MOSCOW, February 28. /TASS/. Two-time ice hockey Olympic winner and nine-time world champ, member of the Soviet national squad, Vladimir Petrov, has died at the age of 69, a source from the late player’s ice hockey team, HC CSKA Moscow, informed TASS.
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The renowned hockey champ died in the small hours of Tuesday morning. There is no information yet on where and when the open-casket ceremony will be held. The Russian Ice Hockey Federation (RIHF) has expressed condolences on his death. "RIHF offers its deepest sympathies to Petrov’s relatives and friends, his colleagues and everyone who knew him and worked him," the federation said.
Petrov played in a trio with Boris Mikhailov and Valery Kharlamov. He debuted with the Krylya Sovetov ice hockey team based in Moscow in 1965. A couple of years later, in 1967, when Petrov was 20, prominent Soviet coach Anatoly Tarasov invited him to play for the CSKA squad. While playing for that club, the hockey star had clinched the title of USSR champion eleven times. As a member of Soviet national team, he won gold medals at the 1972 Olympic Games in Sapporo and the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck. In addition to that, he won silver at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid.
Petrov ranks fourth in the number of goals scored in the history of Soviet and Russian ice hockey. He is a nine-time world champion and was the best scorer of the tournament four times. In 2006, Petrov was inducted into the International Ice Hockey Federation’s (IIHF) Hall of Fame. In 2013, he was appointed President of the Golden Puck young ice hockey players’ club and served as the head of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation from 1992 to 1994.