Sweden happy to play Russia instead of USSR

Originally published on IHWC.NET in 2002

By Lucas Aykroyd

“Ouch! Help! Stop! No!”

From 1954 to 1991, those were probably the words you’d hear most frequently from Swedish players in games against the Soviet national team.

At the World Championships, European Championships and Olympics, the Swedes won a paltry five out of 58 confrontations with the USSR, tying six times.

The worst pounding the Swedes ever took from the merciless CCCP crew was right here in Gothenburg. On April 24, 1981, the Soviets slaughtered Tre Kronor 13-1 to win the gold at the IIHF World Championships.

The home crowd’s hopes for an upset after a scoreless first period were dashed as the Soviets tallied six times in the second and seven times in the third. It was 11-0 by the time future Winnipeg Jet captain Thomas Steen broke the shutout. Sweden was forced to settle for the silver medal for the eleventh time in its history.

The Swedes never beat the Soviets at all until the 1970 World Championships in Stockholm, where they achieved a 4-2 win on March 20. But in the return encounter ten days later, the legendary Soviet forward Alexander Maltsev scored an unbelievable goal in a 3-1 USSR triumph, deking out most of the Swedish skaters before putting the puck in the net.

This game set a record that still stands for the most viewers in Swedish TV history, with 75 percent of the population tuning into the nation’s one channel.

In the very last World Championships game between Sweden and the Soviet Union, Mats Sundin emerged as the hero. On May 4, 1991 in Turku, Finland, the 20-year-old center scored the spectacular winner in a 2-1 victory, faking a shot and slipping around Viacheslav Fetisov before firing the puck between the pads of goalie Andrei Trefilov. During any World Championships today, you can expect to see this goal replayed incessantly on Swedish TV.

If the Soviets had managed to tie the game, Canada would have won the gold medal. USSR Head Coach Viktor Tikhonov was so desperate to avoid having this happen that he refused to pull his goalie in search of the equalizer.

So instead, the Swedes finally beat the Soviets and won the gold in the same tournament. Just in time, too. The next year, the Soviet Union was no more.

Since 1992, the rivalry between Sweden and Russia has become much more equal. If anything, it’s tilted in favor of Tre Kronor.

The Swedes have won two World Championships gold medals, with Sundin providing the magic again in 1992 in a 2-0 win over Russia. The Russians have just one, from Germany in 1993. Heading into today’s game, Sweden’s overall record versus Russia at the Worlds since 1992 stands at four wins and three losses.

Twenty-one years after Sweden’s 13-1 humiliation, will the Russians be the ones begging for mercy this time in Gothenburg? The home crowd at the Scandinavium will certainly hope so.