Word: russianizing
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...strong singles teams, however, may have come at the expense of the traditionally favored pairs and ice dancers. Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier will challenge the Russians in pairs, while teams from France and Canada could finish ahead of the leading Russian ice-dancing entry...
Eventually, in 1989, Fetisov was allowed by President Mikhail Gorbachev to emigrate and led the Detroit Red Wings to two Stanley Cups. He now lives in suburban New Jersey, where he works for the New Jersey Devils. Yet he has agreed to coach this year's Russian Olympic team. For free. "It would be the easiest thing for me to turn my back. I have my family here. I have a nice house," he says. "But I can't say no to the people of Russia. People who raised me, who gave me education--how can you deny them...
...Fetisov, who says he was privately recruited by President Vladimir Putin, took the job, and he now has to struggle with both the past and the present problems of Russian hockey. He must negotiate with the same hockey authorities who tried to derail him--and who still hate him for opening the floodgates out of Russia to the riches of the NHL for many players after him. Those players are now millionaire hockey stars, and although they owe their careers to Fetisov's bravery, he has nothing with which to recruit them for the Russian Olympic team...
Four years ago, when NHL players entered the Olympics for the first time, many Russian players refused to play for the motherland. This year Florida Panthers player Pavel Bure, with the support of other Russian NHL players, lobbied for Fetisov to coach in a closed meeting with Putin. Soon after, Russian hockey execs buckled. So there's nothing they would like to see more than Fetisov coming home without a medal. "I don't want to get into details, but everything I try to do, they try to sabotage," he says. "I was fighting for freedom and democracy...
Fetisov is determined to make it through this experience in the traditional Russian way--by suffering. It is his third act of patriotism. In addition to not defecting, he chose not to escape when he was caught in Moscow during the coup that took Gorbachev hostage. Instead, he and his wife went into the streets and stood in front of the tanks...