“When we put the Russian Five together, Sergei was actually opposed to it,” said Bowman. “I don’t know if he was jealous of Larionov, but he made Igor play right-wing and he was a small guy. Sergei wanted to play centre. I used to plead with Sergei, ‘you’re a big, strong guy who has to play on the wing.’ He said ‘no.’ ”
Bowman always knew how good the Russian Five were, but he watched their ice time.
“They played such a different style … they were so amazing that all of sudden (defenceman) Konstantinov would be going in on a breakaway. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want the other team ganging up on them so I’d only use them as my trump card in the games, only when I had to. I used them in the third period. But I never told the players that.”
Bowman also chuckled at Fedorov saying he’d treated him differently than a North American.
“When we were in, say, Phoenix, I’d let him miss practice to go and see Anna Kournikova because it was getting serious,” said Bowman, who also thought he gave him lots of work. “His father would look at his ice and if he didn’t get 20 minutes, well (he was upset) … so one year I said ‘OK, if you want to play more, Sergei, why don’t you try defence?’ I talked to Wayne Gretzky about that six or seven years ago and he said to me, ‘I couldn’t play forward and defence. Mario couldn’t do it. Jagr couldn’t play defence. But Sergei could. He was a hell of a player.’ ”
I’m don’t get why Sergei is so bitter, he was loved in this town, won three World Championships and got to play with a dozen HOF’s and was coached by the best ever.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:02 am