Euro Swinging

Jes G?lbez reported the Euro leagues were getting violent compared to the games played in the regular season on Tuesday.  Two days later he commented on IIHF president René Fasel going off about it.  Today’s Philadelphia Inquirer brings up the situation again.

Jes sums up my own opinion well in two statements:

I take this statement [from René Fasel] to be a jab at the large amount of North American players taking up spots on European rosters these days… Methinks Rene should also cool down just a little.

Seriously.  This is European hockey, stick-swinging incidents are nothing new, and as Tim Panaccio of the Inquirer points out there’s an ironic twist here: there’s a decline in fights during NHL playoff hockey, not an increase like these European leagues are seeing.

Here’s the roster for the game that set the new record for penalty minutes in a game in the Russian Superleague:

Lokomotiv
G-Lamothe
D-Ryazantsev, Karpovsky, Rakhunek, Murphy, Zhukov, Vasiliev, Krasotkin
F-Mikhnov, But, Nepryaev, Shafigulin, Schastlivy, Tkachenko, Shvidky, Korolev, Galimov, Vlasenkov, Yashin, Antropov, Kryukov

Avangard
G-Maracle
D-Gusev, Nikitin N., Koltsov, Guskov, Panov, Nikitin I., Bondarev, Tverdovsky
F-Zatonsky, Perezhogin, Kuriyanov, Popov, Bednar, Khatsey, Prokopiev, Subbotin, Nazarov, Jagr, Kalyuzhny

Probably not the names you were expecting to see.

Some more Russian hockey coverage over here in NA:

Bladed messenger - from the Toronto Star

Between August and December of 2004, Dave Bidini travelled (sic) with a film crew 4,000 kilometres, West to East, across Russia looking for the story of hockey. The results of his trip are The Hockey Nomad Goes to Russia, airing Monday at 9 p.m. on CBC, and the following piece, which relates some of the highlights.

Missing home in the homeland - From the St. Petersburg Times about Nikolai Khabibulin’s return to Russia.

Rough translation - From the St. Petersburg Times

Tampa Bay Lightning star Vinny Lecavalier returns home this week after four months of playing hockey in Russia, exiled because of the NHL lockout. This month, Times staff writer Tom Jones and photographer Dirk Shadd traveled 26 hours over three days to Kazan, 412 miles east/southeast of Moscow, to chronicle what Lecavalier described as the experience of a lifetime.

Posted by David M Singer on Mar 27, 2005 at 06:07 PM
Euro Hockey • Media • NHL

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