3 Lessons Learned from the Russian Penguins Experiment 30 Years Later

By Steven Warshaw, Founder and Creative Director of Universal Sports Marketing

One step off the plane, I knew I was in another world, a Twilight Zone where none of what I knew in America was true anymore. It was the summer of 1993, and the Pittsburgh Penguins had acquired a 50% stake in the Russian Red Army hockey team, which had fallen on tough times since the government had collapsed in the wake of the Cold War two years prior. Russia was in complete chaos and fear of the future.

The Russians trusted no one, let alone a marketer from New York trying to introduce communists to capitalism, in pursuit of making the world’s first international joint sports venture a success. The deck was stacked against us from the start.

Now, 30 years after we had to cut bait, it still stings. What could have been a beautiful partnership was ruined by greed, corruption, ignorance, and arrogance.

We were always concerned that we would be despised and distrusted since the NHL had clear-cut the Russian hockey forest, taking all the oak trees — like Slava Fetisov, Pavel Bure, Alexander Mogilny, Sergei Fedorov, Vladimir Krutov, Igor Larionov, Sergei Makarov, and Alexei Kasatonov — and leaving just a few acorns in Nikolai Khabibulin, Sergei Brylin, Yan Golubovsky, Andrei Vasiliev, and Alexander Kharlamov.

We went out of our way to honor and memorialize the legends of the Red Army, retiring their jerseys and hoisting their numbers to the rafters of the Ice Palace. Still, we were seen as ugly Americans, carpetbaggers, and carnies.

Our promotional events pushed the boundaries of sanity. In one infamous stunt, a live bear served beer to spectators. It was outrageous, dangerous, and captured the anything-goes spirit of the time. But wild promotions couldn’t save this profoundly flawed pact. We were dealing with a whole new level of business practices – or lack thereof.

Contracts were written in pencil, and deals changed faster than the weather. We’d shake hands on a 50/50 split in the morning, only to be presented with a 10/90 take-it-or-leave-it offer by lunch. The mafia had its hands in everything, demanding protection money and causing our sponsors to bleed money faster than we could bring it in.

As the venture unraveled, we learned hard lessons about doing business in post-Soviet Russia. Here are the three most crucial: 

1. Cross-cultural joint ventures are anthropologically doomed from the start.

We came in with American ideas of business, marketing, and sports management, but everything seemed lost in translation. It went beyond language or customs — the Russians have fundamentally different worldviews and ways of doing business.

We secured sponsors who gained significant media exposure, televised home games on Channel One (since the games were sold out), luxury suites, great seats, VIP lounges, and major networking, but the cost of doing business in Russia was prohibitive. Every major joint venture sustained substantial losses due to the mafia and corruption. Everyone had their hands out: the police, the tax police, the garbage police, the mayor’s office, the Kremlin, and many in the mafia who manufactured nothing, did nothing, but had a piece of everything.

The Russian Penguins’ major sponsors were systematically extorted. Conoco-Philips spent billions importing deep-drilling oil rigs to cut through miles of ice. As soon as the “black gold” started to gush, the Russian mafia started to crush its partners financially and illegally. Coca-Cola’s Russian experts told stockholders in Atlanta that Russia “is a mess.”

2. Thomas Wolfe was right. You can’t go home again.

Players who left for the NHL faced intense criticism, even threats from Soviet authorities. Fetisov has spoken of “fighting for my rights, human rights and all this stuff” when he wanted to go to North America, and the Russian hierarchy initially resisted. 

The idea of “betraying” one’s country by playing in another league might seem absurd from a Western perspective, but it was a very real and painful experience for these players. They weren’t just changing teams; they were crossing a political and ideological divide that had defined global politics for decades. Even today, that stigma persists.

NHL veteran Nikita Zadorov criticized Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and believes he can’t return to his native land safely. “I’d be in Siberia the next day,” he told reporters. Goalie Ivan Fedotov signed with the Philadelphia Flyers two years ago and was detained on his way to the airport for a flight to North America. He was reportedly forced into military duty and had to wait for his dream to become reality. Russia won’t shed its authoritarian mindset, fears, and lies any time soon.

3. You can’t pick your family.

The Russian Penguins could have come to Moscow and cured cancer, irrigated brownfields, and eradicated hunger — our partners, Valery Gushin and Victor Tikhonov, still would have suspected “foul play.”

If the Penguins worked with Vladislav Tretiak and Anatoli Tarasov, perhaps our Russian alliance would have lured the rest of the NHL’s franchises to create joint ventures with Russia’s other Super League teams. Perhaps this hockey joint venture would have percolated into the political, cultural, and business arenas.

In the end, the Russian Penguins are a cautionary tale about geopolitics extending beyond ordinary foreign affairs and the long shadow cast by decades of authoritarian rule. As we watch Russia’s trajectory today, it’s clear that many of the issues we grappled with in 1993 are still relevant. When the rules of business as you know them no longer apply, when the mafia puts a bounty on your head, it’s time to end the experiment.