Everyone's Got A Price?

It's hard to imagine that Soviet hockey in the 1980s was anything but dominant. They won games in bunches, brought home all sorts of hardware, and were celebrated as heroes by the Soviet people due to all their successes. As we know, though, the Iron Curtain wasn't a prison with Sergei Pryakhin joining the Calgary Flames in 1989, and we'd see defections and legal player transfers follow in the years that followed with some players receiving big contracts to play in the NHL. The "western" influence on Russia would also see the 1987 Soviet Union national team do something it had never done before.

We know international tournaments often have sponsor advertising on players' jerseys as part of the sponsorship deal they sign with those respective tournaments. The Soviets had worn these types of advertisements in games before as mandated by the tournament, but the team itself had never received sponsor money from an individual company that only had the Soviets wear its name or logo. That changed on April 5 and 6, 1987 when the Soviets played a two-game exhibition series in Stockholm against Team Sweden in preparation for the 1987 IIHF World Ice Hockey Championship.

Here's the news clipping from The Brandon Sun on April 9.

Advertising on European teams is nothing news, but the state-funded Soviet team had never been billboards for any company, let alone "a Swedish computer firm". Obviously, there are questions that need answers here in order to make the stry complete, so let's take a deep dive into Team Soviet Union's first foray into the world of advertising.

According to the Los Angeles Times on April 19, "[t]he Soviets surprised the television audience during two friendly ice hockey matches in Sweden April 5-6 when their ususally [sic] all-red outfit had a white patch on the back saying 'WM Data.'" WM Data was founded by Thord Wilkne and Hans Mellström in Stokholm, Sweden in 1969 before being acquired by Logica PLC in 2006. It seems they're more than just a "Swedish compuer firm" as they expanded into a vast number of industries by offering IT-related services to banking, telecommunications, and data centers. In 1987, WM Data may have been less, but I'd guess they were still focused on IT-related services.

That answers the "who" part of "who sponsored the Soviets".

According to the Los Angeles Times article once again, "[t]he Scandinavian data consultancy company, WM Data, paid 100,000 Swedish kronor (less than $16,000) for the two matches." That seems like a pretty low sum of money for a team that normally carried 20 players, coaches, and team staff, but Per-Olov Wester, the Swedish public relations agent who signed the sponsorship deal between WM Data and the Soviets, said the Soviets weren't in it for the money.

"The Russians don't need sponsor money," Wester told United Press International. "But the opponents wear ads on their jerseys and the Russians want to look like they do."

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it seems the Soviets craved Europe's advertising patches more than they wanted money. With each player and staff member splitting that less-than-$16,000 among them after the Soviet government took it's cut, there wouldn't be a lot of Swedish meatballs going home with the players.

Kristian Gerner, a Swedish expert on the Soviet Union, told United Press International, "They used to fight everything Western, but it has changed totally in the last two years, coinciding with the Gorbachev years. They first learned to understand our way of living and that was new. But the big difference is that they now try to act like us."

As we know, the Soviet Union formally dissolved on December 26, 1991. However, there had been growing protests in the years leading up to the dissolution of the country as Soviet citizens looked outside their country and saw the wealth and riches that the rest of the world was accumulating. Hockey players weren't immune to this reality as they travelled to European countries for games and tournaments, and rumblings about defections began to swirl at every tournament. That western influence was certainly setting in with the Soviet hockey team, and the advertisements on their jerseys in Stockholm might have been the first metaphorical domino to fall.

"It seems like they have decided that if you can't beat them," Gerner added, "join them."

Obviously, the history that followed wasn't borne out of the Soviet hockey team wearing advertisements as the political and cultural changes within the republic eventually forced the dissolution of the Soviet Union. If Miss Gerner's assessment about the Soviets in 1987 was accurate, it sounds like the Soviet team simply was ahead of their countrymen when presented with a "western" opportunity.

As stated, it wasn't about money when it came to this sponsorship. Instead, it was about fitting into a changing world.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!