Sports is like literature. People watch it and if it's beautiful and it's non-violent, whatever messages that you see, people can read into it and say, "Wow! You know what? Whatever they're doing over there, it's extraordinary, and maybe that culture is superior to ours in certain ways."

Anatoli Tarasov, the guy that created the Soviet style of play, was a visionary. He was a creative thinker. He studied ballet and chess and art and read a lot.

I'm writing and putting together my next few things. Even during the Red Army process, I've been writing and developing things, so that now that I'm done and with efforts supporting it throughout this process, I'm armed and ready to go with some things that I'm really passionate about.

I guess the prime example is in North America there's a thing where if there's no opportunity to move forward with the puck, then a [hockey] player is told to dump the puck into the other zone. Just give up the puck and dump it in. Give it to the other team. And to the Soviet mentality in coaching, it just doesn't make any sense. If you're a skilled player, why are you going to give the puck away to the other team? Just give it away, right?

Growing up, I didn't know very much about my heritage and the Soviet Union and things of that nature. But when I saw the Soviet Union play hockey for the first time, to me, it was profound.

Sports is like literature. People watch it and if it's beautiful and it's non-violent, whatever messages that you see, people can read into it and say, "Wow! You know what? Whatever they're doing over there, it's extraordinary, and maybe that culture is superior to ours in certain ways."

There (in the Soviet Union) it was a science. In order to be a coach, you had to study in school.