From Russia without love

[Vims]

Интересная статья. Когда меня спрашивают это правда или нет.
Я обыно говорю что не везде в мире как в Канаде. Я бы ввел в школе познавательный тур что бы понимали и ценили более там где живут


http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouv ... 4517533c20

Iain MacIntyre
Vancouver Sun


Friday, September 16, 2005


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WHISTLER - As a foreign student of the game, Bryan Allen spent the lockout in Russia and learned many things. The name of his coach was not among them.

"I still don't know," he admits. "I never found out. I called him coach. He did a lot of yelling. A couple of times he screamed at me. It didn't bother me; I had no idea what he was saying."

Allen did a lot of screaming, too, during three months -- the second half of last season -- playing for Khimik of the Russian Superleague. Khimik is from the industrial city of Voskerensk, about a two-hour drive from Moscow, which is Rio by comparison.

Khimik's team is called the Chemists. The alliteration works -- one of the few things that did, according to Allen -- and the name tells you everything you need to know about Voskerensk, which is uncluttered by Audubon Society walking trails.

Voskerensk is Igor Larionov's home town, and Allen could have used "The Professor." Instead, he had only Old Yeller.

"Sometimes in practice, I had no clue what they were doing," Allen says after gleefully skating through a training camp practice with the Vancouver Canucks. "So I'd try to go to the end of the line and watch how the drill works. They didn't work on systems. They didn't have a forecheck or backcheck or breakout, so I found that hard."

Makes you wonder what the coach had to yell about.

Maybe it was the accommodations or the food.

Before games, Khimik players were sequestered into the team hotel, which sounds like an army barracks. Allen describes it as "a hostel," although there was no actual hemp clothing or young adults who care passionately about the human condition and, thus, devote their lives to hacky sack.

"The night before games, you had to stay at the hotel," he says. "Even for home games. So if you were playing Tuesday and Thursday, you'd have to be in the hotel Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and you could go home after the game Thursday.

"All I did was watch DVDs and play video games."

So, the lodgings weren't all bad. Allen was issued a room to himself and could get most of his body onto the army cot. And he could plug in his laptop computer and run the DVD drive until it was hot enough to cook road kill, which wouldn't have been any worse than some of the goop du jour he ate.

He whiled away countless hours watching Jennifer Garner in a three-season set of television's Alias, and spending the winter with Jennifer Garner can't be a bad thing.

But three seasons of Alias did not full programming make. Fortunately, Detroit Red Wings goalie Manny Legace was airlifted in with emergency supplies: about 300 movie DVDs.

"He was the DVD man. He had all the movies," Allen says touchingly. "I had the TV shows and he had the movies, so it was a good partnership."

Legace, alas, had visa problems and was forced to leave the country. Even worse, Allen's visa was fine and he stayed until the end of the season in March.

Luckily, former Canucks goalie Peter Skudra was on Khimik and able to talk Allen down from the ledge.

"Some of the things you go through, it's like: 'Get me out of here,' " Allen says. "I remember going on the road and staying in a supposed hotel. It looked like a crack house. The walls were crumbling, there were bathtubs and sinks in the hallways. That's the weird thing: they spend all this money [on salaries] but don't do anything to make the players feel more comfortable.


They had no tape at practice. I had to go buy my tape. You had to bring your own towel and soap."

Regrettably, Allen learned the towel lesson the hard way -- by air drying. A trainer loaned Allen a towel, but most things about Russian hockey he didn't get. Like a paycheque.

"I'm having a hard time getting my money," he says. "I'll probably have to sue the team."

So, Russian Superleague teams, which famously are drawing players like Canuck Artem Chubarov back from North America with seven-figure salaries -- don't pay twice a month like in the NHL?

"They pay when they have the money," Allen says. "You hear about Russia and, well, it's Russia. The barrier starts with the language and then everything else goes from there.

"Looking back, I got a chance to play a lot. It was great to go play somewhere [during the lockout] and that's the most important part. And when else am I going to see Russia and experience that culture?"

As cultures go, he prefers yogurt.

But his Russian misadventure had three benefits: it narrowed his choices for vacation spots, allowed him to skate on big ice and, with no set systems, enhanced his creativity with the puck.

That should help him this season with the Canucks, who expect more from Allen after the budget-related summer departures of defencemen Brent Sopel and Marek Malik.

Allen, the fourth-overall draft pick from Kingston, Ont., becomes a top-four defenceman by default. But there should be a smooth transition from No. 6.

The burden of handling more minutes has been overstated.

The 25-year-old's ice time increased by a third in 2003-04 from the previous season, averaging 16:51. If all goes well, he'll log about 20 minutes a night this season, a workload he exceeded 12 times in 74 games in '03-04.

The greater challenge for Allen will be adjusting to the rules revolution and the NHL crackdown on obstruction. As a lanky, tough, stay-at-home defenceman, he has relied on his reach.

"You can't say 'I'm not ready' or 'I'm ready,' " Allen says of increased stature. "You just have to go out there and do it. Everyone has to have that first chance and this is going to be my chance. You just have to relish the opportunity."

Playing in the NHL instead of Russia, he'll relish everything, even getting yelled at in English by coach Marc Crawford.

By the way, the Khimik coach is named Vladimir Vitalevich Marinichev. "Coach" works for me.

imaci16@hotmail.com