Alexei Cherepanov R.I.P.

Shocking tragedy struck today as one of hockey’s brightest future stars, Alexei Cherepanov, died during a KHL game in an inglorious and spartan rink in the Moscow suburb of Chekhov. Cherepanov collapsed on the bench late in the third period and went into cardiac arrest. He reportedly lost and regained consciousness numerous times while being tried to be revived and waiting for an ambulance, normally at the arena but for some reason having left the game early, to take him to the hospital. Attempts to resuscitate at a hospital were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at 10:55 pm local time. Cherepanov was 19-years old.

Cherepanov burst onto the international stage at the 2007 World Junior Championships, the preeminent junior-aged tournament, featuring future NHL and international stars. Though primarily a tournament for 19-year olds, Cherepanov led the tournament in scoring and was named the best forward by the IIHF. He was 17-years old. He went on to break the scoring record for first-year players in the Russian Super League that season, besting the rookie seasons of current and former Russian NHL superstars like Ovechkin, Malkin, Kovalchuk, Bure, and Fedorov. He was taken in the first-round of the following NHL draft by the New York Rangers, slipping all the way to 17th (largely due to the uncertainty of his moving to North America in the absence of a transfer agreement between Russia and the NHL) despite being considered among the most talented players in the draft. Following an unspectacular sophomore season in the RSL, Cherepanov began this season playing the best of hockey of his career; he was among the league leaders in scoring and had recently produced the longest consecutive points scoring streak in the league this season (at 9 games, he was finally shut out in the penultimate game of his life). He scored earlier in the game today and was by all accounts playing exceptional hockey. The day before his death saw Cherepanov realize a longtime dream: he was named to the Russian National Team.

I had only seen a handful or so of his games, between two World Junior Championships and some KHL games this season, but it was obvious to me that this was a special player. He had the raw skills necessary, but not merely sufficient, to score prodigiously: a phenomenally powerful shot, slick hands and all the dangles, and the speed to get to get to the puck and away from defenders. But perhaps most dangerously, and most required of true snipers, he had the knack to find the puck, fill the open spaces, and the goal scorer’s will and determination to go the net and finish, often with the panache and style reserved only for the greats. And the joy that both follows from and creates all that. Patrick Kane and Kyle Turris (two players selected before him in his draft) will be great NHL players for many years to come, but I think Cherepanov would have become the better hockey player and the more electric scorer. Of course we'll never know. He may not have been the once-in-a-generation-or-two talent that Ovechkin and Malkin are, but Cherapanov was a special, special hockey player that would have tantalized hockey fans for years and years to come.

Beyond my friends and family, many of my greatest joys come from hockey. And more than cheering for any specific team or outcome, I love watching great players do what they do, dance, create, work, think, feel, spin, move, compete, battle, and ultimately, play a great game. Cherepanov was one of those players who made it easy to spot the joy in his game and who brought the same out in me. Whether it was absolutely wiring the puck off one-timers that went screaming over the net, or finding the puck in his feet and flicking a backhander to the top shelf, Cherepanov played the game in the way that I fell in love with it in the beginning. I am really going to miss all the good times I would have had watching him play in the NHL and beyond. I am deeply saddened by his loss and all of ours.

The circumstances surrounding his death are troubling to say the least. The game was played in a tiny arena 40-miles outside of Moscow. The ambulance that should have been there was not and arrived 15 minutes after Cherepanov went into cardiac arrest. There is a video out there (I will not post here because of just how mind-numbingly sad it is) that shows Cherepanov receiving what looks to be very confused and disorganized medical attention on the bench. Players are looking over him while trainers who do not appear to be doctors look down at him, then up, then around, then back down. There was no stretcher to take him off the bench, rather a group of players carry him into a tunnel with his legs up and in the air and skates dangling limp. It’s a gut-wrenching scene. There are questions as to whether the defibrillators at the scene were working properly. Just outside a city that boasts more millionaires than any other in the world, a 19-year old (a millionaire in his own right) kid’s heart stopped and started several times as he went in and out of consciousness and struggled to live. Was there really nothing anyone could do to save him? Would those 15-minutes have made a difference? Could it really just end like this?

Laurie from Beyond the Blueshirts has done an excellent job in keeping up with Cherepanov's exploits this season, has a translation of Cherepanov's first and last blog entry written last week.

Rest in peace, young Alexei. My thoughts and prayers are with your family, friends and teammates.

UPDATE: A nice look-back on the ways in which Cherepanov was misunderstood as a player and a person by Gare Joyce. We'll never know just how much we lost yesterday.

UPDATE II: NY Times' Slapshot blog has the translation of a very vivid and unbearably sad account of the events from Russian journalists at the game.

photo 6 or video 1: the world's first perfect song or how i learned to stop worrying about state-sponsored class warfare and love dogs

Many goings on lately: an absolutely enlightening piece on Democracy Now! about the House's initial failure to pass the inevitable corporate bailout (PS - Bruce Marks is my new homey); NHL heavyweight the NY Rangers miraculously though predictably come from behind to defeat KHL also-ran Metallurg Magnitogorsk in the inaugural Victoria Cup in beautiful Bern (PS - the best KHL teams equal the good NHL teams on big ice and it makes for spectacular hockey); and perhaps most importantly (at least in terms of escapism), a new TV on the Radio album this week (PS - it is phenomenal and not hyperbolic to be deemed the best album I've heard in a long time). Special recognition for my current favorite song of all-time, "Love Dog" ("lonely little love dog, no one knows the name of"): my experimentally clunky yet sincere ode to this ridiculously great song and an even more ridiculous dog:

Snow Leopards Maul Siberian Hawks: the KHL Descends Upon Us

This week saw the first regular reason action of the much anticipated Kontinental Hockey League. The KHL is essentially the old Russian Super League reconstituted with a few new teams from former Soviet republics and, more importantly, an infusion of cash from state sponsored oil giant Gazprom and other psuedo-national, mega-companies that are, apparently, swimming in money compared to just a few years ago. Consequently, the new league is throwing tons of cash at players in Europe and, gasp!, even the NHL, and has already succeeded in stealing star-in-the-making Alexander Radulov away from the Nashville Predators and into the waiting and ruble-filled arms of Salavat Yulayev Ufa. Radulov scored 26-goals as a 21-year old on a defensive team and with little quality power play time. That's wildly impressive. But of course, because he is no longer playing in the NHL, he is by definition a mediocre player. Much in the same way that governments the US supports are by definition "democracies" and those the US opposes are "terrorists." But I digress.

I've always been a fan of the Russian players because of their skills with the puck and offensive creativity: criss-crossing rushes, drop passes, the dipsy-doodles, etc. Much of this comes from the fact that the game, as in all of Europe, is played on a wider ice-surface, meaning there is less collisions with opposing players, more time and space with the puck, less play along the boards, less shots on net, etc. It's a bit of a different game, and I like watching the European game from time to time. The new KHL has accumulated by far the best talent outside of the NHL, including some very good non-Russian players, like Jaromir Jagr, Pavel Rosa, Ray Emrey, Niko Kapanen, Mattias Weinhandl, and Mark Hartigan, to name a few. It should be an interesting season and I plan on posting some recaps and thoughts from the KHL throughout the year.

Up first is the first game for two of my favorite teams, Avangard Omsk vs. Ak Bars Kazan. The grudge match between the always wily Hawks and the ever elegant Snow Leopards. Omsk lies in Siberia and was previously owned by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich before he sold to Gazprom. Ak Bars is run by Taftnet, the local oil company, and treasure of the state of Tartarstan. The Tartars are a particularly proud ethnic bunch, I hear. Omsk is led by Jagr who plays on an all Czech line, with former LA King Pavel Rosa (a nifty and highly skilled player, very under-appreciated in NA hockey fan circles) and former Washington Capital Jakub Klepis. Omsk also has NY Ranger draft pick Alexei Cherepanov, who is going to be one of the top scorers in the NHL one day, mark my words. Ak Bars is my team from the lockout year when they loaded up on talent to celebrate the city's 1,000th year anniversary (Russia is an old country) but which ended in failure and a first-round loss. They won the title the following year though (1,001 years is still pretty cool) on the strength of the best line in European hockey for three years now, Alexei Morozov (my former favorite player), Sergei Zinovjev, and Denis Zaripov.

I thought the game was very fast-paced and filled with intensity and obvious skill. Generally, games on the large ice are thought to be more tactical, more of a chess-mass, lots of possession, less "random crazy shit," as I would put it, happening than in an NHL game. But I didn't find that to be the case, for better or worse I'm not sure, in this game. The puck was changing possession constantly, and though there was some serious high end skill, there was also a fair amount of sloppy play. I thought the players were moving too fast for their hands and heads to catch up some of the time, creating turnovers in the neutral zone and at the blue lines. Of course, there were much less hits than an NHL game, but far more dump-ins than I was expecting. I guess when teams line up five defenders at the red line, what can you do?

Jagr looked alot like the Jagr from the beginning of last season on the Rangers. He was controlling the puck well down low, but struggling to create real scoring chances (though he did set up the game's first score). He was, however looking to shoot, like the Jagr of the end of last season, and fired numerous wristers either into the body of former Islanders back-up Wade Dubielewicz or off the back boards. You have to imagine at some point those are going to go in and Jagr should challenge, along with maybe Radulov and Morozov, for the point scoring title. Cherry looked good early but hardly played the second half of the game, with Jagr taking his shifts. Hopefully, it was a minor injury and not some silly head coaching move, but with those wacky Russian coaches, you really never know. As for Ak Bars, Morozov and Zaripov are beautiful together (Zinovjev is out injured it seems). Zaripov scored on an laser beam from the slot (2nd goal in the highlights), a top-level NHL wrist-shot for sure. With the game tied late in the 3rd, it was Morozov time; the captain scored two goals, the first on a slapper down the left wing (don't think I ever saw him do that in a Penguins uniform) and the second on a beautiful set-up from Zaripov which sent the water bottle flying (I highly recommend watching it multiple times). I don't think there's any doubt (and the good NHL GM's know this) that he could put up big points in the right situation in the NHL, but when you see how happy Alexei is after he scores each of the last two, it starts to make sense as to why he's not interested in the NHL anymore (it also makes sense when you consider how much happier his insanely hot wife probably is in Russia). Grigori Shafigulin (who I remember really liking from the 2005 World Junior team) scored on a pretty 3-on-4 shorthanded breakaway, a goal which turned the tide for Kazan. It was a good first effort from what I predict will be two of the top teams in the League. The game, especially the second half, was marred by an endless parade to the penalty box and almost constant and ineffective power plays, often from borderline penalty calls. Hey, maybe the KHL and NHL aren't so different after all?