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One of the most familiar faces of Soviet Union hockey was the dour puss of coach Viktor Tikhonov who ran the Central Red Army club team and the Soviet National team with an iron fist and almost unchecked success for 20 years. Tikhonov was born on June 4, 1930. As a player, Tikhonov was a defenceman with the Soviet Air Force and Dynamo Moscow clubs, but he wasn't well known internationally until he became the head coach of both the Central Red Army team and the Soviet Union's national team in 1977. At one point Red Army won 13 consecutive Soviet Elite League titles--which isn't all that surprising considering Tikhonov had the authority of a Red Army general and could immediately draft any player into the armed forces if he showed promise. The USSR won eight IIHF world titles under Tikhonov plus Olympic gold medals in 1984, 1988 and 1992. The USSR's national team also won the 1979 Challenge Cup and 1981 Canada Cup. Tikhonov had power over his players' lives and used it to control every aspect of his team. They routinely trained together for 50 weeks per year while living in army barracks. Canadian hockey great Phil Esposito said the so-called Soviet "amateurs" were more professional than NHL players. Humorless and ruthless, Tikhonov was known for his dictatorial coaching style. He exercised control over his players' lives. His expected absolute obedience--or else. His players quietly called him "the last Stalinist." With tongue-in-cheek humor, western media often referred to Tikhonov as "Chuckles." Tikhonov constantly feared his players would defect if they ever got the slightest chance. Anyone he merely suspected of defecting would be left off teams planning to travel outside the Iron Curtain. In 1991, for instance, he cut Pavel Bure, Valeri Zelepukin, Evgeny Davydov, and Vladimir Konstantinov just before the 1991 Canada Cup. All of them had been drafted by NHL teams, and Tikhonov suspected they were flight risks. Even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Tikhonov stayed on as the national team coach of Russia for a few more years, but the newer players rebelled against his harsh authoritarian ways. Tikhonov mellowed slighty before going into retirement in 1996. After his retirement, Tikhonov lobbied the Russian government for more attention and better financing for the national team. His grandson plays on the current Russian national squad. Tikhonov died in November 2014.
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hockey
coach
USSR
Viktor
Tikhonov
Added: 19th February 2014
Views: 1138
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
 
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elvis
Added: 5th September 2009
Views: 2049
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Posted By: Teresa |
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Probably the most common picture we have of "old blood and guts", General George Patton, is George C. Scott's portrayal. Scott's gravely baritone voice would seem perfect for the part. The real General Patton hated his voice. It tended to be high-pitched, nasal, irritating, and at times, it bordered on effeminate. He hated public speaking because of this. To my knowledge, there exist only two short clips of him speaking. Because of his use of vivid imagery, cursing, ribald innuendos, and general vulgarity, his wife had all audio tapes of him speaking destroyed after his death. It was an effort on her part to clean up his image for posterity. He died in an auto accident in Europe after the end of WWII. One of his most famous speeches, is one given in front of The Third Army to prepare them for the long road to Berlin. This is the speech we hear in the opening moments of the movie "Patton". It was considerably sanitized for the movie in an effort to prevent people from avoiding the film. The actual text of that speech can be found in a number of places on the internet. He wrote of why he used vulgar language in addressing his troops. He felt they would better remember the important points if they were punched up with ribald expletives.
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General
George
Patton
speech
voice
Added: 11th October 2009
Views: 15526
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Posted By: Watersnake |
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Elvis Presley's most successful film from a financial standpoint was the light comedy Blue Hawaii (1961). The plot revolves around Chad Gates (Elvis) returning to his family home in Hawaii after being discharged from the army. His father wants Chad to work for the family fruit company but Chad prefers to be independent. Shot on location, Blue Hawaii has some gorgeous scenery--including the lovely Joan Blackman who plays Elvis' romantic interest. Songs from the movie include the title track, Can't Help Falling In Love, and the Hawaiian Wedding Song. This film's box office appeal--and the success of its soundtrack--shifted Elvis away from dramatic roles. (His serious roles in both Flaming Star and Charro did not do nearly as well at the box office.) Blue Hawaii strangely features Angela Lansbury as Elvis' mother--even though Lansbury was actually just nine years older than Elvis.
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Blue
Hawaii
Elvis
Presley
Added: 19th November 2009
Views: 2124
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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New Zealand's Anthony (Tony) Wilding won four straight men's singles titles at Wimbledon from 1910 through 1913. (At the time, the defending champion automatically got a bye all the way to the final.) The handsome and popular Wilding was quite a hit with the ladies who adoringly packed the grandstand wherever he played. According to newspaper reports, many of the fairer sex were in tears when Wilding lost in straight sets to Australia's Norman Brookes in the 1914 Wimbledon final. Shortly afterward, Wilding joined the army when the First World War broke out. Wilding was killed in an attack on a German-held position in France on May 9, 1915. He was 31.
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tennis
Tony
Wilding
New
Zealand
Added: 23rd June 2010
Views: 1147
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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The official program for the 1945 Army-Navy football game depicts a cadet and a midshipmen working together to paint a V for Victory to celebrate the successful conclusion of the Second World War. The annual Army-Navy football game is one of my favorite sports events. Few of the game's participants will ever play pro football, so it is the closest thing to a true amateur contest in the NCAA that garners national attention.
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Army
Navy
football
program
Added: 11th December 2010
Views: 2023
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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Le Pétomane was the stage name of French flatulist (professional farter) Joseph Pujol. He was famous for his remarkable control of the abdominal muscles which enabled him to fart at will. His stage name combines the French verb péter, 'to fart' with the -mane, '-maniac' suffix, which translates to 'fartomaniac'. Pujol was 'gifted' in the sense that he was able to inhale water or air into his rectum and then control the release of it using his sphincter muscles (avoiding any associated odor). When Pujol joined the army he told his fellow soldiers about his special ability, and repeated it for their amusement, sucking up water from a pan into his rectum and then projecting it through his anus up to several yards. He then found that he could suck in air as well. Although a baker by profession, Pujol would entertain his customers by imitating musical instruments, and claim to be playing them behind the counter. Pujol decided to try his talent on the stage, and debuted in Marseille in 1887. After his act proved successful, he proceeded to Paris, where he took the act to the Moulin Rouge in 1892.
Some of the highlights of his stage act involved sound effects of cannon fire and thunderstorms, as well as playing 'O Sole Mio' and 'La Marseillaise' on an ocarina through a rubber tube in his anus. He could also blow out a candle from several yards away. He performed before various VIPs, including the Prince of Wales, King Leopold II of the Belgians, and Sigmund Freud.
In 1894, as a star attraction at the Moulin Rouge, Pujol was earning 20,000 francs per performance.
In the following decade Pujol tried to 'refine' his acts to make them 'gentler.' One of his favorite numbers was a rhyme about a farm which he himself composed--and which he punctuated with the usual anal renditions of the animals' sounds. The climax of Pujol's act was his farting impression of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
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Joseph
Pujol
farter
entertainer
Added: 15th February 2011
Views: 2604
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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The first movie to win the coveted Best Picture Oscar was Wings, a silent masterpiece from 1927. Starring Buddy Rogers, Richard Arlen and Clara Bow, Wings is a drama about two American aviators who enlist in the First World War. The film's aerial shots of dogfights were revolutionary for the time. Gary Cooper, at the beginning of his great career, has a small role as a pilot who is killed in a training flight crash. The film also has some surprising nudity for its time: Clara Bow's breasts are shown for a fraction of a second in a scene where she is surprised while dressing. There is also a long shot through a door of nude army recruits preparing to undergo their physical exams. The movie was incredibly popular in its day. It ran for 63 weeks (with several showings each day) at New York City's Criterion Theater--a major venue that seated about 3,000 people--before it was released to smaller movie houses. Wings was considered a lost film for many years until a copy was discovered in a film archive in Paris. It is the only Best Picture-winning film not currently available on DVD, although is can be obtained on videotape. A very good organ score accompanies the VHS copy of Wings I bought many years ago.
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Wings
Oscar
Clara
Bow
silent
film
Added: 21st February 2011
Views: 1903
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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