FanPost

Slava Fetisov and the politics of Russian hockey

Interesting that Slava Fetisov recently suggested a rule prohibiting young Russian hockey players from leaving the KHL before age 28. Ironic especially since Fetisov is given the most credit for breaking the Iron Curtain and initiating the wave of Soviet players that made the move to the NHL in the early 1990s. Fetisov, now a senator in Russia, returned to Russia over a decade ago to become the Minister of Sport and helped establish the KHL.

Yet what's especially interesting is that Fetisov was featured prominently in a documentary called "Red Army" which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival just last year, in which he tells the story of his epic struggle to convince the Soviet bureaucracy to let him leave for the NHL. His efforts were at an impasse as the Soviet government told him he could go to the NHL, but he would have to turn over the majority of his salary to the government and live on $1000 per month. Eventually, he argued with the Minister of Defense by storming his office and won his freedom (I liken this to Jeremy Roenick showing up at the Pentagon to argue with Donald Rumsfeld). In this interview, published just two months ago, he expressed his anger over being treated like a slave, as property of the Soviet government.

I'm sure Fetisov would say the circumstances are different. KHL players are paid well, are not entangled with military obligations, are not subjected to four-a-day practices, and Fetisov himself didn't leave the Soviet Union until he was 31 and that he would have been qualifited to leave under his proposed rule anyway. That the nature of drafting prospects and holding their rights until they are eligible for unrestricted free agency is no different from the kind of curtailment of freedom that he proposes.

Final thoughts:

1. I have got to find the time to watch this Red Army documentary.

2. Much of the Devils' side of the story, including how John McMullen predicted in 1983 that the Soviet Union would start to open up and told Max McNab to use late draft picks on Soviet stars, is summarized in this ancient news clipping.

3. The same article from 1989 quotes Lou: "I went to Moscow twice...I went alone. I depended on Soviet interpreters. I showed them I trusted them. I did this intentionally, because of the magnitude of the players. Slava is a national hero over there. Honestly and truly, I never had any indication that anyone was watching me. I went wherever I wanted to go. I never had an uneasy feeling there."

- If you didn't know it, Lou Lamoriello was/is a bad ass. Samuel L. Jackson himself would call Lou Lamoriello "one bad m______." The guy went to the Soviet Union near the height of the Cold War to poach their best defenseman and claims he was cool as a cucumber the whole time.

- "Because of the magnitude of the players"...classic Lou-ism, no?

- In classic Lou form, he straight up lied at the time of Fetisov's defection about not feeling that anyone was watching him. In discussing the Red Army documentary:

The film...has Lamoriello expanding on bringing a contract to the former Soviet Union for Fetisov to sign, only to be rebuffed by authorities. Fetisov and Lamoriello recall meeting in a "bugged" hotel room and communicating via pencil and paper.

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