Legendary coach Viktor Tikhonov with the Russian Penguins during a game at CSKA Ice Palace. Moscow, ... [+]
In 2014, filmmaker Gabe Polsky offered English-speaking hockey fans a peek behind the Iron Curtain during the heyday of the Soviet Union’s most dynastic hockey team with his documentary Red Army.
This year, Polsky’s vision is filtered through a very different prism with Red Penguins. Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, the new film explores the little-known story of how the ownership group from the NHL’s Pittburgh Penguins planted its capitalist flag on the ice of Mother Russia by taking an ownership stake in Central Red Army after the club’s traditional government funding sources evaporated following the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early ’90s.
As the first wave of young Russian superstars like Sergei Fedorov and Pavel Bure brought their prodigious skillsets to the National Hockey League, Penguins owners Howard Baldwin and Tom Ruta saw a partnership with Red Army as a potential opportunity to get early intel on the next wave of talent. The fall of communism also presented a tremendous business opportunity, if North American entrepreneurs could figure out how to make their enterprises work within a Russian culture that operated like nothing they’d ever seen before.
Baldwin and Ruta thought a partnership with the nation’s Red Army team would offer a secure foundation for their venture. Eager for an adventure, a young sports marketing whiz named Steve Warshaw signed on to act as the Penguins’ liaison in Moscow, as Red Army’s new executive vice president of marketing.
Steven Warshaw (L) and director of the documentary "Red Penguins," Gabe Polsky, pose during the 2019 ... [+]
“Even serious hockey fans or media people have never heard of this,” said Polsky of the wild events that ensued after Warshaw hit the ground. “That was actually engineered by Pittsburgh. They didn't want anyone to really know the truth, because they were trying to build a business.”
Asked if the Penguins owners were more interested in finding players or making money, Warshaw mused, “If I had to prioritize, I would think that the marketing and the dollars were more important at that time.”
Communism may have been a thing of the past, but Russians had not yet come to terms yet with the fundamentals of capitalism. The men who ran Red Army were both befuddled and annoyed by the hyperactive Warshaw, who landed in their midst with a mission to turn a profit from the rebranded Russian Penguins.
With so many top Russian players already in North America, the team was a shadow of its former self. Its home arena, Moscow’s Ice Palace, had long since stopped living up to its billing. Even with game tickets priced at the equivalent of six American cents, crowds were sparse.
Warshaw’s initiatives with the Russian Penguins included tried-and-true North American strategies like a mascot, rink-board advertising and plenty of product giveaways in conjunction with the team’s global brand sponsors. More outlandish ideas included using bears from the travelling circus as on-ice bartenders during a free beer giveaway and enlisting the strippers from the club in the arena basement to provide a little between-periods entertainment.
At a time when the fledgling Russian economy often made it difficult for citizens to get their hands on even the bare necessities, the giveaways had tremendous appeal. The razzle dazzle also gave fans an escape from the drudgery of their day-to-day existences. In a hockey-mad nation, the games transcended the sport.
“When Steve was in his heyday with the Russian Penguins, it became a show,” said Polsky. “People went there to go get free stuff, to drink and have fun and be entertained, even though it wasn't about the hockey. That's really ironic, isn't it?”
The Russian working class was starting to learn about the leisure culture offered up by capitalism.
“I think also that people just wanted to let loose and escape because things were getting kind of dark,” Polsky continued. “That stadium was a place where they could just kind of have fun and get some free beer. It was like a refuge.”
Warshaw says that plenty of head-spinning moments from his time in Russia didn’t make the film’s final cut. For example, there’s a backstory behind one of his biggest promotions, an on-ice raffle to win a new Jeep that is featured in the film.
“What I didn't tell you is that we had one of the great legends of the Red Army selecting the 10 finalists,” Warshaw added. “He slipped his own ticket into the fishbowl to try to win the car.
“Here's a guy who's won two or three gold medals in the Olympics and had his number retired. Here he was, without money and with all these gold medals and all this fame. And he had no money in his pocket. When we selected him to pick the 10 finalists, he put his own ticket in there.
“That's what we did as a team. We tried to honor the legends and retire their jerseys and make them feel special again — for the first time, actually.”
Warshaw’s over-the-top approach brought the Russian Penguins back from the brink of bankruptcy. Then, new problems arose.
“The old guard, the coaches and management, were disappointed when they saw that people were so excited when the Americans were succeeding,” said Polsky. “They couldn't do that themselves. They were like, ‘What the hell is going on here and why is everybody so excited? We don't even have a good team.’ It was this really weird paradox.
“They didn't like that the Americans were succeeding. It's a Catch-22.”
The lure of new money also attracted an underground element, looking for its slice of the pie. Polsky’s film includes interviews with a number of Russians who help viewers get a sense of the lawlessness that was in play.
“Every big company wanted to get a piece of Russia at that time,” Polsky continued. “A lot of them were scared but they were all going in. I think quickly, they sort of realized, ‘Holy cow — what a disaster,’ and learned how difficult it was, especially at that time, to do business. The laws. The law enforcement. Nothing was set up to make it easy.”
Warshaw turned on his trademark gift of gab when he first presented the idea for what would become Red Penguins to Polsky at a screening of Red Army in New York City.
Steve Warshaw tells wild tales of his time in Russia in 'Red Penguins.'
“I was very reluctant to even listen to him because I didn't want to do anything similar to what I've already done,” said Polsky of his new film’s origin story. “Steve basically sent me a huge box of stuff — documents, pictures, videos. When I finally got around to it, I couldn't believe it. I knew that I could tell something totally wild and kind of unhinged but at the same time, capture a different era.
“The ’90s were such a dramatically interesting period in history. I could tell an entertaining tale that gives us a little more insight into Russia — the behaviors, the people, the psychology and essentially what's going on now and why.”
Polsky and Warshaw presented Red Penguins at its world premiere in Toronto on September 5, in front of an audience that included Stanley Cup-winning NHL coach “Iron” Mike Keenan, who finished out his career in Russia’s KHL and won coach of the year when he guided Metallurg Magnitogorsk to the league’s Gagarin Cup in 2014.
A high-energy ride that’s sure to entertain hockey fans, marketing buffs and Russian culture enthusiasts, Red Penguins will be screened again at TIFF on Saturday, September 14 at 6:30 p.m.
