Soviet Union National Team
World Ice Hockey Champions 1978
European Ice Hockey Champions 1978

Team Roster
Valeri Kharlamov, Valeri Vasiliev, Aleksandr Golikov, Viktor Zhluktov, Vladimir Golikov, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, Vasili Pervukhin, Yuri Lebedev, Boris Mikhailov, Helmuts Balderis, Gennadiy Tsygankov, Vladislav Tretiak, Alexander Pashkov, Viacheslav Fetisov, Sergei Makarov, Yuri Fedorov, Sergei Kapustin

Head Coach - Viktor Tikhonov
Coach - Vladimir Yurzinov
Administrator - Anatoli Seglin
Head of Hockey - Vyacheslav Koloskov
Masseur - Grigory Avseenko

Валерий Харламов, Валерий Васильев, Александр Голиков, Виктор Жлуктов, Владимир Голиков, Зинэтула Билялетдинов, Василий Первухин, Юрий Лебедев, Борис Михайлов, Хелмут Балдерис, Геннадий Цыганков, Владислав Третьяк, Александр Пашков, Вячеслав Фетисов, Сергей Макаров, Юрий Федоров, Сергей Капустин

старший тренер - Виктор Васильевич Тихонов
тренер - Владимир Владимирович Юрзинов
aдминистратор - Анатолий Владимирович Сеглин
Вячеслав Иванович Колосков - начальник управления хоккея
массажист - Григорий Авсеенко

The 1978 Ice Hockey World Championships took place in Prague, Czechoslovakia from 26 April to 14 May. Eight teams took part, with each team playing each other once in the first round, and then the four best teams meeting in a new round. This was the 45th World Championships, and also the 56th European Championships. The USSR won for the fifteenth time, narrowly defeating the incumbent Czechoslovaks.

On the final day, there was essentially a gold medal game, and a bronze medal game. The Soviets played the Czechoslovaks and needed to win by at least two to win the Championship. They took a three nothing lead, and hung to win by two, capturing gold by being even head to head with the Czechoslovaks, but having a cumulative two goal advantage against everyone else. Canada and Sweden came into the final game even, so the winner would claim the bronze. Pat Hickey scored with a minute left in the game to give Canada a three to two victory, and the bronze medal.

Because of the allowance of professionals from the NHL into the tournament, a peculiar (and new) situation arose during this year's tournament. The Minnesota North Stars had players representing Canada (2), Sweden (3), and the USA (4).