NCAA Int'l beat down

second class hockey citizens no more

 A favorite story line from the hockey snob neighbors north of the border is why Team USA doesn't have more Major Junior players on the World Junior roster, the not-so-subtle implication is the obvious superiority of Major Junior to NCAA. In Ufa 2013, USA's roster was about 65% college kids.  And though there are some terrific Canadian teens playing college puck, not one was selected by Team Canada.  If our media was tres obnoxious, we would prod them about why they have no college kids, but we never do, and why bother?

OK...Canada pushed us around in the Round Robin in Ufa, defeating the Yanks 2-1 in a game not that close.  But USA gets healthy on lousy teams and finds itself in the semis despite 2 RR losses, facing undefeated and favored Canada.  In a game for the USA Hockey time capsule, USA does something WE have never done before (I do have an American passport, so I'll say 'we').  In a game with major international consequences, we not only beat Canada, we blow their doors off.  5-1 smorgasburg, feasting on TWO goalies from the frozen north.  And Canada's goal was a fluke, scored after an obvious blown whistle. Of USA's five goals, two came from a Wisco Badger, two from a BC Eagle and one from a Harvard Crimson (or John, but that might be misleading).  NCAA 5, Canadian Juniors 1.  This little Johnny Hockey from BC had the hardened hockey veterans in the TSN truck chanting his nickname.  His goals were marked down by loggers everywhere with 4 stars.  As USA clung to a 2-0 lead in the 2nd period, this Jersey kid listed at 150 pounds comes down by himself against 2 hulking defenders wearing red and white.  He approaches, pauses, closes in to 25 feet. Then he toe drags the puck like he's going to dangle, forcing everyone to freeze just long enough for him to shoot. WHOOPS! Beats their prized goalie Malcolm Subban on the glove side and I come out from my 

straight-faced professional cover in the truck and utter a loud, immensely satisfying groan.  Oh baby that was one tasty hockey moment in Mother Russia.

Gaudreau added a delightful dessert in the third after being sprung on a breakaway.  Again he chose not to deke, but to fire, again from about 25'.  In stride. Bar down, with a loud clang.  I think the audio is still haunting Jordan Binnington's dreams. That noisy dagger made it 5-1. Game, set and match.  Forgive the mixed metaphors, but it was a precious afternoon in Bashkortostan. USA hockey should gild the scoresheet in gold from that game.  Here's a link.

http://stats.worldjunior2013.com/Hydra/306/IHM306224_74_3_0.pdf

Canada, going into the semis hell bent for gold, fell in OT to Russia in the bronze medal consolation two days later. They returned home in tatters, bearing no precious metal.

A final note on the Yanks: a dozen of them come back to their college campuses with gold medals dangling around their necks, beating Sweden in a tense final. A Badger, an Eagle and a Wolverine return to their frat parties with the honor of being first team All-World.  Now that is a good rap while waiting at the keg.

12 Things Learned in Russia

Over two weeks in the heart of Russia has taught me the following:

1. They love flowers over here, a store every 100 yards or so in Ufa.  A common gift for women, never for men.

2. Happy, polite chatter is not the Russian way.  Other than greeting the cleaning lady, one doesn't throw around a lot of "Good Day" and "How are you" with a sing song voice. The locals sure don't.  If you ask how someone is, it's usually when they are in a cast. Communication is a serious, at times dour, operation. A gruff "Hello" is all you need, if anything.

3. Continuing that dour communication theme, the Russian language itself is more gruff than sing-song. Listening to a translator speak the same message in English with a smile on her voice and then barking the same commands to a third party in Russian makes you wonder if it is the same message. They never take it personally.

4. If you go to a sauna, be prepared to be smacked on the back with a birch tree branch.  It's much hotter and wetter than any sauna you are used to, and you will be given a wool hat to make sure your ears don't get scorched. I recommend that you wear it.

5. DECAF a 4-Letter word.  If you are a decaf drinker in Russia, you are out of luck.  If your server has endless patience and actually figures out that you are requesting coffee with no caffeine, you will be considered an idiot from that point on.

6. I wouldn't recommend driving in Russia. Create your own lane, prepare for contact, and don't expect to see cops until AFTER the accident. Traffic lights are a mere suggestion to the locals.

7. Upgrade??? National airline Aeroflot has significantly improved its fleet. They do not, however, have any IDEA what an upgrade is.  Trying to get from coach into biz class that I know had openings was a trip back in time to days of endless red tape.  Working with 2 employees that were genuinely trying to please, the best they could come up with was to cancel the entire itinerary, pull the luggage from the system, and start from scratch.  Try not to use the line "In America we do this all the time..."

8. Russian Orthodox Christmas is in January 7, Not December 25.

9. Police women wear skirts and high heels. In the dead of winter. No lie.

10. Multi-tasking young professional women do not push designer strollers while running errands. They pull sleds with their bundled up little cherubs as they do their shopping.

11. A single word will save you headaches down the road. Ask your taxi driver "Skolka Rubles?" before driving anywhere.  "Skolka" means "How much." Will save you a fortune over the course of your stay.

12. Many Russian signs are English words, like Toilet for example.  Remember that in Russain, an "H" is an "N" and a "B" is a "V" and "C's" are "S's", and you will have a fighting chance.

Dos-vee-DAHN-ye moy droogs

Beware the Badger

He does not have the panache of his fellow defensemen on Team USA, 1st round hockey heartthrobs like Seth Jones, Jacob Trouba or Connor Murphy, yet, it is Jake McCabe who wears the "C".  His name is right out of a Hardy Boys serial, an axe wielding woodsman from the north woods.  And that's not far from the truth.  The burgh of Eau Claire, Wisconsin claims him as their own, as does the entire hockey-mad state of Wisconsin.  McCabe has embodied that Bunyanesque image for Team USA, standing up to Canada's intimidation tactics in front of his own net in their semifinal 5-1 pasting of the gold favorites, a practice sorely missing from last year's dismal squad. That was in addition to his two first-period goals.  It was a game for the ages for McCabe, one he simply took in stride.
"Gotta keep doing what we're doing, we've been scoring a lot of goals, gotta keep doing that and being solid in our back end."

McCabe Snipe and Celly

For USA hockey fans, the fact that their captain is a Wisconsin Badger is a good thing, a very good thing. Three of the last four USA World Junior Captains have been Wisconsin Badgers, including their last two medal wining teams.  NHL Rangers stalwart Derek Stepan captained the 2010 World Junior Gold Medalists, and he paid a visit to this year's club while they trained in Tarrytown, NY before Christmas.  Bucky the Badger passing the torch.

Derek Stepan leading Team USA to Gold in 2010 

When you look back at other Golden Moments in USA Hockey, Badgers are always playing important roles: Ryan Suter playing McCabe's role in the 2004 Golden Moment in Helsinki World Juniors, and who can forget Mark Johnson's offensive heroics during the Lake Placid Miracle.  This all bodes well for Saturday morning's gold medal tilt versus Sweden.

They are opening Dooley's Pub in Eau Claire at 6:45 AM for the community to gather and watch their native son protect his net and fire pucks with his powerful lumber, as Bucky's incarnation, Jake McCabe, carries this club on it's golden quest.  In the words of the immortal Badger Bob Johnson, it IS a great day for hockey. Indeed.  

Tre Kronor Jinx?

Team Sweden has had enough: consecutive losses to most of these Americans in the last two U-18 World Championships; no WJC victories since 1996 and recent losses in exhibitions in Lake Placid and Helsinki. They's had enough!  So they posed with these fake newspapers and look to flip the script.  Tune in to NHL Network as USA looks to win the third gold medal in the 35 year history of the tournament.

The Long Shadow of the Cossack Poet

Salavat Yulaev, you can never escape his name or his likeness in Ufa or anywhere else in Bashkortostan. The encyclopedias tell us he was a revolutionary, a martyr and a poet, gathering his followers around the same time as George Washington, yet living half a world away.  One of the representatives from the Kontinental Hockey League is a history student, and I asked her for a Russian version of this legend's history.  The following is a rephrasing from KHL's Maria:

In the late 1700's German-born Catherine the Great began her reign in Russia.  In her goal to close the gap with the economic giants of Europe, she made many concessions to the nobles and the ruling class of Russia, at the expense of the peasants.  A lot of poor, yet independent farmers found themselves toiling in factories and mines. Whatever freedom they had enjoyed was lost.

The proud cossacks who roamed the steppes and patrolled the Don River also lost privileges. Their primary income was from sales of fish, but Catherine forbid anyone to take salt.  The loss of salt crippled the Cossacks ability to preserve and sell fish, creating great hardships.  Soon there were two factions, the peasants and the cossacks, feeling the sting of Catherine's leadership, a woman Tsar that could barely speak the Russian language.  The masses needed a leader to unite them.

Young Salavat Yulaev was a Cossack from the Don River region.  When he was young he suffered an illness that left many marks on his skin. When consolidating his power he would show people his scars as a sign of being touched by some higher powers.  He allowed the uneducated to think he was really the late husband of Catherine, Peter the Third, having escaped Catherine's murderous plot.  He was a master at manipulating the hearts and minds of the Russian people.

Salavat's father was a soldier who gained hero's status fighting Poland.  The Russian government sent him to a Bashkir military post, which is how Salavat came to the region.  Catherine's Tsarist regime came to the Bashkirs to occupy the lands in the early 1770's, when Salavat was 19 years old.  Salavat joined his father, uniting the Peasants and the Cossacks in what is known in history books as Pugachev's rebellion.  They killed nobles and burned their estates in brutal class warfare. The intense fighting lasted from 1773 to 1775 before Salavat was finally arrested with all his family as the revolt was  quashed.

Heavy Metal

Much of Ulaev's family was eventually freed, but not Salavat.  He was branded and sent to a work camp in Estonia on the Baltic Sea where he spent over half his life before dying.  He wrote many poems about nature while locked up, and there remains a mystery over the authorship of the 500 poems credited to him.  But his legend lives on, most visibly in the 40 ton mega-statue towering over the Bela River in Ufa.  There is also a championship KHL team named after him,  a city in the Bashkirs, the State Prize and a major street in Ufa.  Mostly, he is part of the rich folklore of this region.

"My Fate is my People's Fate"

Bruce MacGregor on Ufa

Women in high heels dodging traffic in 20 below temps...classic

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/world-juniors/middle-of-nowhere-discovered-in-ufa/article6763755/

Rink Rocking New Year's

Red Scare in Ufa... Thunder Dome in the Urals

Russians and North Americans play a sport by the same name, hockey, but our rivals to the east appear to be playing a different game when motivated, a game in which incredibly fast and strong wingmen are launched like aircraft by passes down the boards for breathtaking flights. The Russian game is built on technical skills: gifted stickhandling and passing to set up premier scoring chances for fleet attackers. Their skaters sprint down the ice in a style not taught in North America; when you see superstar Nail Yakupov in full flight, it is as if he is running on ice.  Russian hockey is artful, often played at blinding speeds, and on this New Year's eve, it was breathtaking.

11 times zones east of North America, nestled in the foothills of the Ural Mountains, is an oil and snow-covered traffic jam of a town that speaks two languages, neither of them English.  8200 passionate hockey fans chose to revel in a packed Ufa Arena on New Year's eve, to watch hockey's historic superpowers, Canada and Russia, collide in a game for the ages.  As the teams took the ice for the opening pomp and circumstance, the love affair between Mother Russia and their national team was so pronounced that it induced goose flesh among the western journalists in press row.  New Year's is the most celebrated holiday in Russia, and the fans were in a celebratory, raucous mood. The women were dressed in sequins and silk, the men in red jerseys and gold stitching. Drink was flowing, passions ran high, steep arena sightlines had fans on top of the action; it was fever pitch in a closed arena.

The in-game game atmosphere was unlike anything I had ever experienced: a relentless surf of human energy, pounding crescendos of thunder after each scoring chance.  There was no need for artificial noise or computer generated entertainment.  Neutral ice regrouping by the supremely skilled Russian masters was accompanied by a guttural human cry that you could feel under your seat:

"Ross - SEE - Ya"  

The red-clad hosts sent waves of offense towards the cat-like Canadian goalie Malcolm Subban. His fluid reflexes stopped half a dozen point blank shots that kept ratcheting up the tension.  You could feel an explosion coming,  the energy growth was unsustainable, something had to give.  To steal a line from Funk legend Parliament, a Russian goal would "Tear the Roof off the Sucker."

As is not uncommon with hormone-popping teenage athletes playing contact sports, someone crossed the line. Man-child Valeri Nichushkin, the supremely talented 17 year old whose performance against the Americans three days prior thrust him into the conversation as a potential first pick overall in June's NHL draft, railed Canada's Tyler Wotherspoon from behind face-first into the dasher boards.  The 5 minute penalty and game misconduct swung all the momentum back to Canada, resulting in 2 decisive power play goals and deflated a balloon that was pumped to dangerous levels. It was now just another well-played hockey game between two medal contenders.

But for the first 12 minutes of this contest, it was a Nascar race driven at breakneck speed down the wall, complemented by insane stick skills, fierce puck battles and glorious goaltending.  The Russians generated 23 shots on goal, (10 is a desired total) even though they were stuck in their own end for a quarter of the period trying to kill Nichushkin's 5 minute major penalty.

The first period was an exhibition no one in press row had seen before, palpable energy affecting us all.  Russia's loss allows them to play one more game than Canada who earned the bye into the semifinals.  In all likelihood these Russian masters will be waiting in the finals to take on the winner of a Canada-U. S. semi. Either of those options will be an opportunity to see a potential 60 minute Russian swarm. Buckle up.