Fifty years have passed since that famous match in September 1972. But the events of those days are fresh in the memory of hockey fans both in Canada and in the post-Soviet space. But many of the participants in that magnificent show hosted by two great teams of that time are still alive. Some of them went down in world history and are in the hockey hall of fame, others did not receive such fame, but they did a lot for Soviet hockey. One of them is Evgeny Zimin.
The beginning of a hockey player’s career
Evgeny Vladimirovich Zimin was born in Moscow in the second post-war year, 1947, in an intelligent family. His mother was a doctor and his father was a deputy minister. And this family raised Zhenya as a real intellectual. At a young age, he became interested in the overseas sport unknown to many sports fans, ice hockey. At sixteen, he achieved significant success that he was even invited to play for the Moscow “Locomotive”.
Playing in an adult team, Zimin Eugene was not lost among adult hockey players and was spotted by the head coach of the Moscow “Spartak” Vsevolod Bobrov. So Eugene, having played one season in the Moscow “Locomotive”, is in the famous “Spartak” under the leadership of Bobrov, who made him a real hockey player.
Playing at such a young age with adult athletes, Eugene did not lose his personality. The intelligence that his parents brought up in him has remained his hallmark in any team, no matter what he advocated in the future.
Zimin Eugene - player of the Moscow “Spartak”
Since 1965, Eugene became a player in Moscow “Spartak”. How did you react to the eighteen-year-old feeble intellectual who switched to play in the famous Moscow team? Not only opponents, but also teammates were skeptical about the new hockey player. But Vsevolod Bobrov discerned that Zimin Eugene is a hockey player who has a great future. After all, Bobrov was not only a great hockey player, but also a great coach.
It was he who saw in the inconspicuous, intelligent boy a real big player. The collaboration of Zimin Eugene and Moscow “Spartak” lasted almost nine years, and this is the main part of the career of this hockey player. After all, he reached the main heights in sports in the national and international arena, being a player in this illustrious club. And the club also achieved its main successes with the participation of this hockey player.
Assault Troika Partners
But hockey is a team competition, so no matter how talented a hockey player, the role of his teammates also plays an important role. At that moment, when Zimin Evgeny, the striker of the team, moved to Spartak, his first link shone in him - the brothers Mayorovs and Starshinov. After the first season of Zimin’s game, this link broke up, Evgeni Mayorov ended his sports career. In “Spartacus” there were many good strikers, but Vsevolod Bobrov puts nineteen-year-old Zimin to Mayorov and Starshinov. And these athletes showed themselves in a new way, Bobrov was not mistaken. So the link looked both in Spartak and in the national team. And after the end of the career of two great Spartak hockey players, they are replaced by Yakushev and Shadrin. It was in this composition that this trio approached the famous Canadian series.
USSR Super Series - Canada 1972
The role of Eugene Zimin in the Canadian super series in 1972 cannot be overestimated. Currently, there are not many people who have seen this match alive. And not only because more than forty years have passed since then, but also because TVs at that time did not have everything. In addition, there was no live broadcast of the match due to time zone differences, and the game was shown only in the recording. Nevertheless, the emotions that reigned on the ice then will not be forgotten by any real hockey fan.
Our athletes did not start the match very well, and by the seventh minute we had lost two goals. Psychologically it was hard for all hockey players, especially since they never faced the pressure of the spectators that took place at the stadium in Montreal. And it was at this time that Zimin Eugene scored the first goal for Canadian professionals. For them, it was a shock from which they could not recover until the end of the match, because he probably lost it.
Modern life of Eugene Zimin
Evgeny Vladimirovich Zimin ended his hockey career quite early. Two-time world and Olympic champion, European champion, he twice won the USSR championship with Spartak, which was much more difficult for an athlete who was not a CSKA player than to win the world championship.
After the end of the hockey career, he tries himself in the coaching field and even wins the European Championship with the youth team. But after that, he goes to the USA, where he works as a scout today and searches for hockey talents for the Philadelphia Flyers.