Slava Fetisov biography
Slava Fetisov, byname of Vyacheslav Alexandrovich Fetisov, (born April 20, 1958, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.), Russian hockey participant who was thought to be among the best defensemen within the historical past of the game. As a member of the Soviet Olympic crew within the Eighties, he gained two gold medals and a silver. He was additionally a member of seven world championship groups (1978–79, 1981–84, and 1986).
A left-handed shooter, Fetisov was acknowledged early as an excellent defenseman. Playing for the CSKA Moscow membership, he was named to the Soviet league All-Star crew in 1977, at age 19, and 4 years later started a streak of seven consecutive All-Star appearances. These seasons had been highlighted by three Soviet Player of the Year awards (1982, 1986, and 1988) and three Golden Stick awards as Europe’s high participant (1984, 1986, and 1990).
Fetisov’s Olympic profession started as a member of the crew that competed on the 1980 Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York. There the favoured Soviet squad was upset 4–3 by a younger American crew that they'd defeated 10–3 in an exhibition sport lower than per week earlier than the Games. Fetisov and his teammates settled for silver medals in 1980, however on the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (now in Bosnia and Herzegovina), the Soviet Union swept all seven of its video games en path to Fetisov’s first gold medal. At the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, his crew was barely much less dominant however nonetheless gained the gold.
Fetisov’s arduous slapshots and bodily play made him a revered hero amongst Soviet hockey followers and a desired expertise exterior the Soviet Union. He was drafted by North America’s National Hockey League (NHL) in each 1978 and 1983, however he was forbidden by the Soviet authorities to go away the nation. In the mid-Eighties he selected to make the most of the brand new coverage of open speech (glasnost) quite than defect. He publicly feuded together with his coach and argued for his proper to play within the NHL. His protests led to a one-year suspension from the Central Red Army crew. However, in 1989 he was allowed to hitch the New Jersey Devils, changing into one of many first Soviet athletes to compete professionally within the NHL. Traded to the Detroit Red Wings in 1995, Fetisov achieved his NHL profession pinnacle in 1997 when Detroit gained its first Stanley Cup championship in additional than 40 years.
After the Red Wings gained one other Stanley Cup in 1998, Fetisov ended his profession as a participant and accepted a training place with the New Jersey Devils. As an assistant coach with the Devils, he gained the Stanley Cup in 2000. He later returned to Russia, the place he was a member of the Russian parliament’s higher home and president of CSKA Moscow, the place he started his hockey profession. Fetisov was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2001.