Vasily Tikhonov (ice hockey coach)
Vasily Tikhonov Viktorovich (Russian Василий Викторович Тихонов; born May 13, 1958 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, † August 7, 2013 ) was a Russian ice hockey player and coach. During his career he played from 1976 to 1983 in the first and second Soviet league at the position of the defender. After his playing career, he worked as a trainer in the top leagues of Europe and North America.
He was the son of the famous Soviet coach Viktor Tikhonov Hockey and father of the eponymous ice hockey player.
Career
Tikhonov began in his childhood in Moscow with the exercise of ice hockey. At the age of eleven he moved due to his father, who had in 1968 accepted the post of head coach Daugava Riga, with the family to Riga in the Latvian SSR. From 1976 to Tikhonov played actively in the first and second Soviet league before he in 1983 at the age of 25 years finished his career and a coach training began. He completed the Latvian SSR with a Bachelor degree, after he had already obtained a master's degree in biomechanics.
His coaching career started at Energo Tikhonov Riga, who played in 1985 in the second Soviet league as an assistant coach. In 1987 he took over the junior Dinamo Riga his first head coach position he held three years, in Artūrs Irbe trained with one of the best Latvian goalkeeper of all time. During this time, his son Victor was born. With the completion of the investment in Dinamo Riga and the collapse of the Soviet Union Tikhonov took in November 1990 for a quotation as head coach of Ässät Pori of the Finnish SM- liiga. After three years in the Finnish Elite class, where he had led the team twice in the semifinals of the playoffs, the San Jose Sharks submitted to him from the National Hockey League in April 1993 an offer as a consultant of the scouting department for the upcoming NHL Entry Draft, since San Jose during this time concentrated mainly on players from the former Soviet Union. Already in the summer of the same year he was promoted to assistant coach under the newly hired head coach Kevin Constantine. He continued in that capacity until October 10, 1995, together with Drew Remenda and Wayne Thomas from before Jim Wiley and Mark Kaufman Tikhonov and Remenda replaced in their positions. However, Tikhonov remained in the organization, since he the head coaching job with the Kansas City Blades Wiley in the International Hockey League, the former farm team of the Sharks took over for the rest of the game in 1995 /96. Tikhonov was thus also the first European-born coach who oversaw a North American professional hockey team as head coach. After he had indeed achieved with the team to the playoffs, but had failed in the first round, the Sharks demoted him for the following two years of playing for assistant coach of their new farm team in the American Hockey League, the Kentucky Thoroughblades. There he worked under the equally degraded Wiley. After completion of the 1997/98 season he finally ended his North American commitment and returned to Europe.
There, he worked again two years between 1999 and 2001, in Finland, the first division Lukko Rauma, with whom he again managed twice to qualify for the playoffs. In the summer of 2001 he finally took the SCL Tigers of the Swiss National League A as a boss behind the band under contract. In Switzerland, the Tikhonov regarded as disciplinarian came, but not along well, which was reflected in his release on 2 November 2001, after he had picked up just 14 points from their first 19 games of the season and the Tigers were on the eleventh and penultimate place in the table. Subsequently, he worked as assistant coach for HK CSKA Moscow when his father temporarily occupied the Presidential and coaching positions. Tikhonov was significantly involved at this time in the conflict with Nikolai Scherdew in the winter of 2003, who had fled arbitrarily after quarrels with the coaching staff to North America to the Columbus Blue Jackets of the NHL and had thus terminated his military service in the army club arbitrarily.
After several years break Tikhonov completed in the 2010/11 season from the post of assistant coach at HK Avangard Omsk in the Kontinental Hockey League under head coach Raimo Summanen. The following season he was an assistant coach at Ak Bars Kazan, before he worked as a consultant to General Manager Sergei Fedorov at CSKA Moscow in 2012.
Vasily Tikhonov died on August 7, 2013 after a fall from the fourth floor of his house when he tried to repair a shield.