Remembering the impact of the Detroit Red Wings' "Russian Five" more than 20 years ago. Ryan Ford, Detroit Free Press
In “The Russian Five: A story of espionage, defection, bribery and courage,” Keith Gave, the spy-turned-Detroit Free Press newsman whose clandestine mission to Helsinki, Finland, put the Red Wings’ acquisition of the iconic quintet in motion, shares the pulse-pounding and unforgettable tale of how Sergei Fedorov, Slava Fetisov, Vladimir Konstantinov, Slava Kozlov and Igor Larionov slipped past the Iron Curtain, wound up in crumbling 1990s Detroit, helped build a championship empire and changed the landscape of American hockey forever.