MOSCOW, June 6 (RIA Novosti) - The Soviet-era battle for world hockey supremacy is set to resume again after officials agreed on a series of exhibition matches between top teams from Russia's Superleague and the NHL.
The agreement was clinched at talks in New York between Vladislav Tretyak, Russia's hockey commissar, and top officials from the National Hockey League (NHL) including Commissioner Gary Bettman, the Russian Hockey Federation (RHF) said Tuesday.
"The sides have agreed to exchange exhibition matches next season," press secretary Vladimir Gerasimov said. "The schedule and teams have yet to be determined."
Hockey fans on both sides of the Atlantic are now savoring a modern-day recapitulation of a series of clashes between the Soviet Union and Team Canada starting in the early 1970s, and subsequently between top club teams from North America and the U.S.S.R.
The Summit Series brought together the world's top two national teams, which could not compete at official major competitions as the Canadians were all professionals in the NHL, while international rules stipulated only amateur athletes could take part - which players under the Soviet system officially were, despite being effectively full-timers.
The Big Red Machine - as the Soviet national team was known - trounced Canada 7-3 in the first game in Montreal on September 2, 1972, but the Canadians rebounded to win the series with four victories, three defeats and one draw, making a shock comeback from 1-3-1 before the last three games in Moscow in late September of that year. The Soviet Union won the second Summit Series 4-1-3 two years later.
The 1980s saw several series involving Moscow clubs CSKA and Krylya Sovyetov, representing the Soviet Union, and NHL clubs.
Tretyak, who was last month elected the head of the RHF, also discussed the possibility of Russia's joining an agreement between the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) and the NHL that regulates transfers between European clubs and the American league, RHF press secretary Gerasimov said.
The three-time Olympic gold medallist - a legendary goalie who played in the Summit Series and the first Russian to be named to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto - is believed to want to step up cooperation with the NHL.
NHL executive vice president Bill Daly will visit Moscow in September at Tretyak's invitation, Gerasimov said.
