Another Sad Saga for Alexander Semin
Mike Vogel today has the lowdown on the news that broke yesterday regarding Alexander Semin's dismissal from the Russian National Team for the upcoming World Championships. The gist: Semin was to report to the Russian team yesterday at 4:00 p.m. local time, for a tournament whose preliminary play begins April 27. His flight delivered him to Russia approximately three hours later.
Vogel notes: ". . . it's somewhat odd that the Russians would be required to report so far ahead of all the other teams, but the team has its reasons for doing so." Semin alerted the Russian coaching staff to his plane's landing in Russia at 7:30 p.m. Monday. That wasn't good enough for the coaches. So he's done.
Necessarily there will be high volumes of e-hand wringing among Semin's critics over this (Code Red for Dave Fay's reporting the remainder of the month), and while there's clearly fault with Semin for not meeting the expectations the rest of his national team teammates apparently were able to, we're not convinced of this incident's adverse impact on Semin's career with the Caps. If anything, it might aid the young man's professional development going forward. It can't be dismissed that Russia imposed reporting requirements for its players no other team in the tournament did. Semin did just complete a full season with the Caps incident-free, relative to his maturity-challenged past. Here's hoping this is his last hard lesson needed.
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