Being stuck out of the playoffs doesn’t condemn all NHL’ers to the golf course until Fall. The World Championships take place later this month in Moscow, and the Washington Capitals have confirmed four players from their roster with invitations to compete. Brian Pothier and Chris Clark will suit up for Team USA, and until recently, both star wingers Alex Ovechkin and Alexander Semin had planned to join their native team in Russia. In the past few days, it has been learned that 23 y.o. Semin was clipped from the Russian squad due to missing the start of a rescheduled training camp.
Mike Vogel, the senior writer for the Capitals’ website, has provided some insight in his blog at http://dumpnchase.wordpress.com
“According to Sergei Nemchinov, two-time Stanley Cup winner and one of the Russian coaches for the Worlds, this is the course of events that led to Semin’s dismissal. Nemchinov said he called Semin on Sunday to remind him that he had to report to camp by 4 p.m. on Monday. Semin replied that he wouldn’t be able to make it on time because his plane wouldn’t arrive in Moscow until 7:30 pm on Monday.
Nemchinov said that Semin knew beforehand when he needed to report; the information was given to him last month while Semin was still in Washington with the Capitals. Nemchinov told Semin to get a ticket for an earlier flight so he could make it to camp before the mandated 4 p.m. reporting time. Semin called Nemchinov at 8:20 p.m. on Monday to tell him he was on his way. But by that time the decision to had already been made to cut Semin from the roster.
Nemchinov was asked whether Semin could be forgiven, and he replied that the decision was firm and Semin would not be playing in this year’s Worlds. He was also asked whether the punishment fitted the crime, and Nemchinov claimed that it did, because all the players knew when they had to report to camp. Nemchinov also admitted that losing Semin hurts the Russian team because he is such a good player.”
From an American cultural perspective, it doesn’t seem like the punishment fits the crime at all, but any team can devise its own guidelines. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that the Russian team is run so militarily.
Right now, the ‘fault’ seems to weigh on Semin and/or his agent, but as Caps fans know from the complications with obtaining him for the ’05-’06 roster, the Evgeni Malkin ‘defection’ debacle, and the repeated snubbing of the IIHF, the Russian translation of ice hockey seems to be overshadowed by cultural, fiscal and political issues that have little to do with the game. At least for its players who endeavor to take their game to the NHL.
I’m inclined to believe there are extenuating circumstances and general evidence in all these situations that are only known to those involved and won’t likely be revealed. Russian press doesn’t have quite the same investigative privileges as those in the U.S., and as this is not football, basketball or Nascar we’re talkin about, don’t count on established U.S. media sources to delve beyond their already thin NHL coverage and get to the bottom of this (gasp) hockey story.
Until Russia plays well with others, stories rich with drama and hearsay should be all but expected for their prodigies who seek the North American stage. And count on sports fans to knee-jerk and run with it. Some posters on Capitals message boards already condemn the 23 y.o. winger as attitudinal, or even worse, as a “locker room cancer”. And understandably, it’s trying to coax a fanatic in such a way that they might view the Semin situation with a more objective outlook.
The best I can offer is this: I had an authority complex when I was 23, and probably still am not so much of a ‘joiner’. And you know what? Big freakin’ deal. Though the NHL has a ‘team first’ mentality, it’s certainly not a ‘rank and file type’ military one. Alexander Semin should (hopefully) transcend this experience as a wiser person. And as for the rest of us, there are PLENTY of unknowns here left up to speculation beyond a developing player’s so-called “attitude”.
