Viktor Tikhonov

Viktor Vasilyevich Tikhonov (Russian: Виктор Васильевич Тихонов; 4 June 1930 – 24 November 2014) was a Russian ice hockey player and coach. Tikhonov was a defenceman with VVS Moscow and Dynamo Moscow from 1949 to 1963, winning four national championships. He was the coach of the Soviet team when it was the dominant team in international play, winning eight World Championship gold medals, as well as Olympic gold medals in 1984, 1988 and 1992. Tikhonov also led CSKA Moscow to twelve consecutive league championships. He was named to the IIHF Hall of Fame as a builder in 1998.

Biography Tikhonov played as a defenceman with the VVS (Team of the Soviet Air Force) and Dynamo Moscow. He also played for the Soviet Union national team in 1956. In 1950, he became a Soviet Sports Master. As a player, he won four gold medals of the Soviet national championship (three times with VVS (1951–1953) and once with Dynamo, 1954). He won the USSR Cup in 1952 as a member of VVS.

His coaching career started in 1964 when he became an assistant coach for Dynamo Moscow, then he took the position of the head coach for Dynamo Riga in 1968. In 1973, he was named a Latvian merited sports coach (ZTR SSSR). In 1977, he became the head coach for both CSKA Moscow (Central Sport Club of the Army or the Red Army Club as it was sometimes informally called), and the Soviet National Team. In 1978, he became a Soviet Merited sports coach (ZTR SSSR). He was the Soviet and later the Unified Team and Russian National Team coach until 1994, and the coach for CSKA until 1996. He exercised nearly absolute control over his players' lives. Tikhonov's fear of defections since the late 1980s was supposedly so great that he cut players when he thought they might defect.

After his retirement, Tikhonov lobbied the Russian government for more attention and better financing for the national team.

Tikhonov was hospitalized in late October 2014 and died after a long illness in Moscow on 24 November 2014, at the age of 84.

Viktor's grandson, also named Viktor Tikhonov, was chosen to join Team Russia at the 2007 Super Series against Team Canada after Game Four of the eight-game-series was completed. On 20 June 2008, Tikhonov was selected by the Phoenix Coyotes in the first round, 28th overall, of the 2008 NHL entry draft. After four seasons playing for SKA Saint Petersburg of the Kontinental Hockey League, Tikhonov signed a one-year contract with the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League in 2015.

Honours and awards Order For Merit to the Fatherland, 3rd class Order of Friendship (June 2010) – for outstanding contribution to the development of national sport (1983) Order of the October Revolution