The last of our penta-tricks was designed by Sergey Fedorov for Detroit, recently this cult event turned 25 years old. Today we remember one of the greatest hockey matches in the life of the legendary striker, who in just three weeks will be one of the coaches of the Russian team at the Olympics.
At the end of July 1990, the Goodwill Games were to be held in the United States
Before which the USSR national hockey team had several exhibition matches scheduled. After another game in Seattle, Sergey Fedorov was the last to get off the team bus and quickly slipped into the lobby of the hotel, where one of the Detroit bosses, Jim Lights, and an interpreter were already waiting for him. When the Soviet team arrived for dinner, Sergey Fedorov was already driving to the airport, where the private jet of Detroit
Red Wings owner Mike Ilic was waiting for him.
“I couldn’t even tell my parents about everything. I understood that they would look for me and people would come to them, they would ask about everything. It wasn’t easy for them either. Only after about two weeks I managed to get through with great difficulty through several telecom operators and report that everything is in order with me. Dad was a little upset that they didn’t dedicate him, ”said Sergey Fedorov.
“I can say with full confidence that no one in the team knew about his intentions”
Sergey Fedorov kept all his actions in the strictest confidence. What he told me about when we talked about this topic, being already Detroit players. In Seattle, when I was only 18 years old, that escape of Sergey Fedorov looked like a truly heroic deed to me, ” Fyodorov’s future teammate Vyacheslav Kozlov later admitted.
This is how the scandalous escape happened, but five years later he gave out the same hockey supermatch. The first two months of the 1995/1996 hockey season were not very successful for the Detroit Red Wings forward. 25 games, 5 goals – not at all the performance that Detroit fans are used to seeing in the performance of the 91st number. But from the very beginning of December, things began to improve dramatically – Sergey Federov scored in three meetings in a row, rested one game and gave a similar goal streak. The October-November norm was exceeded, but all this was just a warm-up before the brightest performance that happened immediately after the Catholic Christmas.
Fedorov’s hockey achievement was unique
He became the first Detroit hockey player to score 5 goals in one game. Of course, everyone quickly forgot about the failures in October and November. In a few months, Sergey Fedorov will knock out 20 points in the playoffs and help Detroit take the Stanley Cup, and 11 years later he will become a Washington player himself.