Gabe Polsky Famous Quotes
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People think, sports delivers a message. It's not just about winning and losing, although that's important. It's about other things, too. It demonstrates how it can say certain things about your culture and your society.
If people see North American hockey and they see violence and brutality and it's not so interesting, that sends a message too about your culture.
One ironic thing is that although (the Soviet Union) was one of the most oppressive systems, with no respect for the individual, it somehow produced the freest hockey on the planet. These guys, when they got on the ice, it was like watching jazz. They could do anything. I find that a paradox. It's interesting because I think the North American style was a lot less free. It was not encouraged to be creative.
In the U.S., coaches could be the father next door. They had no formal training. They're like old hockey players. They don't go to school and study.
If you're a skilled player, you want to use your skill, not just hit the puck.
When I looked into the story of Soviet hockey and its players, I realized that it has nothing to do with hockey. It was a larger story using hockey as a window into the story of the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian people, with friendships and betrayals, paranoia and oppression, and the meaning of sports to people and nations around the world, and how sports was used as a political tool.
Growing up, I didn't know very much about my heritage and the Soviet Union and things of that nature. But when I saw the Soviet Union play hockey for the first time, to me, it was profound.
When people do something extraordinarily well, it's self-evident. It could be art. It could be a circus, whatever it is, where people are doing incredible things. It's self-evident. You know that it's beautiful. You know that it's very difficult, but it looks easy.
I don't want to get into being too hockey centered, but I just felt like the late 70's and 80's into the 90's was the right time period to tell the story.
I guess the prime example is in North America there's a thing where if there's no opportunity to move forward with the puck, then a [hockey] player is told to dump the puck into the other zone. Just give up the puck and dump it in. Give it to the other team. And to the Soviet mentality in coaching, it just doesn't make any sense. If you're a skilled player, why are you going to give the puck away to the other team? Just give it away, right?
