Cold War On Ice: Why Alex Ovechkin Is The Only Hope For Russian Hockey In America

Considering the recent three game suspension handed out to Alex Ovechkin I thought it would be as good a time as any to address the current state of Russians in the NHL.

I wrote many papers in college but one sticks out in my mind as my favorite.  It was written for a class titled U.S. History Since WWII.  The professor allowed us to choose a topic of our choice as long as it  fit into the timeframe of the class.  I decided to write the paper on the role politics plays in sports focusing on US-Soviet relations during the build up to the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid and the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow (those of you who aren't fans of history I promise this will focus on hockey, just give me a couple more lines on this).  In a nutshell, the paper discussed the threat of boycotts by President Carter and General Secretary Brezhnev in the build up to both country's Olympic Games and addressed what the US hockey victory over the USSR did to boost morale in America during a tenuous period in our country's history.  Throughout the paper I mentioned certain members of the United States hockey team.  At the same time I didn't really delve too far, if at all, into the players on the USSR team.

Whether conscious or not, I don't think I focused on the USSR players because news media sources were given little access to these players and little was known about how the Soviet players interacted at that time.  Yes, hockey fans know the names Tretiak, Mikhailov and Fetisov but during Communist Russia, the idea of Soviet athletes expressing themselves publicly and showing their personalities was frowned upon.

Toward the end of the 80's and the early 90's as the fall of the Soviet Empire began to take hold, there was an exodus of sorts by Russians making their way to the NHL after years of being forced to stay and play in the Soviet Union.  Fedorov, Bure, and Kovalev to name a few, were among the earlier Soviets to come to play in the NHL.  While their on ice success in the league to date cannot be questioned, many Russians, usually unfairly, have been labeled "enigmas" by the media and been criticized for lack of effort.  At the same time,  Swedes, Czechs and Finns alike seem to have had seamless transitions into the NHL and generally do not face the same type of scrutiny as Russian players.

As we look at the current state of Russians in the NHL today, has anything changed?

Largely, no.

We have Alex Ovechkin, the consensus most dynamic and exciting player in the league in the post-lockout era, moving in on two seasons of subpar play by his standards.  His demeanor and the youthful exuberance he displayed early in his career has pretty much disappeared.  The current most dynamic player in the league, Evgeny Malkin, is a different story.  No matter his success in the league, Malkin has stayed out of the spotlight despite his enormous talent.  Many in the media seem to think it's a product of the language barrier.  Ovechkin grew up in Moscow, the son of international olympic athletes.  On the other hand, Malkin grew up in the Southwestern Russian steel city of Magnitogorsk.  Malkin has been in the league for six years now and though his skills have progressed his English has not advanced to a great extent, at least in public.  As a consequence it is difficult for the public to truly get to know Malkin and difficult for him if not impossible for him to become an ambassador for Russian hockey.

(As an aside, if this topic interests you, I highly recommend a book by Dave King, a former NHL head coach who coached an 18 year old Malkin on his Magnitogorsk team in the Russian league in 2005-06.  King gives a day-by-day account of his time as a Canadian-born coach in Russia.  It's a well written and interesting story that gives great insight into Malkin and the psychology and history behind Russian hockey players.  Here's a link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/King-Russia-Russian-Super-League/dp/0771095708/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327678036&sr=1-2  ).

Running through other current Russian stars in the NHL, a common theme I see is their personality and how it is perceived in the media.  Ilya Kovalchuk and Alex Semin are considered highly skilled forwards yet what they have in talent they lack in effort, defensive play and teamwork.

Then you have Pavel Datsyuk.  Datsyuk has long been considered one of the most, if not the most, underrated player in the NHL.  And yet, it is difficult to find a good sound byte from Datsyuk.  It's possible he is just a naturally quiet and unassuming guy whether speaking in English or Russian.  Either way, showing little emotion makes it difficult for the public to truly get to know him.  Look at the All-Star Fantasy Draft this past Thursday.  Datsyuk was selected first overall and was one of the few players interviewed.  Despite this, if he has a marketable personality, we have yet to see it.

I don't put the blame entirely on Datsyuk or other Russian players who are unable to overcome the language barrier and adapt entirely into the North American NHL culture.  There is no doubt in my mind that it is difficult to move to a new country when you are drafted at eighteen and expected to learn a new language while pursuing a career in professional hockey.  Russia, for all its social advancements since Reagan tore down the Iron Curtain has not produced a high percentage of English speakers like many other European countries like Finland and the Czech Republic (I have spent time in Moscow, Helsinki and Prague and it is clear that even in the Russian capital it is significantly more difficult to find people speaking English when compared to Finland and the Czech Republic).

Now back to Ovechkin.

It may be unfair to put the burden of Russian hockey players in the NHL entirely on Ovechkin's shoulders.  Unfair or not though, that burden is something Ovechkin must embrace to erase the decade's old reputation of Russian players.  Ovechkin has the talent, personality and linguistic ability to change multiple generation's worth of negative perceptions about Russian hockey players.  Unfortunately, right now Ovechkin is going the wrong way.  He is becoming more introverted in his personality and showmanship and more extroverted in showing his frustrations and expressing his complaints.

Few would deny that a double standard exists between how the NHL media portrays Russians versus NHL players from other countries .  This is a development that I think began during the Cold War and has never truly dissipated.  While there are certainly gregarious and affable Russians in the NHL (Ilya Bryzgalov comes to mind), it remains difficult to truly know the personality and feelings of many of the Russians, first liners or fourth liners, despite hopes that the end of the Cold War would lead to an easy transition both off the ice as well as on it.

Ultimately, I believe the greatest hope to alleviate this problem is Ovechkin; if only he could return to the player and person he was earlier in his career.  With the ascent of the KHL, which at this point I don't consider to be a legitimate threat to the NHL, and the upcoming 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, Ovechkin has a responsibility as a Russian and an NHLer to bridge the gap and try to change the longstanding negative perception of Russian players.  In doing so, he would enable Russian NHLers  to shed the label of "enigma" that has followed them around for decades.

  

One If By Land, Two If By Sea, Three If By Ice

I'm not a big fan of poetry but Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous line in the poem "Paul Revere's Ride", reflects the current situation the NHL bigwigs, Commissioner Gary Bettman, Chief Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, and Director of Player Discipline Brendan Shanahan are in.  In Longfellow's ode to Paul Revere, the poet describes the warning system used to alert Revere of an inevitable incoming attack by the British.  Two lanterns were available.  One lantern was to be raised if the British attacked by land and two lanterns were to be raised if they attacked by sea.  The heads of the NHL are facing a problem not quite at the same level Paul Revere and the fledgling Americans faced back in 1775, but crucial to the growing success of the league nonetheless.

The battle the league is facing comes from within the league itself and can be seen on the ice.  The first part of the problem is well documented. It involves the growing number of head injuries to players, seemingly on a nightly basis. The main part of the problem though is more important, as it turns a basic league quandary into an all-out mess.  After the lockout in 2005, the NHL brain trust felt the current brand of hockey had become too dull and slow to attract new fans.  To use their language, there was too much "clutching and grabbing" and not enough scoring.  To fix this "problem", the league instituted stricter rules to combat the holding and hooking that was slowing down the game.  This consequently turned the NHL into a quicker-paced more fluid brand of hockey.  This is partly the cause of the concussion epidemic.

In the post-lockout goal-scoring boom a new generation of fans came in droves and the league considered the new and improved rules a success.  One thing they either ignored, didn't care about, or didn't plan for was what effect the new rules would have on player speed when it came to hitting, charging and body control.  In response to these effects, the NHL has gone on a hunt to stomp out hits to the head while at the same time promoting speed, hitting and fighting.  They have suspended players with no prior record for certain "dangerous" hits while maintaining the belief that faster speed  has been great for the game and attracted more fans.

If anyone thought the disciplinary system could not become any more arbitrary and tedious after Colin Campbell stepped down as head of discipline; I would like you to meet Brendan Shanahan.  Shanahan, the future hall of famer and one of my favorite post-lockout Rangers, took over as head of discipline early last summer and has turned the job into a show, with videos explaining all suspensions and stiff penalties for those willing to toe the line between a clean hit and a dirty hit.  I feel bad for Shanahan, he has a no win job. Bettman claims concussion numbers are down; I'm not sure where he gets his information from.  All I seem to hear about and read about is how players with no history of head injuries are now suffering from concussions or concussion-like symptoms.  If the numbers are down as Bettman claims, then many, many players have been playing with concussions the past few seasons as opposed to sitting out (that's a whole other problem in and of itself and I have neither the time nor the interest to delve into it deeper).

There will come a time when Commissioner Bettman will need to look in the mirror and ask why the disciplinary system isn't curbing concussions.  When that time will be is hard to tell.  Either way, it's pretty clear the players are incapable of entirely changing the way they play and I have a feeling that even those players like Matt Cooke, who seem to have changed their dirty ways, will eventually return to their earlier irresponsible selves and cause a head injury for another player.

I wouldn't have written this without at least suggesting some type of fix for the league.  I propose four league-wide changes, some more radical than others.

1) Reinstitute the Pre-Lockout Clutching and Grabbing Rules

Opposition to this rule-change would likely be strong.  The "consensus" among those involved in the NHL from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000's is that hockey had become low scoring and slow.  Hooking, holding and interference was going unpenalized  (as the Rangers were going through a decade of hell during most of that period I am probably not the greatest person to ask about how enjoyable watching the NHL was during that era).  The NHL changed the rules after the lockout and penalized any type of hooking or holding.  As the league continues to move further and further from the 2005 lockout, and new defensive systems are being put in place by coaches to defend faster and quicker opponents, I don't think there is that much of a difference between current and pre-lockout hockey.  While the NHL may say otherwise regarding the new rules, as long as the league maintains its current advertising and marketing tactics it should be fine even if the speed of the game is slowed slightly.  In addition, I have a feeling that the incessant discussion of suspensions and concussions will chase away more fans than allowing more hooking and holding and reinstituting the clutching and grabbing rules will.

2) Remove the Trapezoid 

The trapezoid rule was instituted to keep goalies from playing the puck in the corners and thereby allowing for more scoring chances.  It has not really caused that much change and would not be missed.  Removing the trapezoid would also enable goalies to help out defensemen on dump-ins and put defensemen in fewer potentially dangerous situations. 

3)  Limit the Size of Goalie Equipment

This would be done to placate those who worry the reinstitution of the pre-lockout clutching and grabbing rules would hurt scoring.  The change in goalie equipment does not need to be drastic but more oversight on the size of chest protectors and pads would certainly benefit scoring.  The argument that the bigger the pads are, the safer the goalies are, is a flawed one.  With today's advanced equipment technology, goalie equipment can be both light and highly protective.  

4)  Ban Fighting

The hypocrisy of promoting fighting, essentially boxing on skates, while at the same time trying to make the league safer with regard to head injuries borders on idiotic.  Personally, I have no problem with fighting in the NHL, but I also have no particular allegiance to the spectacle.  Banning fighting would have no effect on whether or not I watched or attended a game, and I doubt it would change the opinion of most if any fans of the game. I know no one who goes to games for the fighting.  If the NHL office wants to truly effect change it needs to do something drastic that will permanently alter the mentality of players and give them a black and white rule to follow rather than the arbitrary suspension rules.

Right now for example, if Mike Rupp of the Rangers skates down the ice, asks Islander Matt Martin to fight and the players drop their gloves, Rupp may punch Martin in the head as hard as he can as many times as he can until the players tire and he and Martin will only be penalized five minutes apiece.  They can then return to the game.  On the other hand, if Rupp were to skate up the ice and check Martin into the boards with his shoulder but first make contact with Martin's head, accidentally or not, Rupp would likely be suspended anywhere from one to five games.  The above example makes it hard to take the NHL seriously in their fight against concussions.

This a request to the league to be careful what they wish for.  More scoring is nice and good as long as it fills the seats.  What happens though, when radio and NHL shows become bogged down with talk of suspensions and concussions and people stop watching?  Stop the problem before it truly interferes with the growth of the game.  The attack against the league is coming from its own ice and its own arenas. Three lanterns are being raised and I hope Gary Bettman can see the warning.

What Makes Lundqvist, Lundqvist

This is the first of hopefully many posts on the Rangers, the NHL or really anything that piques my interest in the world of hockey. 

There is no better place to begin than with Henrik Lundqvist.  His greatness is obvious at this point but I've always been curious about what makes a goalie, in this case Lundqvist, the amazing puckstopper that he is.  I grew up playing goalie in ice hockey and still hold the position close to my heart.  Because of that I find myself critiquing and analyzing each team's goalie when I attend games.  I've been to many games over the past few years during college and law school and have seen many goalies play up close.  To me, Henrik seems to do a number of things that few other goalies do. 

Before I say what those things are, I should mention I was at MSG last night and in typical Rangers fashion they won 3-0.  Whether it was the ineptitude of the Jets offense or the brilliance of Henrik (last night it was a good amount of both) I found myself particularly pulled in by Lundqvist's play last night.

Back to my main point.  Lundqvist moves and reacts only when necessary to make a save.  There are no excess movements and there is no overplaying shooters.  If you watch as an opponent has the puck at the point or along the boards Lundqvist isnt entirely in the "goalie stance" that they teach goalies from a young age.  He stands up, sometimes nearly upright, to get the greatest view of the shooter. 

I have three ideas as to why this tactic works so well and gives Lundqvist an advantage over most other goalies.  The first is his vision of the ice.  Goalies who crouch and attempt to see "through" players are at a distinct disadvantage.  Think about it.  Attempting to see through and around a bunch of 6'3 220 pound hockey players in full equiptment can often be a recipe for disaster.  Teams that are successfull create screens and traffic in front of the net.   To combat this, a goalies vision and ability to see the ice is key.  It enables goalies to see shots leave the sticks of opponents and thereby get a better view of the trajectory of the puck.  By standing tall Henrik can see over many of the screens rather than needing to look around them or through them and can keep his angle rather than moving his body and losing the net. 

The second idea as to why Lundqvist is as successful as he is is where he plays in the crease.  It's no secret that Lundqvist plays deep in his crease, incredibly deep under NHL standards.  Young goalies used to be taught to challenge shooters and to take away the angle of a shooter.  As more young goalies began to emulate the innovative butterfly style made popular by Patrick Roy in the mid to late 80's butterfly goalies have become the norm and the standup style is pretty much extinct.  The butterfly syle has allowed goalies to play deeper in the net.  Nevertheless, I cannot remember a goalie who played or plays quite as deep in the net as Lundqvist (according to Lundqvist and his goalie coach he plays somewhat of a hybrid style between butterfly and standup). In a game of inches where a little tip can be the difference between a shot hitting the post and going in, an extra split-second can make a huge difference.  By playing deep in his crease, Lundqvist has that extra moment to react to shots and deflections that can make all the difference between a good goalie and an elite one.

The final reason Lundqvist stands above the rest of the goalies in the NHL is his quickness and ability to limit his movements on the ice.  Many goalies, even in the NHL, seem to have less than stellar control of their bodies when they make saves.  Anders Lindback, the backup goalie for Nashville, comes to mind.  Even Marty Biron, the Rangers backup goalie who has arguably been the best backup in the league this year can be seen out of position with his body facing the net after some commotion around the crease.  Lundqvist though, is the epitome of motion-conservation.  His saves often look the same because everything is uniform with him.  He goes through the same motions during TV timeouts.  He looks at times statuesque in his stance.  He can do all of this because of his quickness and balance.  Lundqvist is so quick and compact in making saves that he can do things other goalies can't.  And while this type of brilliance isn't easy to pick out because of its "less movement is more" characteristic it enables Lundqvist to dominate opposing teams and continue to do what is most important for Rangers fans, win.