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The Russian men's national ice hockey team is the national ice hockey team of Russia and are controlled by the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia. They are currently rated number one in the IIHF World Ranking; with 3980 points. The team has been competing internationally since 1993 and follows a long tradition of Soviet teams mostly composed of Russian players. The Russian team replaced the Unified Team of the ice hockey at the 1992 Winter Olympics and the Commonwealth of Independent States team of the 1992 World Championships. The Russian team has not been as dominant as the Soviet team, winning the gold in the World Championships three times in 18 years, but it remains one of the top teams in the world.The Soviets were the most dominant teams of all time in international play. The team won nearly every world championship and Olympic tournament between 1954 and 1991 held by the International Ice Hockey Federation. Russia's finishes in "best-on-best" tournaments since 1991 (NHL era Olympics and the World Cup of Hockey) has been less than stellar however. Russia has a total of 84,720 players, about 0.05% of its population. As of June 2011, their head coach is Zinetula Bilyaletdinov. The top three nominees for the 2009 Hart Memorial Trophy (the most valuable player award in the National Hockey League) all play for the Russian team: Alexander Ovechkin, Pavel Datsyuk, and Evgeni Malkin |