Vyacheslav Bykov will remain head coach of Team Russia (Photo © Associated Press)

Today the Russian Hockey Federation announced that the team coaches Vyacheslav Bykov and Igor Zakharkin will continue working with the Russian National team.

“Their work with the team was found to be satisfactory,” said Vladislav Tretiak to Sovetskiy Sport. “Soon we will meet to discuss the details of the new contract.”

This season was very unsuccessful for Russia as it suffered two major losses: in the Olympics’ quarterfinal against Canada (3:7) and in the World Championship final against the Czech Republic (1:2).

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Vyacheslav Bykov: “Sixty percent of today’s roster will play in Sochi” (Photo © RIA Novosti/Vladimir Fedorenko)

After the 2-1 loss to Czech Republic in the 2010 World Championship in Germany, Vyacheslav Bykov gave an interview to the popular Russian website Sovietsky Sport. Bykov stated that the sixty percent of today’s roster will be playin in the 2014 Olympics, talked about his future with the Russian national team, tried to analyze the reasons of the defeat and also talked about the foreigners policy within the KHL.

Bykov: “This was a dramatic game for us, since the first seconds of it. We allowed such an early goal. Fortune smiled our opponents when they needed it more. It took us a lot of time to get a chance to beat the Czech defense. And it wasn’t easy at all. Their goalkeeper [Tomas] Vokoun had a brilliant game. Our players didn’t manage to realize their moments, even if we had not a few of them. But anyway I’ve thanked the guys because they fought till the last second. I’ve told them that the Silver is a product of their hard work and it’s worthy of respect. I express regrets to our fans…we tried hard, but luck wasn’t on our side today.”

What’s next for Team Russia and in particular for its staff?

Bykov: “We arrived here to get a medal, and it looks like we reached our goal. But any medal but the Gold one gives you a bitter taste in the mouth. We are upset. In the first instance we are upset because we couldn’t give joy to our fans. But my future will be discussed by the Russian Hockey Federation and the Minister of Sports.”

Do you want to stay at the head of the national team?

Bykov: “I didn’t think about this yet.”

After the game you got a call from Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

Bykov: “He congratulated the team – all the players and the coaches – for the silver medal. He thanked us for the good job. Because we got a decent result. He emphasized that the most important thing is not to get back to the level of the 90s, where Russia rarely got medals. And two golds and a silver in a row it’s not bad, really not bad. He understood that all the players are upset, but he did want to congratulate them all.”

Did the President talk about your future within the national team?

Bykov: “I don’t want to discuss this matter now.”

Today’s defeat in the final match was a casuality due to casual circumstances?

Bykov: “It’s hard to reply to this question. We created scoring chances and our players performed at a good level. We had to score! But we couldn’t…We have to give credit to the Czechs. They deserve the title of World Champions. They had a difficult path through the tournament. They deserved to win.”

This tournament looked a bit like the ones from the 80s, where Swedes, Czechs and Finns played without NHL players. And everyone was expecting the first place from Team Russia. Do you agree?

Bykov: “I don’t want to get involved into polemics concerning other teams. In the 2000 [World Championship in St. Petersburg] we had a line up full of stars and we could only get the 11th place in that home tournament. Why now we try to cancel the merits of the young guys who arrived to the tourney and worn the national team’s jersey? They made their duties of citizens, they gladdened the fans. Why we want to cancel all this?”

Do you think that the second place is your personal failure?

Bykov: “A failure is the eleventh place, as I said earlier. But the second place is surely bitter, because it’s not the first.”

But your roster was considerably stronger than the others.

Bykov: “Do you want me to resign right now?”

Your contract will run out in August.

Bykov: “Then wait till August. Or maybe until the executive committee will take an official decision.”

Will you go there?

Bykov: “If I have to then I’ll go.”

Don’t you think that combining the work with the national team and the work with a KHL club was a wrong decision?

Bykov: “No. Undoubtely no. Absolutely no.”

Do you still have motivations to work with the national team?

Bykov: “I need to sit and think. Even more so that it’s not up to me only, but it’s also up to the federation.”

If you could get back to the start of the tournament and change something, would you correct anything?

Bykov: “I don’t think so. Up to the finals we made the correct steps and we got the results. Even before the final I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Let’s say that [Alexander] Ovechkin didn’t start scoring on the powerplay playing as defenseman.

Bykov: “We are patient. Sooner or later Alex would have scored [this way]. But during this tournament it didn’t happen. Well, our hopes don’t come true every time. But in any case this was a plus for the team. Ovechkin’s appearance in our powerplay put further pressure on the opposition. Well, he had a couple of bad games…But the guys played to win.

Don’t you think that the goalie had some mistakes in the final game? We allowed the first goal too quickly.

Bykov: “No. We had no regrets about letting Semyon [Varlamov]’s play. The goals weren’t his fault.”

How does Fedorov feel?

Bykov: “He picked up a concussion. He doesn’t feel very well. And [Artem] Anisimov has a broken hand. He couldn’t hold the stick even after an injection. Many players played with injuries.”

Some people took off the silver medal immediately after the ceremony. And you arrived to the press conference without it. Maybe the silver medal was so bad that you wanted to put it in the pocket?

Bykov: “Maybe, no…But you can understand us. Our aim was to get the gold medal. We fought hard for it for the whole year. And then it steamed away. Emotions had the best of us. Bitterly…”

Your career with the National Team started with the 2007 World Championship in Moscow, where we got only a bronze medal. Now your team got a silver. What was worse?

Bykov: “Of course, having lost in the finals, you can joke yourself out, for example, say that we are the winners among losers. But for the Russian national team this is sad, especially now.”

Even before the finals you said that the higher level of our rivals is a consequence of their play in the KHL. And the final game confirmed that since goals and assists came only from KHL players.

Bykov: “If the FHR and the KHL don’t reach a mutual understanding then we won’t have hockey anymore in Russia. In the clubs the place of Russians is took by foreigners, teams can already dress six of them, soon going up to seven, without considering Latvians, Belarusians, Kazakhs, which aren’t counted. And what happens? Youngsters will start going away. Simply, there is no space for them in the KHL. Are we going to be better than the NHL soon? Instead of that we’ll be in a hole. Into a very deep hole.

Can you explain us why?

Bykov: “Because then we won’t have home grown players. And without it there is no future for Russian hockey.”

Between the staff of the national team and the KHL there is a dialog or troubled relations?

Bykov: “This is a question for the FHR.”

If the situation doesn’t change then [team Russia’s performance] in Sochi will be under threat?

Bykov: “Undoubtely. Young players that we might want to consider for the 2014 Olympics don’t have space to prove themselves in the KHL. The limit for foreign players needs to be not raised, but diminished, like they did with goalkeepers. They didn’t let foreigners to get signed, and then some talented Russian goalies immediately appeared. Because they got a chance to play and progress. As one of the National Team coaches I say: the number of foreign players must be limited. Or otherwise in the future we will have huge problems. Including Sochi.”

Two young stars were brought – Artem Anisimov and Dmitry Kulikov. Were they called for the future?

Bykov: “Both have a bright future. We know that we needed them to play here in order to get them acquainted with the national team as soon as possible. Sixty percent of today’s roster will play in Sochi. This is clear. But we need more young players. Besides, we are really satisfied by Anisimov and Kulikov’s play with the national team.”

Vyacheslav Bykov: “Yeah, let’s bring gibbets and kill Team Russia on the Red Square” (Photo © sportbox.ru)

Team Russia coach, Vyacheslav Bykov, gave an interview to Sovetskiy Sport where he talked about the quarterfinal game between Russia and Canada.

RussianHockeyFans.com offers you a translation.

Bykov: “I would like to congratulate Canada with this victory. Unfortunately, the Olympic Games are over for us. I would like apologize to our fans. Today we faced a very strong team. We couldn’t get out of their pressure since the very beginning. It was really hard. We tried different variants to change the game and move it to the opponent’s zone, but we failed. Canada demonstrated very interesting hockey. It was a pleasure to watch them, and I can’t say the same about our team.”

– Maybe the reason of the loss is that the Russian players visited some parties recently?
Bykov: “Do not search for something that does not exist! The players were preparing really hard.”

– Don’t you think that such a loss in the Olympic quarterfinal requires a more in-depth explanation?
Bykov: “Yeah, let’s bring some guillotines and gibbets. We have 35 men in the hockey team, let’s kill them on the Red Square! What’s the point of trying to find out who is guilty now? When you lose 0-1, does it mean that this loss is better? There are teams that say: “We lost but we did it with dignity!” It doesn’t matter if it’s 2-3, 2-4, a loss is a loss.
You want to blame someone? Blame me. We don’t have a grudge against the players, they tried hard.”

– What about you?
Bykov: “I made some mistakes. Anyway I will watch the game again and analyze it. If the opponent defeated us, we weren’t good at something.”

– At what exactly? You aren’t talking about something specifically.
Bykov: “And I won’t… I want to deliver my message to you, but you aren’t listening. Hats off to Canada. They were the best. Our team was a level lower than their team. Today. But these are our best players whom we invited to the team. They did their best.
We failed to win. I want to emphasize it once again: we aren’t going to blame someone. Never. If you want you can go on and try it yourself: find out who slept with whom, who ate something wrong or who didn’t go with the team by bus. The reasons of the failure are that the opponent dominated us, that’s all.”

Vyacheslav Bykov: “All games at the Olympics should be played with passion” (Photo © sportbox.ru)

Russian coach Vyacheslav Bykov talked about the reasons of the loss to Slovakia, stated that not all players had passion, explained why Alexander Ovechkin had three shootout attempts and talked about power play units in an interview to the Russian site gazeta.ru.

RussianHockeyFans.com offers you a translation.

– Do you agree that only the Zaripov-Zinoviev-Morozov line displayed some teamwork?
Bykov: “You are not far from being right. We will try and find out why it happened. I don’t think that our players didn’t want it. It’s just that the opponent didn’t give us many opportunities. But I also should notice that a lot of players lacked passion and thirst for game. At the same time I agree that it wasn’t our day.”

– You experimented playing Ovechkin as the 4th forward on power play, tried this four times and then gave it up. You aren’t going to use it anymore?
Bykov: “Most likely not. We don’t want to allow goals on our power play. It’s very risky and our guys are not ready for it. The concentration should be very good and we lacked it today. But we will seek for new ways.”

– Are you going to shuffle the lines because some of them aren’t clicking?
Bykov: “Not now.”

– What shortcomings of the team did you find out?
Bykov: “The players had no passion. It looked like it was a regular game for them.”

– Ovechkin was turned on the whole game, made like five hits. Why weren’t other players pumped up?
Bykov: “Yes, Alexander was one of the players who tried to demonstrate their best during the whole game. Others were in shadow.”

– Are you going to change the preparation for the game against the Czech Republic?
Bykov: “We have a plan and we are not going to change it.”

– Why did Ovechkin have so many attempts in the shootout? He isn’t very good at it in the NHL.
Bykov: “Because Ovechkin was one of the few who really fought. Besides it was his wish.”

– Are you satisfied with the defence?
Bykov: “Today we played better than in the first game against Latvia. We committed one error and it led to the goal.”

– Maybe it’s even better now when Russia drove themselves into a corner. To get a bye the team has to defeat the Czechs.
Bykov: “My opinion is that all games at the Olympics should be played with passion.”

– Canada lost points too.
Bykov: “That’s their problems.”

– Players complained about the bad food and the Games organization…
Bykov: “No, now they won’t say a thing. You have to understand that they have certain wishes, which we and the Russia Olympic Committee need to fulfill. The players live in good conditions, they have everything, the food is good. Besides, don’t forget that all teams live in the same conditions.”

Vyacheslav Bykov: “Yashin lacks the energy we want” (Photo © khl.ru)

Team Russia head coach Vyacheslav Bykov in an interview to Sport-Express explained why he didn’t invite Alexei Yashin to the national team.

Bykov: “Why didn’t we include Yashin in our Olympics’ candidate list? We need different energy from the one he displayed in the Eurotour, where he disappointed us. We have no conflicts with Alexei. I know that it made him feel bad but that’s life.”

Most likely Yashin won’t play at the Olympics in Vancouver.

Translated by RussianHockeyFans.com

Vyacheslav Bykov: “Olympic silver would be a failure” (Photo © Sports.ru)

Team Russia head coach Vyacheslav Bykov had an interview with Sport-Express in which he discussed many things about the Olympics and the Russian national team.

RussianHockeyFans.com offers you a translation of the most important parts:

– I think that among the top teams only Finland has little pressure. The Americans will try hard to show that they aren’t inferior to Canada and thus they’ll do all the possible to disappoint their neighbors. Pressure on the Canadians is heavy, since they play at home and they got to the last two WC finals. It’s heavy also on Sweden, because they the reigning Olympic champions. Czech Repubblic will have to deal with pressure too, they didn’t manage to repeat their Nagano triumph and people still haven’t forget it. People will demand a lot from us too. In this sense probably Team Finland can play more quitely. But everything depends not on the pressure itself, but on how you can deal with it.

–Would you call the silver medal a failure?
Absolutely. Anyone who goes to the Olympics want to get the Gold.