I now know a lot more about Soviet ice hockey than I did before. This US (though billed as Russian) documentary is quite an engaging look at the USSR national ice hockey team, developed under Stalin to show to the West the superiority of the communist way of life.

It focuses on Slava Fetisov, a key defence man in the Red Army team and for a while in the U.S. National Hockey League, and it is his charisma and pragmatism that carries the film. It also grounds the story in the inequity of the communist era, where individual despotism could flourish in the guise of obeying the system.

There was great beauty in watching the balletic teamwork of the soviet ‘five’, only possible under a system that valued the collective over individualism.

3 stars