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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I don’t think it will affect him adversely. He seems more laid-back now, just going about his business.
I almost wish AO would have skipped the WCs just to rest up and then get started early training for next season.
No reported incidents of Semin this season with the capitals so this doesn’t impact anything except for fueling Semin bashers and the doom and gloomers.
Clearly, the kid still has some growing up to do. Hopefully, this lesson, thankfully learned on someone else’s dime, will hasten his maturation.
aside from the fact that he plays for them i dont really see what this has to do with the caps. we all already knew he has some growing up to do, hes a kid.
Just another example of the Russian hockey bosses still thinking like they’re back in the days of the Soviet Red Machine. Any doubt why their stars flee the country the first chance they get, legally or illegally.
Despite my criticism of Semin’s (3-year-old) foul-ups in the past, I’m kinda ambivalent about this one. It also sounds like there might have been a miscommunication, and given the poor weather on Sunday and Monday, Semin may have gotten a flight that would have landed him on time after talking with his coach, but it got cancelled. I’m not sure how international flights were effected.
But the comments section in Tarik’s blog is hilarious.
Maybe they wanted an excuse to open up room for a couple players that will be available real soon.
I doubt it is to open up space for players (though the RSL playoffs just ended a bit ago). They have few NHLers agreeing to play as it is.
I think it might have to do just with the ambivalence towards Semin in Russia. he has been booted off a National team before, if I recall correctly because of issues with a coach and get put back on by his teammates asking him to be allowed back. There is a history.
TSN is a little late to the party, but they now have an article about it:
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=204661&hubname=nhl
Alex Semin said he was looking forward to play in the World Championships. I doubt he would have intentionally come late to practice. He must be very disapointed. Something else must be going on that we are not aware of. He has shown quite a bit of maturity this season, minus a few goofy incidences at the end of the season (i.e. the puck throwing incident). Maybe the US team can use him.
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