I´m not sure if I would categorize this is as a hockey/sport documentation or if it´s a political documentary. In case of the former Soviet Union the lines between both topics were always very faint. This film is more about how the athletes were pressured and used by their government. It´s about how sports was only a means to deliver the Soviet doctrine. It is really interesting and although I´m a decade long hockey fan I learned some things from this. There is a lot of interesting original footage but if you are looking for game highlights this is the wrong film. But, wether you´re a hockey fan or more interested in the political side, this is worth viewing.

Just finished watching it, and for anyone wondering who already watched Of Miracles and Men (http://trakt.tv/movies/of-miracles-and-men): The first third of this documentary feels very rushed, mainly because it covers almost everything already that was handled in the OMaM documentary, but with way less detail, especially regarding Tarasov and his coaching style/relationships. After the first third the documentary slows down a little when they go a little bit into more detail of Tikhinov's style. After about half the time I felt like the new stuff kept coming, which I wasn't too familiar with yet from the OMaM documentary. The last third is heavily focused on the defection and the time in the NHL, which was not at all covered in the OMaM movie. So at the beginning I was a bit bored because I knew most of it to a greater detail than depicted in the documentary and some scenes were re-used 1:1, but after about half of the movie a lot of new stuff was shown, which I didn't see before. Overall, this one feels a little bit more superficial, but on the other hand it covers a longer time span and parts which aren't even touched in the OMaM documentary, so it's still worth a watch!

Can't find this anywhere. No release dates in Europe, no Netflix, no Amazon, nothing