ‘owned’ the athlete. In US, the ‘system’ is a more diffuse filtering process, where individual motivation (and funding) is what drives best talent to different levels and different coaching for the different levels.
Sounds very similar to the difference between freedom vs slavery.
Americans that don’t appreciate what we have here are complacent fools, and now many of them are GMO sheep.
(Aside, my wife doesn’t buy anything food that is not labeled “nonGMO” or organic. I told her the irony of her having multiple gene therapy injections, to the point where now she won’t have to worry about bugs and ergot just like treated wheat and corn. )
“but you can’t pass a puck three meters to another player on the ice.”
Kind of disproved in 1980. Also, the Soviets and Russians couldn’t wait to get out of the Soviet Union and Russia. Then they did, only the very very elite top players performed well. They are doing ok now, but don’t dominate like most expected.
Critically, it is the Russian players who had to adjust to NHL more physical brand of hockey. Western hockey proved to be superior as a system.
The Russians still dope and they are good at avoiding or masking the drugs. Another Putin miscalculation was getting caught as state systemic doping.
Now, they can’t even have a Russian flag or logo. They operate as Russian Olympic Committee ROC. Another complete blunder by Putin.
Now you have the young start figure skater, who is so far above the rest of the competition, given drugs. They still think they are the powerful USSR, and perhaps they never were. Every one of those USSR medals is questionable, due to PEDs.
Guy takes an entire interview to basically say nothing. I think that’s the major cultural difference. Russians can’t talk directly, it’s all mealy mouth implication otherwise a one way trip to the basement of Lubianka Prison.
Interesting point. By 1980 college hockey had come to resemble the Soviet style game. A sort of soccer match on ice with lots of passing. The NHL then was a bit like today’s NBA, flashy individual runs and long slap shots (slam dunks), interspersed with the requisite brawls. The 1980 US team of college players beat the Russians with their own tactics.
Critically, it is the Russian players who had to adjust to NHL more physical brand of hockey. Western hockey proved to be superior as a system.
Wayne Gretzky would disagree with you. And if you look at the NHL today, you'll see that it much more closely resembles the Soviet style of hockey in the 1970s than the North American style of that era. I would argue that the Europeans won out by forcing change in the NHL game, not vice versa.
As Ken Dryden wrote in one of his great books after he retired from the Montreal Canadiens ... Canada may have won the 1972 Summit Series over the Soviets, but the series really exposed a lot of flaws in the Canadian style of play.
Its fundamentally a matter of the government being bigger than the people. Been true in Russia for a long time but we’re basically there ourselves now.
Where you have big government the people are small, and vice versa.
“but you can’t pass a puck three meters to another player on the ice.”
Again, totally disproved by the 1980 game and we have competed against the Russians very well in International competition. All of the most elite talent in the International Junior Hockey Championship pretty convincingly proves that Americans can not only complete the pass, but beat the Russians. We won the championship last year.
“And if you look at the NHL today...”
Not even close. Some of the Russians and Swedes that come over here and go back home to play in their leagues each draft. Western Hockey is simply getting better and more skilled, especially in the United States. It’s a development story.
But the NHL is still very physical, completely opposite of what Russian and Euro Hockey was. Euro hockey was all open ice. The physical NHL hockey and the dump the puck style has been adapted by the Russians. Now you have a blend of both, but if you are not physical you won’t win the Stanley Cup.
“The 1980 US team of college players beat the Russians with their own tactics.”
The Russians outshot the US by an absurd amount. The US played conservative defensively and limited the open ice Russian break out rushes up the ice.
The 2-1-2 Russian forechecking forced the US to the dump the puck strategy. The Russians still ended up with a huge shot lead over the US. So, it wasn’t a Russian style, it was conservative attack, limiting the Russian break outs. The US simply hit some of the few shots they took.
Anatoly Tarasov passed away in 1995. He last coached the Soviet national team in 1972. He was indirectly responsible the things you described here as indicators of success in the U.S. hockey program. 1980 Olympic coach Herb Brooks considered Tarasov the greatest hockey coach of all time.
Whenever you go to a hockey rink and see players practicing with pylons scattered around the ice, just remember something: Tarasov invented this method of training hockey players.
There's no question about it: The U.S. developed a strong hockey program by adopting much of the Soviet model of hockey.
And you can see how many of the Europeans who came over to play in the NHL in the last 30 years have been among the best players ever seen on the ice. We have seen Jaromir Jagr eclipsing career scoring totals of Hall of Famers, Nicklas Lidstrom winning seven Norris Trophies as the top defenseman in the league, and Alex Ovechkin standing alone as perhaps the last person for the next hundred years who might credibly threaten to break Gretzky's lifetime goal-scoring record.
Right.
The US will just have to keep working on those 3 meter passes they can’t make.
I think it was a chapter in Malcolm Gladwell Freakenomics where he pointed out the birthdates of pro level hockey players in these types of countries. Birthdates were always heavily stacked to January. It was concluded that the skills development at the young ages of children made a huge difference in who was selected for more advanced training. When the kids started out, they were put in age groups. A 5 year old born in Jan has a HUGE developmental advantage over a 5 year old born in Dec. when comparing them for athletics.
I'd also point out that European teams have won SEVEN Olympic hockey gold medals -- four by Soviet/Russian teams -- since the last time the U.S. won in 1980.
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