Aleksandr Almetov

Aleksandr Almetov was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, but grew up in Moskva near the stadium of the Dynamo Sports Club, as his family had fled there during World War II. He was a frequent visitor of the sporting events at that stadium and, inspired by the performances of Vsevolod Bobrov, decided to take up hockey. Soon his talent was noticed by the Soviet hockey officials and in 1958 he was called to join CSKA Moskva, where he played his entire career. With CSKA Moskva, Almetov won seven Soviet Championships titles (1959-61, 1963-66) and was the best goalscorer in the 1964 Soviet Championships with 40 goals. Internationally Almetov played with Soviet national team from 1959 until 1967, being capped 107 times, scoring 75 goals. Playing together with his teammates from CSKA Moskva, Veniamin Aleksandrov and Konstantin Loktev, Almetov formed one of the best lines in the Soviet hockey history and they were primarily behind the Soviet success in the early 1960s, scoring more than 250 goals in about 100 matches. With the Soviet national team, Almetov won a gold and bronze at the Olympics, was World Champion five times (1963-67) and won two bronzes (1960-61) at the World Championships. He also won six European Championships titles (1960, 1963-67) and was a runner-up in 1961. In 1967 Almetov was expelled from CSKA Moskva, because of drinking problems, a lack of discipline and undermining the coaches’ authority, and after that, he decided to retire from hockey, at only 27-years-old. He then took up a coaching position with the CSKA Moskva junior team, but his drinking problems continued and he was soon fired from that position as well. So for the next 20 years Almetov worked as a grave-digger in the Vagankovsky Cemetery in Moscow. In 1990 Almetov and his wife emigrated to the United States, but returned to Russia shortly after that, and in less than a year after his return to homeland, Almetov died of pneumonia in Moscow.