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Russians had only six players of Canada’s level - Scotty Bowman
Published: 26 March, 2010, 18:14
Canadian forward Corey Perry (24) (R) celebrates a goal as he skates past Russia's forward Sergey Fedorov (29) (L)
TAGS: Sport, Malkin, Ovechkin, Vancouver-2010, Hockey
In his recent interview with Russia’s Sport Express newspaper one of the most distinguished ice hockey coaches, Canadian Scotty Bowman, shared his view about what happened to team Russia in Vancouver.
"To my mind Russia looked so bad because they had weak defense,” the all-time Canadian said. “Their defensive line turned visibly weaker than those of the other leading countries."
Bowman is far from thinking that Russia lost the quarterfinal battle mainly due to the coaching mistakes:
"It is stupid to state that the quarterfinal match Russia vs. Canada was lost firstly by the coaches. Now tell me how many Russian players would have got to the Canadian national team? […] I tell you – not more than six! And almost all of them are forwards – Ovechkin, Kovalchuk, Datsyuk, Malkin and probably Semin. From defenders – only Andrey Markov," said Bowman.
 Scotty Brown |
"I doubt that Gonchar could have been capped for Canada. In any case Canada had a much stronger squad than Russia," he added.
Speaking about the rink size issue, Bowman agreed that the North American teams had a certain advantage.
"If the games were held on bigger rinks, than it would have been more difficult to beat the European teams,” he said.
"European teams are strong with their combinational game and it is hard to close them out on bigger ice. Despite the fact that many Europeans play in the NHL, they are brought up with the passion of a combinational game."
"And I want to say that small rinks create a different type of ice hockey," he added.
23.03.2010, 12:00
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