Alexander Mogilny is a hockey player. A photo. Biography

You can talk a lot about hockey, argue about its merits and demerits, root for your favorite teams or separately for the athletes you like. The victories and defeats in this sport are the source of the strongest emotions for both the players themselves and for the fans. And Olympic medals, points and goals at world championships cause feelings that sometimes can not be conveyed and described.

Alexander Mogilny also belongs to the people who left a bright mark in the history of world hockey. This is just the case when the sport becomes not only a favorite pastime, entertainment and passion. He becomes the whole life of man.

Biography of the hockey player

Alexander Mogilny was born in Khabarovsk on February 18, 1969. Even from a small age, his parents helped Sasha to stand on the ice. Living with his parents in the Southern microdistrict, he had to go far enough to the First microdistrict, where the club "Youth" was located. His coach Valery Dementiev was able to see in the guy the ability to hockey. Despite the fact that by the age of Sasha was two years younger than the prescribed, he enlisted the boy in his team.

At the age of fifteen, he moved to Moscow to train at the invitation of the CSKA sports club. Showing good results and considerable abilities, the guy did not remain unseen by the coaches of this club. Soon he was invited to play in the youth team of CSKA.

First results

Already in 1988, Mogilny was a hockey player who achieved extraordinary results in his work at the age of nineteen. At this point, he is a well-deserved master of sports. In the same year at the Olympics in Calgary, the puck, scored by Mogilny, was decisive in the final match with the Canadians. But Alexander until the last moment was not sure that he would go into the main part of the Olympic team, although he put his skills to the full. However, as it turned out later, he got to the Olympics for the first and last time.

In 1989, the guy became the best striker of the World Youth Championship, as well as a three-time champion of the Soviet Union, once again proving his talent and iron character. And the style of Mogilny forced to see the whole world in a new way on Soviet hockey.

Prehistory of Escape

At the end of 1988 in Alaska in Anchorage during the world youth championship there was a meeting of the young hockey player with the coach-breeder of the club "Buffalo Sabers" Don Luce. He offered Alexander his business card, specifying that these contact phones can be contacted at any time. It was this meeting that contributed to the subsequent events in the life of the young hockey player.

Even at the Olympic Games in Calgary Mogilny drew the attention of "Buffalo Sabers" with beautiful goals and goals scored. The opinions of the coaches of the club have converged on the fact that few Soviet hockey players are distinguished by unusual skating and show an unusual, original game. But Mogilny is just like that.

Hockey refugee

In May 1989, in Stockholm, the end of the fifty-third World Hockey Championship was held under victorious cheers in honor of the Soviet national team. The whole team was in a good mood waiting for the plane to return to Moscow, when the officials received a call about the escape of Alexander Mogilny. This news sounded to all as a bolt from the blue. Joyful return home was spoiled. Coach Viktor Tikhonov did not immediately believe this news. Sasha had asked me to help him with an apartment in Moscow so that he could transport his parents and bride to the capital. However, the facts testified to another. Therefore, the coach and the whole team were sure that Mogilny could not resist the tempting sums of money that the American NHL stars earn.

Uneasy decision

Disappearing from Stockholm, the young hockey player did not immediately join the coveted "Buffalo Sabers". After all, his actions and future life in the United States of America management of the club had to be justified before the president of the National Hockey League John Ziegler and the immigration authorities.

The entry of Mogilnoy into the territory of the country was temporarily allowed. To obtain the same permanent permit, he needed to submit to the immigration center convincing political motives for escaping from the Soviet Union.

In turn, for the National Hockey League Alexander Mogilny could represent another serious obstacle in relations with the USSR when concluding contracts with hockey players.

At the right time, in the right place

Over the past few years, the American teams have made every effort to supplement their ranks with promising players from the USSR. Sometimes the negotiation process lasted for years. This is the experience of such Soviet hockey players as Vyacheslav Fetisov, during negotiations with the club "Devils", Vladimir Krutov and Igor Larionov - with the team "Vancouver Canucks". The first player who received permission to leave and work in the "Calgary Flames" was Sergei Pryakhin.

The grave one can be said to be lucky, as his flight took place at a time when relations between the sports organizations of the Soviet Union and the United States of America were warming. Therefore, according to the calculations of American representatives, the act of the guy should not have given weighty reasons for concern and special complications between the relations between the two countries. After all, the decision to flee was taken by the player, respectively, and the responsibility for the consequences will lie on him.

The reason for the flight

The hockey player saw other life standards abroad, and all the negative moments that had accumulated in Sasha's soul during the game in the USSR broke out. Naturally, the guy wanted a normal human life, not squeezed tight fetters.

However, Alexander Mogilny decided not to immediately apply for a work permit and political asylum in the United States of America. The key impetus was the news of the preparation for him of a criminal case on desertion from the ranks of the Soviet Army. And then the guy deliberately decided to change his future.

Representatives of the club "Buffalo Sabers" Don Luce and Meehan after the championship especially arrived in Stockholm for a meeting with Alexander. To grave could fly to New York, and then to Buffalo, to him in a two-day period were made all the necessary documents. Next was to overcome one of the main obstacles for a young guy - learning English.

After some time the National Hockey League nevertheless supported the contract of the Buffalo Sabers with a young hockey player from the USSR. This decision was influenced by the rather passive reaction of the Soviet Federation, which in this history also found its benefits.

"Treason" of the motherland

Mogilnogo managed to sign a contract with an American club, so he never returned home, contrary to the expectations of his relatives. And in the Soviet Union because of this, meanwhile an incredible scandal began. Sasha was considered a traitor to the homeland, which did not justify the trust he had received. His parents appeared at that time as "enemies of the people", and they did not live at home better than their son in a foreign country.

However, after some time, the passions subsided. And Mogilny became a pioneer in the National Hockey League. Indeed, after him, many Soviet hockey players began to leave the ocean, and this happened in an official way and without political color.

Life in a foreign land

Already the fact that Mogilny arrived in America is not a superhero, but a fugitive, speaks of his further unsweetened life. On the hockey player did not go rave articles in newspapers and magazines, he was not invited to various American television shows. Even an interview for journalists was unavailable to him because of his ignorance of the English language and fear of KGB agents. Dvad Year old hockey player, leaving his homeland, burned all the bridges behind him, and life was to continue.

Phil Houssley - the defender of the Sabers, took under his wing a young man. He noticed more than anyone else how unhappy the Tomb looked. A hockey player very often, when the whole team was having fun, was sitting on the side with a sad face. After all, he always missed his family.

And yet, overcoming the multifaceted cultural and life barriers, including the differences in the American style of playing hockey, Alexander found the strength to start a new life.

Alexander the Great

In the late eighties "Buffalo" was an average club. Hockey in the team was unattractive and not very different tricky combinations. As a part of the players there were no competent, professional and famous hockey players.

Gradually, Sasha had a rapport with the guys from the team. Especially coherently went the game, when the club appeared Pat Lafontaine. He and Mogilny played remarkably well. In the early 90's, this couple was called a "dynamic duet". Since the arrival of Lafontaine, their joint work has brought 39 abandoned pucks. And after the 1992-1993 season. Thanks to the brilliant work of Mogilny about "Buffalo" seriously talked about as a possible winner in the Stanley Cup.

For a relatively short period of time, Alexander, who was nicknamed the Great in America, scored 76 goals, made 51 transfers and earned 127 points. In addition, the fiftieth washer was abandoned in the forty-sixth match of the season. However, he could not get to the club "50 goals in 50 matches", which included well-known hockey players Maurice Richard, Brett Hull, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Mike Bossi. The reason was the fact that the "Buffalo" has played for the fifty-third match of the season.

Nevertheless, the seventh place among the best scorers in America was taken by Alexander Mogilny. The photo of the young hockey player again flashed in the press. After all, he, being a Russian, became the first best sniper of the National Hockey League, and his "Russian record" is not beaten today.

Ups and downs

However, having achieved great achievements in hockey, Mogilny faced and disappointed. Alexander showed an excellent game in the playoffs and even scored ten points for seven matches. But in the third fight, the forward broke his leg. This injury seriously affected the next game of the team. Defeated by "Montreal", "Buffalo" finished his way to the Stanley Cup.

Not recovering completely, Mogilny played two more seasons in his native team. However, due to inefficiency, he was traded to Vancouver, where he scored fifty-five beautiful goals in the first season. But behind the magnificent take-off again followed by injuries and setbacks. And only in 2001 there was an event, about which not only world, but also Russian hockey players dream. Grave is no exception. Being in the "New Jersey", he was able to earn eighty-three points in the regular season, thanks to which the team won the Stanley Cup.

Alexander the Great for sixteen seasons, played in the NHL, six times awarded the right to participate in the match of the stars. In 2011, he was elected to the Buffalo Sabers Hall of Fame.

Today, Alexander Mogilny with his wife and two sons lives in Florida. But he does not forget his homeland. Working as an assistant to the president of the Amur club in Khabarovsk, he flies to Russia several times a year.