Ray Emery Signs In Russia

[Canadian_Yzerman_Fan 7]

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/2008/07/09/emery_russia/

maybe a good year abroad will give nhl teams some interest in him returning... im sure that's what he's hoping

[NeverForgetMac25 483]

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/2008/07/09/emery_russia/

maybe a good year abroad will give nhl teams some interest in him returning... im sure that's what he's hoping

Maybe a good year away from the NHL will give him the attitude adjustment he needs to give NHL teams some interest in him returning.

[Gordie Howe hat trick 110]

It's too bad it went this way...I always liked him...hopefully he gets the adjustments that he needs to come back.

[Guest Four]

Hopefully he knows Russian >.>

[Guest Dump-N-Thump]

Bummer i kinda wanted him.

[edicius 3,269]

Great, now he's gonna join the Russian Mafia.

[lets go pavel 2]

Hopefully he knows Russian >.>

nah, he'll let his fists do the talking ... they transcend language barriers ...

[shoe 165]

I can see him getting in a few fights some of those Russians have a real nasty streak in them eg Markov, kasperitis I'm sure there are more of these types of personalities waoting for a chance to play some head games with him.

Wonder if he will get any rasist comments. Bold move I'll be interested in how he does.

[P. Marlowe 748]

I can see him getting in a few fights some of those Russians have a real nasty streak in them eg Markov, kasperitis I'm sure there are more of these types of personalities waoting for a chance to play some head games with him.

Wonder if he will get any rasist comments. Bold move I'll be interested in how he does.

Yeah, Russians...

[JayUp88 1]

In Soviet Russia road forks you.

[3chrisosgood0 7]

as long is his destination wasnt detroit im happy

but i am a bit suprised no NHL team took a shot on him hes not a bad goalie

wasnt he in net when ottawa beat detroit this year i believe he played well that game too

but i may be wrong

[HomeNugget 2]

Wow. In 06-07 i thought he was gonna be in the next generation of great goalies along with Lundqvist, Fleury and Lehtonen.

[Guest Shoreline]

Good for Emery, bad for NHL.

Seems it's becoming popular for players who come under major scrutiny to run off and hide in another league. [points to Emery, Jagr, and Yashin]

Edited July 9, 2008 by Shoreline

[Rivalred 630]

If this dude can not keep his attitude together there he will prob end up in a Siberian Prison...

[blues_demitra38 11]

Am I the only one that's a little alarmed by this? First Jagr and now Emery, two significant NHL names to go to Russia. Add that to all the stuff I've been hearing that the rising NHL salaries is in part due to competition from Russia and it makes me slightly uneasy.

Edited July 9, 2008 by blues_demitra38

[Guest Dump-N-Thump]

nah, he'll let his fists do the talking ... they transcend language barriers ...

violence is a language that everyone understans.

[Zion 93]

Jagr and Emery going to Russia doesn't bother me one bit. Granted, Jagr is(was) still an exciting player, seeing Cashin and Tyson out of the NHL is good for the league.

[Inultus 12]

An idiot, but a good fighter and capable of being a great goalie. Hopefully he gets his head where it belongs.

[Detroit # 1 Fan 2,204]

I hope Jagr lights him up.

[deltsig87 3]

ha, not surprised at all. this clownshoe goalie will be a perfect sideshow in that circus they've got going on over there

[omnipotent_hudler 0]

In Soviet Russia, team lets down Emery!

[2forinterferance 0]

Good i never liked him anyways, i hope him and Yashin enjoy playing with each other.

[12Newf 0]

Great, now he's gonna join the Russian Mafia.

this is the first thing i thought of haha.

[egroen 384]

I don't know if these guys have any idea what they are in store for... check out Lecavalier's experience in Russia:

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/27/Lightnin...anslation.shtml

For four months, those sheets of ice were in Russia. The 24-year-old moved from his swanky place on sunny Harbour Island to a hotel room in eternally overcast Kazan, a depressed industrial city of 1.2-million people in the middle of Russia.

Each day was a struggle with a strange, harsh language, the brutally cold winter and his friends, family and girlfriend eight time zones away. But Lecavalier refused to give in to the surroundings and isolation, choosing instead to look for the bright side of this experience.

...

The city of Kazan is surrounded by poverty. Most folks make, maybe, the equivalent of $100 a month. Bedsheets cover the windows of the homes, themselves little more than a pile of two-by-fours held together by a few rusty nails. They are so tiny and dilapidated that it appears a stiff wind or small child could level them in seconds.

But inside the city, the environment changes. Lecavalier's hotel is across the street from Kazan's breath-taking Kremlin, where Ivan the Terrible and Genghis Kahn once lived.

Ak Bars Kazan ("The White Bear") is owned by the government and sponsored by Tatneft, a big oil company, and, if the rumors are true, the Russian mob. "I don't know about that," Lecavalier said with a smile.

...

When Lecavalier is in Kazan, Russia is tolerable and, dare we say, occasionally pleasant. Lecavalier's hotel suite inside The Mirage - a five-star hotel as posh as any $1,000-a-night room in the Big Apple - feels like a small apartment. There's a spacious living room full of furniture, a television and high-speed Internet hookup.

...

Most of the arenas in the Russian league aren't too bad. They seat 1,000 to 4,000. The nicest is in St. Petersburg, which holds 14,000 and almost feels like an NHL arena. Kazan is constructing a 12,000-seat arena that should be ready for next season.

The worst are the ones in the farthest outposts, such as Siberia. One rink was so cold that Lecavalier never broke a sweat and his feet were frozen for the entire game.

...

"They had one shower," said Kazan goalie Fred Brathwaite, a native of Ottawa and former goalie for four NHL teams. "And when I say "shower,' I mean like a spigot you would find in a kitchen sink just sticking out of the ceiling. Take one guess if the water was hot or not."

The hotels in Moscow and St. Petersburg are endurable. Everywhere else in the 16-team league is hit-or-miss. Sometimes the food is inedible. Often the bathrooms are small and dirty.

...

Players often bring their own towels on road trips. Before one trip, the players were told they might want to bring a toilet seat. On another trip, Lecavalier needed his own toilet.

After a road game in Siberia in January, Lecavalier was hit hard by the flu at a decrepit airport and needed a bathroom. Immediately.

Pointed to a room, Lecavalier raced through the door only to find a hole in the floor. When he was done, Lecavalier, with no Charmin in sight, had no choice but to sift through his wallet and find the smallest denomination of bills. It cost him about 100 rubles, or about three bucks and change.

Lecavalier's flu became so severe he had to be hospitalized for a day and treated with IVs in Kazan.

"That hospital ... I felt like I was in the 1930s in some old Hollywood movie," Lecavalier said. "It was really old. Some general came and got me and brought me into the room. I was the only guy with a room. All the rest, the military people, were in one big room with the beds lined up next to each other. They were carrying people on old stretchers. I felt like it was World War II."

...

Not this much hockey. Unlike the NHL, where teams practice once a day for 45 minutes to an hour and usually are off once or twice a week, Russian hockey is like CNN: all day, every day. Ak Bars, like most Russian teams, practices at least once a day and often twice a day.

From his arrival on Nov. 25 to the last game on March 22, Lecavalier had three days off. Two were in December when the league was supposed to be on a 10-day hiatus.

...

Even the night before home games, teams are locked away in a military-like base (the players say bah-say). They eat dinner at about 7, go to bed by 11 then head back to the rink the next day for a morning skate. Then it's back on the bus and back to the "bah-say" for lunch and a nap.

"That's the way Russian hockey is and, really, the way Russian society is," Kasparaitis said. "Everything is structured. When I was in kindergarten, for nap time, all the kids had to lay the same way - on your side with your hands next to your head. That's just the way it is."

Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, a former Olympic star of the former USSR and an assistant coach for the Phoenix Coyotes, coaches Ak Bars with what would seem like an iron fist if this wasn't Russia. He speaks fluent English but not around the team. During practice and before, during and after games, Bilyaletdinov addresses the team only in Russian, occasionally leaving Lecavalier alienated in the one place he is supposed to feel most at home.

When Bilyaletdinov speaks, Lecavalier isn't sure if the coach is praising or criticizing, motivating or pleading, joking or threatening. Even when Bilyaletdinov is diagraming plays on a grease board, Lecavalier is lost, not sure if the coach is talking about defense or offense, his team or the other team. Video sessions? Forget it.

So Lecavalier stares straight ahead, acts as if he follows and keeps a serious look on his face.

"I never go first during drills in practice," Lecavalier said. "I couldn't. I just wait and do what the guy in front of me does."

...

Despite the reputation international hockey has for being free-flowing and exciting, the Russian game plods along with few scoring chances, an emphasis on sitting back and playing smothering defense and more clutching and grabbing than a football game.

Few penalties are called by referees, who might or might not be on the up-and-up.

"Much of the time, the referees are paid off," Kovalev said. "You can tell a few minutes into the game. If you see a bunch of penalties early in the game against one team, then it's, "Oh, looks like someone got to him.' If it's even early, not too many penalties, then you know the game is on the level. Still, it's dirty out there, way more dirty than the NHL. And it's slower.

"Overall, it's not as fun or exciting as the NHL, but it still can be good when it is played right."

...

The difference between the top and bottom is more than location in the standings. The top teams fly charter planes, play in decent arenas, stay in hotels.

"Fortunately, Kazan is a first-class organization," Lecavalier said.

The bottom teams are lucky to get paid. One team hasn't been paid since March 2004, so the players went on strike. They were replaced by unknowns and played against Lecavalier's team.

"Some of those guys were like (13 years old)," Lecavalier said. "Seriously. But they played us tough."

...

"It is a different game over here," Lecavalier said. "The ice is bigger, but the buildings are smaller. You're used to playing in front of 18,000, and some nights you might play before a couple of thousand or a few hundred. I like the NHL better. With all the hooking and slashing and clutching and grabbing over here, I'll never complain about the NHL again.""

Who knows? Maybe it will be good for him?

Edited July 9, 2008 by egroen

[zata40 3]

good, the fool can stay there.

Let some young goalie that appreciates the chance to play in the NHL take his spot.