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Blinken calls Tretiak his childhood hero

The former head of the US Department of State called Tretiak "probably the greatest goaltender of his era"

NEW YORK, March 25. /TASS/. Former head of the US Department of State Antony Blinken said that he played hockey as a child, and his idol at that time was legendary goalkeeper of the USSR national team, and now President of the Russian Hockey Federation Vladislav Tretiak.

"As it happened, I played hockey in my youth, and I was a goaltender. And my hero as a kid was actually a Russian player by the name of Tretiak. He was probably the greatest goaltender of his era," Blinken said at an event at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Tretiak is a three-time Olympic champion and a 10-time world champion. In 2008, he was selected as the goalkeeper of a symbolic "national team of the century" (voting was held by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) among experts from 16 countries; Soviet players Vyacheslav Fetisov, Sergey Makarov and Valery Kharlamov, Swede Borje Salming and Canadian Wayne Gretzky are also part of the team). Tretiak is also member of the NHL Hockey Hall of Fame (1989, the first European athlete to be awarded this status), the IIHF Hall of Fame (1997), and the National Hockey Hall of Fame (2004).

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