 The Soviets selected Vsevolod Bobrov as the coach for the series . Bobrov was a former player who had played against Team Canada in the 1950s and later managed the Soviet national soccer team and the Moscow Spartak ice hockey team . Bobrov had been given the job as the Soviets ' national ice hockey team coach , replacing long @-@ time coach Anatoli Tarasov after the 1972 Winter Olympics . This was his second international assignment ; his first was the 1972 World Championship , where Czechoslovakia had defeated the Soviet Union , ending a run of nine consecutive championships by the Soviets . 
