On Frozen Blog

The principal reason you saw so little advance buzz about Alexander Semin’s potential impact on the Caps this season was the conventional judgment rendered upon him by the MSM — and the local MSM especially: malcontent . . . pariah . . . selfish and self-absorbed . . . isolated and unwilling to embrace his new culuture and teammates. Dave Fay of The Washington Times spent a fair bit of the past three years launching regular missiles themed in this manner at him. Some of them were merited.

And yet I wonder how many of the press who savaged Semin the past couple of years ever attempted, as monolinguistic teenagers, to hurl themselves into wholly foreign cultures — let alone within the bright lights of super scrutinized North American professional sports — and transitioned smoothly, seamlessly?

There is no rote formula for transforming a Russian teen, one who left all of family and friends behind overseas, into an apple pie-eating, happy-go-lucky North American. What worked for Ovechkin won’t necessarily for others from across the pond, even his countrymen contemporaries. English is one of the most difficult languages on the planet to gain command over — just read Michael Wilbon columns.

Out at Asburn, Va., the first couple of days of training camp last month I paid particular attention to Semin’s interactions among coaches and teammates. The first two or three days I noticed him performing fabulously through drills and scrimmaging but generally reclusive stationed in drill lines or instruction circles — even relative to the consistently quiet demeanor of other newcomer roster candidates also from non-North American cultures. At this point in camp there had already been considerable attention focused on the fact that two years after his initial term in D.C., Semin was back and still not speaking English.

Then, almost like a lightswitch being turned on, I saw a markedly different Semin on or about day 4 or 5 of camp. The corner gates of the rink had just closed behind the Zambonis on this morning, Kolzig was first out on the fresh ice, and Alexander was immediately behind him. By themselves the two began an entertaining game of shooter-against-netminder showdown from crazy angles and with skill-showcasing, showoff-styled razzle-dazzle by the young Russian. I noticed quickly this: Semin was smiling. He was having fun. And it wasn’t lost on me that his partner in this exercise was the Capitals’ long-acknowledged team leader.

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.