Forgotten Summit Series Hero: Alexander Pashkov

Russia's Alexander Pashkov Is Forgotten Man of the 1972 Summit Series. Virtually every resource on the 1972 Summit Series somehow missed an entire player who participated in the series, albeit barely.

While the world was dazzled by the Russian goaltending of Vladislav Tretiak, no one much paid attention to the back-up netminders. Tretiak played every minute of every game. Meticulous fans might have noticed Viktor Zinger was introduced as the backup goalie in each game in Canada, while it was always believed that Alexander Sidelnikov backed up all games in Moscow.

Thanks to the 2002 release of all eight games on DVD, a correction in history can be made. Sidelnikov backed up in games 5, 7 and 8. But in game six the Russians dressed a fourth goaltender - a little known goalie named Alexander Pashkov.

Pashkov was introduced in the pre-game warm-ups, but was never noticed again. He sat on the bench for the entire game and almost immediately was forgotten by history.

Thanks largely to ace European hockey researchers Patrick Houda and Arthur Chidlovski, here's what I've learned about Pashkov:

• Born August 28, 1944 in Moscow
• Played an extraordinarily long career by Russian standards of the 1960s and 1970s - spanning 20 years and with several different teams: Spartak Moscow 1961-62, Lokomotiv Moscow 1962-63, Krylja Sovetov 1963-67, 1980-82, CSKA Moscow 1967-69, Dynamo Moscow 1969-74, and Khimik Voskresensk 1974-80
• He was credited with 506 Soviet league games appeared in. He also represented the Soviet Union on the national team occassionally, including the 1972 Olympic team which won gold. However he was almost always the back-up goaltender behind Sidelnikov and later Tretiak.
• Later went on to coach at several different levels

An interesting footnote - Pashkov wore the jersey number 26 in that game. Defenseman Yevgeny Poladiev wore that jersey in his three appearances in the tournament. Pashkov also wore different color pants than the rest of the team.