Boldyrev, Ivan (1949)

Childhood, Children's and Youth Hockey

Boldyrev was born in Yugoslavia, from where his family emigrated to Canada when Ivan was two years old. Growing up in Sault Ste Marie , Ontario , Boldyrev was a very shy child. He later recalled:

My shyness, perhaps, arose even when we just moved to Canada, and I did not know a word in English. My first-class teacher passed a note through my parents asking me to speak English more often at home. But parents also did not speak English, and could not even read the note! ^[one]

Original text

his shyness "probably goes back to when I first came over to Canada and didn't speak any English. My-first grade teacher sent a note home telling my parents that we should speak English at home, but they didn't speak it so they couldn't even read the note! "

Boldyrev began playing youth hockey, finding himself in the “home” team - “ Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds ” from the Northern Ontario Youth Hockey League . After that, he spent two seasons in the club of the Hockey Association of Ontario Oshawa Generals , from 1967 to 1969.

In the 1969 NHL draft, Boldyrev was selected by the Boston Bruins club under a common 11th number.

Professional career

Boldyrev became a professional in 1969 and spent his entire first season at the Boston Farm Club Oklahoma City Blazers ( Central Hockey League ). He was called to Boston as a reserve before the start of the 1970 playoffs , but did not go on the ice. Without Boldyrev’s services, Boston easily won its first Stanley Cup since 1941. However, in an incomprehensible way, his name eventually ended up on the Stanley Cup ^[2] . Boldyrev is the only field player whose name is engraved on the Stanley Cup, who had not played a single match in the NHL before.

In the 1970–71 season, Boldyrev played his first two matches with the Bruins, after which he was sent back to Oklahoma City. At that time, “Boston” had the strongest in the NHL, and for a young player to break into it was an impossible task. Boldyrev became one of three promising young players (the other two were Reggie Leach and Rick McLeish , who later became stars in the Philadelphia Flyers club), who were good enough to strengthen the composition of any NHL club. However, they were stuck in the Boston system and definitely needed an exchange in order to have a chance to reveal themselves as players.

Boldyrev began the season 1971-72 in the back of Boston, but a breakthrough occurred in the middle of the season: he was traded to one of the weakest NHL clubs in California Golden Silz . In the meager composition of California, Boldyrev got his chance to open up and flourished as an excellent player, ending the season with 16 goals and 41 points in the account (4th indicator in the team). He finished the season 1973-74 with the 2nd scorer of the team, scoring 25 goals and scoring 56 points.

In 1974, Boldyrev was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks , which included the most productive game of his career. He immediately established himself as one of the team leaders, scoring 24 goals and gaining 67 points in the 1974-75 season. In each of his five seasons at Chicago, Boldyrev scored more than 60 points and, by the end of the 70s, replaced Stan Mikit , who was finishing his career, as the main scorer of Chicago. Boldyrev was the best in Chicago in goals, assists and points for the seasons 1976-77 and 1977-78. In 1978, he took part in the All-Star Game .

In the 1978–79 season, Boldyrev was again the leader in scorers at Chicago, and towards the end of the season he was traded to the Atlanta Flames club as a result of a big deal involving nine players. After moving to Atlanta, Boldyrev scored 14 points in 13 matches, but his stay in the Flames was short-lived - less than a year later, he was exchanged for Vancouver Canucks . An interesting fact: along with Boldyrev, Darcy Rota also participated in both transactions ; they have been teammates (and often team members) in three different teams for nearly ten years.

After moving to Vancouver, Boldyrev finished the 1979-80 season perfectly, gaining 27 points (16 + 11) in 27 matches for Vancouver. As part of the Canucks, he still remained an effective scorer and continued to amaze fans with his elegant manner of working with a club and a puck. He was one of the team leaders in the 1981–82 season when Vancouver made it to the Stanley Cup final, scoring 8 goals in 17 games in the playoffs, and scoring 73 points in the regular season .

Boldyrev’s performance fell in the 1982–83 season, in which he scored just 5 goals and scored 25 points in his first 39 matches. Assuming that Boldyrev’s career (who was already over 30) was running out, the Canucks management traded him at Detroit Red Wings for the outstanding striker Mark Kirton . However, as part of the Detroit, Boldyrev survived his second youth, scoring 13 goals and scoring 30 points in 33 matches before the end of the season. The 1983-84 season turned out to be the most productive in the career: 35 goals (repeating the best result in the career), 48 assists and 83 points (both indicators are the best in the career). Boldyrev, along with newcomer Steve Aizerman, helped Detroit enter the playoffs for the first time since 1978.

In the 1984-85 season, Boldyrev played his 1000th NHL game and gave his 500th assists, but his performance declined, and for the first time since 1973 Boldyrev could not reach the 50 points mark for the season. After the season ended, he ended his career with 361 goals, 505 assists and 866 points in 1052 matches. Currently, he periodically takes part in the work of the Chicago Blackhawks Veterans Association.

Achievements

• Member of the NHL All-Star Game in 1978
• Winner of the 1970 Stanley Cup with the Boston Bruins (his name is engraved in the Cup, although at that time he hadn’t taken part in the games for Boston and had not played a single game in the NHL)

Statistics

• List of NHL hockey players who played 1000 or more matches

• Photo of the names of the hockey players who won the Stanley Cup in 1970
• Ivan Boldyrev - statistics on The Internet Hockey Database
• Legends of Hockey biography