Vladimir Myshkin

Who is Vladimir Myshkin?

Vladimir Semenovich Myshkin is a former ice hockey goaltender. He was a goaltender for HC Dynamo Moscow and the Soviet Union national ice hockey team in the 1970s and 1980s.

During his career in the Soviet Championship League, Myshkin was consistently among the top goaltenders in the league and his Dynamo Moscow club was always among the best. However, rival Moscow club HC CSKA Moscow won the championship almost every year he played, including an amazing 13-year run from 1977 to 1989, preventing Myshkin from winning a domestic championship until his very last year.

Myshkin came to prominence in the late 1970s when he earned a spot of the Soviet national team as a backup to the legendary Vladislav Tretiak. On February 11, 1979, he was the surprise choice of coach Viktor Tikhonov to start in the deciding game in the Challenge Cup tournament against the National Hockey League all stars. Myshkin responded with a sterling effort, shutting out the NHL stars 6-0 to win the Challenge Cup for the Soviets. A couple of months later, he won his first of six World and European championships, the others coming in 1981, 1982, 1983, 1986, and 1990.