Gabe Polsky Quotes

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.

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.

My parents are from the former Soviet Union, from Ukraine, and I grew up wanting to be a professional hockey player.

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.

There (in the Soviet Union) it was a science. In order to be a coach, you had to study in school.

I speak a little bit of Russian.

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.

I’m American and I wanted my friend and people to see ‘ Red Army’ . I didn’t want it to be a film for Russia, although I did show it there and they absolutely loved it.

If you’re a skilled player, you want to use your skill, not just hit the puck.

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 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?

Anatoli Tarasov, the guy that created the Soviet style of play, was a visionary. He was a creative thinker. He studied ballet and chess and art and read a lot.