Tikhonov played as a defenceman with the VVS (Team of the Soviet Air Force) and Dynamo Moscow.

As a player, he won four gold medals of the Soviet national championship (three times with VVS (1951–1953) and once with Dynamo, 1954).

[2] In 1991, for instance, he cut Pavel Bure, Valeri Zelepukin, Evgeny Davydov, and Vladimir Konstantinov just before the 1991 Canada Cup.

All of them had been drafted by NHL teams, and Tikhonov might have thought that they might defect if they were allowed to go to the West, just like Alexander Mogilny and Sergei Fedorov.

Tikhonov was hospitalized in late October 2014[8] and died after a long illness in Moscow on 24 November 2014, at the age of 84.

[9][1] Viktor's son Vasily was also a professional ice hockey coach, who worked in Finland, the United States and Switzerland but moved back to Russia to live with his family.