Dave King's book

[Choice]

I actually wrote a paper on the city of Magnitogorsk in college, its orgins during Soviet times, etc. Im looking forward to readingthis.

 

[Muscle Bob]

Wow, according to Velichkin King acted really weird:
http://www.sovsport.ru/gazeta/default.asp?date=2007/11/14&id=274095

 

[Muscle Bob]

Full interview:
http://www.sovsport.ru/gazeta/default.asp?date=2007/11/15&id=274154
Velichkin is a man

 

[cska78]

how do you know he's telling the truth? (velichkin)

 

[Muscle Bob]

how do you know he's telling the truth? (velichkin)

Of course, part where he speaks about his salary is very questionable, but I doubt he lies about King demading salary increasing while staying in the USA and not going to join the team untill his requirments will not be satisfied.
Also, we all know a lot of stories when foreigners play here and like everything, but as only they leave, we read interesting interviews about their awful life in Russia.

 

[ALF AmericanLionsFan]

Bob, can you translate what article basically says?

 

[Muscle Bob]

Bob, can you translate what article basically says?

About the black bag with money.
There are documents not money, they (Metallurg) use credit cards to pay.

About the team doctor being a gynaecologist.
His proffesion is urologist, but he has been working as a surgeon in traumatology for a long time. He also saved Malkin's life when he was hit from the back and his tongue "fall back", Novikov saved him.

About Gudzek being an pharmacologist and doing "strange" injections to players.
Gudzek hasn't been working in the club since 1997, and he hasn't been doing any injections, he is a fitness coach. The injections were made, but there were vitamins. The injections weren't made to everyone, players knew what was in the injections. There is a doping control in every playoff. Metallurg players have never been caught, except one case in 2000 year playoff, but sample B has shown that no doping had been used.

About why King makes such strange suggestions.
Velichkin: "To sell his book better. I, of course, understand that in the NHL the players are treated by auto-suggestions and hypnosis. Or restore their strength by eating magic cutlets. But do you know that when during the lockout Sykora and Elias have came, they have brought bags with chemistry with themselves ? Pills, medications, ampoules. On every question they have responded "It's ok, these are recovery supplements that are written out by the NHL".
Also, during King, the physics trainings have been controlled by Gudzek, King even hasn't appeared in the gym.

About King's methods.
Metallurg wins the regular season by a large margin, but just before the playoffs they start losing. Velichkin goes to the coaches: "What's happened?" - "We don't know, King doesn't communicate with us". King has been sitting in the office and hasn't been speaking to anybody. No questions, no advices. The contact has been lost. Velichkin has started visiting the office, King has started going mad. If Metallurg has lost a game, their staff run to the office to hide the notebook, because King would crush everything in such moments: tables, chairs.
The second day after Metallurg has lost in the playoffs, King flew to the North America. In the end of the June King demanded his salary being increased by 50%. They have been arguing for 10 days. The team has already got together and King has been still in America. Then they agreed on 25% increasing of his fixed salary for the second season.
After Velichkin has told King that he had been fired, King said: "If you don't want me to write mucks give me as much money as I tell you". So King has got 100% of his year salary only for 8 games.

 

[Muscle Bob]

Damn, I can't edit messages, this

Gudzek hasn't been working in the club since 1997

should be read as

Gudzek has been working in the club since 1997

 

[cska78]

Looks like he's getting the job in "Sibir'"

 

[BogsDiamond]

i think king is probably wrong about the 83 birthdate. as you mention, there are only 2 83 birthdays, kaigs and chistov. i dont think it's kaigs because he only missed one reg season game that year, and the fish seemed to definitely miss more than one. i dont think it's chistov because when the group of magnita players approach king about the fish's problems, they note that he has been with the team for a few years now, and 05/06 was chistov's first and only year with the team. i think it may be evgeni glagskikh who is an 82 birthday, but seems to fit all the other criteria, lots of skill, potential top 6 winger, nhl draft pick, missed 8 regular season games that season. i dont know who else it would be, i think king may have just confused the birthdate year. it's very interesting.

My thoughts exactly.

I'm currently reading the book and I'm at the part where The Fish's teammates are pushing King to allow him back on the team.

I don't think it's Chistov.
Early in the book, didn't he describe Chistov as being a happy go lucky character who dressed like an Eminem clone?
At the same time, I believe he said The Fish was always dour and didn't seem to enjoy hockey at all.

Also, Chistov played in 47 games and all 11 playoff tilts.
That means he only missed 4 games over the entire season.
If he had phantom injuries, as well as a demotion to the farm team, I would guess he'd have missed more than 4 games.

The problem is, if you look at the 05-06 roster for Magnitogorsk, there are only 2 or 3 players born in '83 on that club.
Maybe King made a mistake when he gave his birth date?

Just looking at the numbers, I think you're right aboutEvgeny Gladskikh.
While he's an '82 born player, he was an NHL draftee, only played in 43 of the 51 regular season games and only 7 of the 11 playoff games.

Overall, I've really enjoyed the book.

I'm trying to find another book to read now, one that's a little outside the box.
Not The Game or a Gretzky biography.
I'm interested in The Making of Slap Shot, but it's uber expensive on Amazon.
Any suggestions?

 

[BogsDiamond]

Finished the book and The Fish is 100% NOT Chistov.
During the playoffs King specifically talks about having to call up The Fish due to injuries. Meanwhile, he mentions how Chistov is playing in every game.
And if you check Hockeydb, Chistov played every single playoff game.

I think it's obviously Evgeny Gladskikh. I don't know who he is, but he's the only player that is never really mentioned by name in the book.
King makes a point to mention almost every player on the team at some point. But I don't recall him saying Evgeny's name whatsoever despite the fact that he played in 43 of the teams 51 games.

But I found it fascinating that King said that Gladskikh's skill level was close to being on par with Malkin's.

I'm sure there are dozens (if not hundreds) of players in the world who have NHL talent but never made it due to various circumstances.

Igor Larionov wrote an article for the Players Tribune where he claims there are tonnes of KHL players that are more skilled than NHL players.
But the NHL plays a 'dumber' brand of hockey, and loves it's truculence.
So there could be a Datsyuk 2.0 in the KHL who'll never get a chance at the NHL while players like Zack Ronaldo or Dan Carcillo remain gainfully employed and sought after in the NHL.

I also remember Keith Jones commenting on an NBC telecast that when he'd go home in the off-season his childhood buddies would always raz him about how they couldn't believe he made it despite the fact he was the worst player among them.
Jones made no bones about that fact and he agreed with them.
But he always retorted "You're right. But you quit and I kept playing".

Makes you wonder how many more players with NHL talent are kicking around out there.
Maybe they're in a European league, or perhaps working under a car in a garage someplace.

One more story to bore you all (and all over a thread that was dead for nearly a decade).

The late, great Roger Nielsen once travelled to my hometown as a guest speaker for a hockey symposium.

He told a great story about how the hockey world has blinders on and will overlook great talent because they don't 'fit the mold'.

He told a story about a kid that was a dynamic player and destroying his local Junior B league. This kid was very undersized, but he had great offensive skills. Blinding speed, quick hands, great vision and enough sand that he wasn't scared to go into the hard areas to get the puck.
For 2 or 3 years he either led the league in scoring or was in the top 3. He kept trying to get noticed by the CHL but when he became eligible, he was never picked.
Despite dominating the league for 3 years, he never got drafted and at the age of 19 he quit hockey completely, disgusted with being shafted time and time again due to his size.
The kid was also a great lacrosse player so he continued to pursue that avenue of athletics.
Well as fate would have it, the kid had a very late growth spurt and grew to be 6'3" and 215lbs.
He earned a full-ride lacrosse scholarship in the U.S. and got himself a grade A education.
Meanwhile, after his growth spurt, he suddenly was getting calls from CHL teams requesting he come out for a tryout.
He told them all to piss off.

Neilsen remarked how the hockey world might have turned away the next Eric Lindros. His skills were out of this world, but he was shunned because he played in an era where everyone coveted size so much, if you were under 5'9" you had very little chance to do anything.

I remember watching an undesized dman play for the Windsor Lancers University hockey team named Scott Hillman.
This guy was unbelievable. His skating, passing, vision, shooting - he was clearly their best player.
In fact, he was selected to play in an all-star game pitting the NCAA's best American players vs the CIS's best.
He was the most noticeable player on the ice.
Yet this same kid kept getting passed up for greater opportunities.
Then one year he got a late call to play for an ECHL team.
He recorded 3 pts in his first 3 regular season game and then racked up 7 assists in 7 playoff games.
He never played another ECHL game again.
He went on to have a really nice CHL career recording close to a point-per-game average in that league.

Makes you wonder if he could have made it if someone would have just given him a chance.

 

[malkinfan]

Read Todd Hartje's book, he's the 1st NA guy to go to Russia to play hockey. Then read Brukler's book, the most recent player reflection of the KHL. Many contrasts and changes between the time frames of the 3 books, but also many similarities. Brukler, in particular gives good insights on other players like Tarasenko even.

 

[BogsDiamond]

Read Todd Hartje's book, he's the 1st NA guy to go to Russia to play hockey. Then read Brukler's book, the most recent player reflection of the KHL. Many contrasts and changes between the time frames of the 3 books, but also many similarities. Brukler, in particular gives good insights on other players like Tarasenko even.

I read Hartje's book a few years back and loved that one too.
Some of his stories were fascinating, funny and some sad.

I loved the one story he told about his first day of training camp.
How they went for this long run on the beach. He jumped out ahead and was feeling pretty confident in himself thinking about how he was in pretty good shape and take these pasty, skinny Russian's to task.
Half way through he was gassed and all the Russian players easily trotted past him like he was standing still.
When he got to the finish line (in last place), he was drenched in sweat while the Russian players were bone dry and looked bored.
He couldn’t believe the conditioning these guys had.

Reading about how they spend over 11 months away from their families was brutal. They had to live in dorm’s away from their family and only got to see them a handful of times.
Or the time they were in a hotel, waiting to get the team lunch, and they only received the broth for their soup and none of the meat and veggies because the man in charge of spooning that into their bowls was on break.
When someone asked why the broth guy couldn’t simply do both jobs, he looked at him like he was crazy “That’s his jobâ€.
Communist/Union mentality.

I’ll definitely check-out Brukler’s book.
Thanks for the heads-up!

 

[Yakushev72]

About the black bag with money.
There are documents not money, they (Metallurg) use credit cards to pay.

About the team doctor being a gynaecologist.
His proffesion is urologist, but he has been working as a surgeon in traumatology for a long time. He also saved Malkin's life when he was hit from the back and his tongue "fall back", Novikov saved him.

About Gudzek being an pharmacologist and doing "strange" injections to players.
Gudzek hasn't been working in the club since 1997, and he hasn't been doing any injections, he is a fitness coach. The injections were made, but there were vitamins. The injections weren't made to everyone, players knew what was in the injections. There is a doping control in every playoff. Metallurg players have never been caught, except one case in 2000 year playoff, but sample B has shown that no doping had been used.

About why King makes such strange suggestions.
Velichkin: "To sell his book better. I, of course, understand that in the NHL the players are treated by auto-suggestions and hypnosis. Or restore their strength by eating magic cutlets. But do you know that when during the lockout Sykora and Elias have came, they have brought bags with chemistry with themselves ? Pills, medications, ampoules. On every question they have responded "It's ok, these are recovery supplements that are written out by the NHL".
Also, during King, the physics trainings have been controlled by Gudzek, King even hasn't appeared in the gym.

About King's methods.
Metallurg wins the regular season by a large margin, but just before the playoffs they start losing. Velichkin goes to the coaches: "What's happened?" - "We don't know, King doesn't communicate with us". King has been sitting in the office and hasn't been speaking to anybody. No questions, no advices. The contact has been lost. Velichkin has started visiting the office, King has started going mad. If Metallurg has lost a game, their staff run to the office to hide the notebook, because King would crush everything in such moments: tables, chairs.
The second day after Metallurg has lost in the playoffs, King flew to the North America. In the end of the June King demanded his salary being increased by 50%. They have been arguing for 10 days. The team has already got together and King has been still in America. Then they agreed on 25% increasing of his fixed salary for the second season.
After Velichkin has told King that he had been fired, King said: "If you don't want me to write mucks give me as much money as I tell you". So King has got 100% of his year salary only for 8 games.

When King coached the Canadian Olympic/National teams from 1984-1992, he had a reputation in Canada for being very weird as well. And of course, he became famous for the brilliant conclusion that he made that Brett Hull just didn't have enough offensive upside to be invited to play for Team Canada. Thus, he used his dual-citizenship to play for the USA instead. As it turned out, King proved to be much less than a genius in his appraisal of Hull, who in fact had enough offensive upside to become one of the leading goal scorers in NHL history.