The key facts
- Mikhail Vasilyev died on November 5 at the age of 64; the club did not disclose the cause
- According to Igor Larionov, the hockey player had fought lung cancer for five years
- Vasilyev was the 1984 Olympic champion, 1983 world champion and eight-time USSR champion with CSKA
Olympic champion dies on November 5
On November 5, at the age of 64, Mikhail Vasilyev died — a forward of the USSR national team, winner of the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics and 1983 world champion. The death of the celebrated hockey player was announced by the press service of Ufa's Salavat Yulaev, TASS reports; the news also appeared on the club's Telegram channel. The club did not disclose the cause of death.
Cause of death: five years of battling cancer
The cause of death was later revealed by two-time Olympic champion and three-time Stanley Cup winner Igor Larionov. According to him, Vasilyev died of lung cancer, which he had fought for five years, and in his final days Larionov was by his side at a Moscow hospital. 'For five years he fought lung cancer, holding on with his last reserves. You could see him fading before your eyes, but he fought to the end,' — TASS quotes Larionov. Larionov called Vasilyev a decent man, a hard worker and a remarkable hockey player, emphasizing that he valued above all his human qualities.
Playing and coaching career
Vasilyev's main titles are connected with Moscow's CSKA: from 1981 to 1988 he won the Soviet championship eight times in a row and lifted the national cup. With the USSR national team, in addition to the 1984 Olympic gold and the 1983 world title, he won silver at the 1987 World Championship and bronze at the 1985 World Championship. After CSKA and Yaroslavl's Torpedo, he continued his career in Europe: according to Life.ru, he became an Italian champion, and Gazeta.Ru specifies that with Bolzano he won the Italian championship twice.
Coaching work in Russia and abroad
After ending his playing career, Vasilyev worked with Italian clubs, led junior national teams of Russia and Belarus, and coached Moscow's Krasnaya Armiya, whom he led to silver medals at the MHL in 2014 (Life.ru mentions the Kharlamov Cup final). In 2016–2017 he was part of the staff of Neftekamsk's Toros, in the 2019/20 season he headed Ufa's Tolpar, from 2020 to 2022 he worked on the staff of Salavat Yulaev, and later served as an assistant to Larionov at Nizhny Novgorod's Torpedo, which he left in 2025. For his services to domestic sport, Vasilyev was awarded the title of Honoured Master of Sport of the USSR and the medal 'For Labour Valour'. Earlier, in August 2025, another representative of the Ufa hockey school died at the age of 59 — Konstantin Polozov, who spent 15 seasons with Salavat Yulaev.
