MOSCOW -- The Soviet Union's most successful ice hockey player, Alexander Ragulin, has died at 63, his former club, CSKA Moscow, announced Thursday.
A dominating defenseman and the only hockey player to win 10 world titles, Ragulin also claimed three Olympic gold medals, in 1964, '68 and '72. During an 11-year spell, starting in 1962, with CSKA, he collected nine Soviet national championships while scoring 63 goals in 427 games
CSKA said in a statement on its Web site that Ragulin died late Wednesday. Tributes to the popular and heavily built defenseman -- nicknamed the Russian bear -- poured in from players, officials and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"A man has died who features on the brightest pages of the history of national sport, in the chronicle of the great victories of our 'golden' national ice hockey team," Putin said in a statement.
"Alexander Ragulin personified the Russian bear," said Rene Fasel, president of the International Ice Hockey Federation. "He was the kind of player that no forward really wanted to confront in the corner or in front of the Soviet net. Ragulin was probably the most dominating international defenseman in the '60s."
Ragulin was inducted into the international hockey Hall of Fame in 1997.
Ragulin's longtime playing partner at CSKA and on the national team, Boris Mikhailov, told Itar-Tass news agency: "Ragulin's courage was a great skill that did not depend on ... the importance of a match or the strength of his opponent."
Others praised his fair play.
"Despite his menacing appearance, Ragulin never had a reputation for being a hockey boor," hockey federation president Alexander Steblin told Tass. "Quite the reverse, he always had an aura of benevolence."
No information immediately was available about survivors.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed information to this report.