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I giorni pi� freddi scaldano il pi� bene il mio cuore del hockey

At this time I also thought back to some press accounts of both Ovechkin and Dainius Zubrus reaching out to Semin back home in Russia last spring, while the ‘05-’06 NHL season was still being contested. Then the two Russian-fluent teammates were thinking about the future of the Caps, and of Semin’s ability to impact it considerably, and they wanted to communicate to him how strong this room full of young guys growing together was.

Caps’ fans by now know all too well the litany of Semin’s prior transgressions — one-way play early on, a missed team flight later, failure to report to the minors as expected, even a lawsuit filed against him by the Caps. But this outreach by AO and Zubby struck me as an olive branch of sorts, importantly initiated, I thought, by his future teammates and not some team executive. When it was followed with GMGM tearing up his old contract and securing his services under terms that broadcast loudly We want you here and you’re a key ingredient, I saw a semi-sordid past begin to be buried. Watching Semin sizzle snapshots past Kolzig and joyfully play keep-away in the crease that camp morning left me thinking: this locker room is every bit as strong as its individual parts have long claimed it to be.

Assimilation is a complex word. To many it connotes linguistic competence. Today Alexander Semin still requires full translation assistance for coaching and media interaction. But the story of his spectacular start this autumn is that hockey is languageless when it comes to tongues (think about Russian-limited Glen Hanlon successfully, sublimely coaching Belarus recently). After each and every goal he scores he embraces his new teammates on the ice and then, just as Ovechkin did last season, he skates past each of his teammates on the bench and shares his joy with them.

Smiling the entire time.