THE NHL : To Keep His Job, He Had to Censor Himself

He is a respected sportswriter, arguably the leading hockey reporter in his country, and author of a 1,000-page book on the sport.

Now he has given all that up to take a low-level job with an NHL club, compiling statistics and writing scouting reports.

Sad end to a bright career?

Just the opposite for Igor Kuperman: It’s more like a bright new beginning after a sometimes sad career.

Kuperman, 33, is that least-chronicled of all strains of the Soviet people--the sportswriter.

Volumes have been written on Soviet athletes, and on the restrictions and expectations placed on them as they labor in the international spotlight.

But Kuperman offers a rare look at the men who report to the Soviet people on the victories and defeats of their countrymen in athletic competition around the world.

He is able to offer that look because, for the last month, he has been working in public relations for the Winnipeg Jets.

Kuperman spent 15 years as a Soviet sportswriter--a decade with Sovietski Sport, purported to be the world’s largest sports newspaper with a daily circulation of 5 million, and the last five years with Sports Games Magazine.

He has also written a 1,000-page hockey encyclopedia.

Growing up in Moscow, Kuperman never played the sport on an organized level.

“We just had free-for-alls,” he said in fluent English. “It was my yard against the next yard, or this block against that block.”

Kuperman outgrew that but never his love of the sport.

When he decided to become a Soviet hockey journalist, he was told by an editor, Dimitry Ryzhkov, that “it would be easier to go through (the eye of a needle).”

But Kuperman persevered and eventually became proficient enough to be given the plum job of traveling outside his country and covering Soviet teams in international competition.

That wasn’t always so easy, especially under former Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev.

Certain members of the sports media in America have been accused, on occasion, of being “homers,” but behind the Iron Curtain in those days, it was either be a homer or go home.

“Brezhnev liked hockey,” Kuperman said. “So when the (Soviet) teams lost, you could write no bad things about them.”

Soviet sportswriters were forced to come up with a checkoff list of excuses to fall back on in case of defeat.

“You could say it was bad refs,” Kuperman said, “or bad ice, or that they (the Soviets) had no luck.

“When they played in North America, the first explanation was the smaller rinks. Then, you could say it was acclimatization or that they (the North Americans) were using their refs.”

And if you didn’t play by the Soviet rules of journalism?

“You did not go anymore,” said Kuperman, referring to the opportunity to cover events outside the Soviet Union.

If you persisted in trying to honestly identify problems with the Soviet team, you could find yourself covering block games such as the ones Kuperman played as a kid.

When it came to obtaining quotes, Soviet reporters were directed to the coach. Players were afraid to comment.

Especially about losses.

“You can’t write bad conversations,” was the way Kuperman put it.

And even if a questionable remark should accidentally slip from the lip of a Soviet player, it never made it into print.

“The player would say, ‘Don’t write about it. The coach will see it,’ ” Kuperman recalled. “The players keep their impressions inside.”

Many Soviet sportswriters, according to Kuperman, write in longhand. Typewriters are sometimes used, but computers at athletic events are unheard of.

It’s not all bad. The dreaded deadline, plague of Western sportswriters, does not afflict their Soviet counterparts. Night results rarely make the next day’s paper.

What surprised Kuperman the most upon arriving in Winnipeg was seeing complete NHL game stories in the next morning’s paper.

Kuperman’s exposure to the West came through Ken Dryden, former Montreal Canadien star. When Dryden did a miniseries on international hockey for Canadian TV, Kuperman was featured in the segment on the Soviet Union.

Kuperman told Dryden about his fascination with the NHL and his dream of coming to the West. Dryden spread the word about Kuperman, and a job offer with the Jets finally materialized.

Kuperman, his wife, Natasha, and 10-year-old daughter, Zhenya, were permitted to come to Canada for only two years.

Beyond that, Kuperman has no idea of his future.

But for now, he’s just soaking up Western culture in general and the NHL in particular.

What has impressed him most?

“The smiles,” he said. “The smiling faces of people and the warmth from their hearts.”

His goal is to learn to write well enough in English to resume his journalistic career.

Quotebook: Pittsburgh Penguin announcer Mike Lange, like Chick Hearn of the Lakers, has his pet phrase when it appears his team has wrapped up a victory. While Hearn puts the game in the refrigerator, Lange announces, “Elvis has left the building.”

In one game, however, an apparent Penguin victory went sour in the closing minute.

Said a quick-thinking Lange: “Elvis has come back for his coat.”