Pavel Bure Speaks On Kharlamov and Mikhailov

In the Stan Fischler book "Hockey Stars Speak," Pavel Bure talks about his childhood hockey idols.

"When I was a kid, my two heroes were Boris Mikhailov and Valeri Kharlamov who played for Red Army. What I liked about Kharlamov was that he could do everything with the puck. He could grab it behind the net and beat everybody as he skated down the ice, and then he would put the puck into the top corner of the net."

"Kharlamov was amazing and Mikhailov had that talent as well, but Boris was more stubborn. He was a small guy but nobody could move him away from the net. He always was in the slot or right in front of the goalie. That's why he got more goals than anybody in Russia. He wasn't a big guy, but he wasn't scared and just worked hard.

"I know they (the Red Army) played some exhibition games against the NHL teams, but I was too young to remember. When I started to become aware of pro hockey in North America, the thing I go to realize was that it was physically pretty tough. In addition I noticed that we had bigger rinks in Russia and this meant that big guys without skill could not last long in our country. We just concentrated on our skills."