The beginning of the seventies was a new stage in the development of domestic hockey. Attention has been given to this sport more, a new approach to professional training has appeared. The result was the results: a whole generation of the greatest athletes was brought up.
One of the representatives of the new stars was Alexander Nikolaevich Maltsev. The biography of an outstanding hockey player has many records and victories. He was called Russian lightning and Yesenin of domestic hockey.
Pick time
The future athlete was born into a large family in the village of Setkovtsy. A boy was born on April 20, 1949. Three years later, the family moved to Kirovo-Chepetsk. Sasha from childhood saw how they earn money on bread.
Parents had to work hard. Children often helped adults to the best of their ability. The first skates were not purchased. A six-year-old boy received home-made runners from his father, which he fastened to felt boots. Children themselves cleared the snow and poured a place for the rink, carried water in buckets.
At the school, Maltsev studied well. When he informed his parents that he was going to play hockey in the section, his mother was against it. She did not understand how her son could combine sport and study. The boy insisted. However, it turned out that due to the small growth of the future player, the coach of the Khimik children's team did not take it.
And again stubbornness was required. At first, the boy was equally fond of football and hockey. He started playing for his hometown team from the age of ten. Everything was decided at twelve, after watching the first adult tournament game. With fifteen years in the life of Maltsev nothing but hockey was gone.
The first successes appeared. Alexander was distinguished by non-standard and talent. He asked the coach for permission to play with the older guys. This method has been successful. Maltsev came to training first, and left the stadium last.
With a similar attitude, the athlete managed to conquer sports peaks. With seventeen players attracted the attention of the coach of the youth national team. Epstein noticed Alexander as part of Olimpia, but decided to wait. He invited the young hockey player to play for the youth team in Sweden at the Ahern Cup.
Brilliant start
The coach for a long time did not dare to let out a beginner on the field. However, the guy on the ice transformed instantly. After a successful game, shocked Epstein called Maltsev Chaliapin ice. At the same time, the coach of the metropolitan Dynamo Tikhonov became interested in Maltsev. He did not wait, ensuring in 1967 the transfer of a promising player to his team. Moving to Moscow was a turning point in the biography of the athlete.
Maltsev’s entire career is connected with Dynamo. Starting next year, Alexander made his debut in the national team. At the Olympics-70 he set an astounding performance record. The hockey player made six assists and scored fifteen goals. Many times a hockey player received the title of best player at world championships. For his achievements, Maltsev was called the Grandmaster because of his amazing ability to calculate and play the game, like in chess. Hockey did not know like him.
He set the national team record by scoring two hundred and twelve goals in three hundred and nineteen matches. With age, the athlete's performance decreased. The decline in success coincided with the advent of the eighties. It became increasingly difficult for the great champion to score a large number of goals. But this did not in any way affect the quality of the game in the team.
Considerable experience and skill provided Maltsev with the post of an unsurpassed assistant. In a grandmaster, Alexander Nikolaevich led his companions to blows, gave gears, attacking opponents not waiting for a trick. In 1984, the hockey player Maltsev held his farewell match.
