Red Army revisited: how a Russian ice hockey team used sports as both a weapon and an art form during the Cold War

The Red Army was the nickname of the ice hockey team of HC CSKA Moscow, a sports club with affiliations to the Soviet military that was founded by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1946.

The ice hockey powerhouse won 32 regular season championships during the Soviet League's 46-year existence. It triumphed in the European Cup in all but two of the years between 1969 and 1990. American filmmaker Gabe Polsky's Red Army looks at that dominant ice hockey team and, through it, Soviet society and international relations. But the documentary would not be the sterling work it is without the participation of Viacheslav "Slava" Fetisov, the long-time captain of both the Red Army and his country's national ice hockey team.

Soon after the former defenceman first appears on screen, his individual and team honours are listed. The sheer number of accolades is staggering, and he converted those figures into a stellar career in the NHL in the US — twice winning the Stanley Cup with the Detroit Red Wings. Later in life he became Russia's minister of sport and a member of the Federal Assembly of Russia's upper house.

It's little wonder then that Fetisov comes across as the dominant party in Polsky's piece. And although the director manages to temporarily wipe the smirk off the big man's face by asking him to recall his first unsuccessful Olympic experience, Fetisov has the last laugh by recalling back-to-back gold medals that he led the USSR to in 1984 and 1988.

Director-scriptwriter-interviewer Polsky, the Chicago-born son of Ukrainian immigrants, was a Yale University hockey star, who once had dreams of a professional career. Instead, he went on to work in films that has included producing Werner Herzog's The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call — New Orleans, starring Nicolas Cage, as well as his and brother Alan's The Motel Life.

Polsky's passion for ice hockey permeates the documentary, which includes exciting footage of games and interviews with many of Fetisov's storied Red Army contemporaries, who formed the famous "Russian Five" unit.