North Americans Bure-d by World Team, 9-4

Valeri Bure had seen his brother do it so often that it left him unmoved.

Three goals? As a kid, playing on the frozen lake outside their apartment building in Moscow instead of going to school.

As a member of the Red Army team.

On Sunday, in the 50th NHL All-Star game.

“He plays like this in Florida all the time,” Bure said of brother Pavel, whose hat trick earned him the game’s MVP award and powered the World All-Stars to a 9-4 win over the North American team before 19,300 at the Air Canada Centre.

“I don’t think he played so differently than usual.”

The Brothers Bure are separated by three years--Pavel being the elder at 28--and geography. Pavel plays for the Panthers and leads the NHL with 37 goals. Valeri is having a breakthrough season at Calgary with 28 goals and 52 points.

They were separated by a few feet of ice early in the second period when Valeri sent a backhanded pass his brother’s way, then watched Pavel score past New Jersey Devil goalie Martin Brodeur, who had been on the ice for only 33 seconds.

Eight minutes later, the same combination clicked for a 5-2 World lead, enough as it turned out.

Bure’s third goal was mere window dressing, coming in the third period and serving to make certain any MVP doubts were removed. Nicklas Lidstrom assisted, helping embellish his somewhat pretentious title of Captain of the World.

Helping his brother was special for Valeri Bure.

“Assisting on your brother’s goals, it doesn’t get better than that,” said Valeri, who combined with Pavel for six points, a record for brothers in the game, one point better than that of the brothers Richard, Maurice and Henri, in 1957 and ’58.

Well, how about your brother assisting on your goals?

“Maybe next game,” he said, laughing.

Not that Pavel didn’t try. With three minutes to play, they sailed down the ice on a two-on-one and big brother sent the puck to the kid, who was bearing down on goalie Mike Richter of the New York Rangers and . . . passed it back.

“It is a kind of funny situation because after the second period we were talking in the dressing room,” Pavel said. “I told him, ‘If we have a two-on-one, just go to the off post. I will give you a pass, and shoot it right away.’ ”

But Valeri has a sense of history. Four goals, and all that. Besides, “you know, younger brother never listens to older one,” Valeri said.

Their mother, Tattiana, was in town from Moscow and can probably testify to that.

The World All-Stars won for the first time in the three years of this format and were coached by Detroit’s Scotty Bowman, who held a Saturday meeting and referred to some of the locker-room education the NHL has been administering all season.

Said Bowman: “I said, ‘I know you have had all this diversity training, but . . . as soon as I finish talking, I don’t want to hear another word of Russian, Czech, Slovakian, Slovak, Finnish, Swedish--I turned to [goalie Olaf] Kolzig, I said, ‘What are you?’ He said, ‘German.’ German, French, that’s it.”

Bowman added that he was kidding the troops.

“They looked at me and I think they kind of believed me for about a second,” he said, grinning.

Languages notwithstanding, Bowman used nationalistic fervor to the World’s advantage, having Russian Viktor Kozlov, like Pavel a Panther, center the line with the Bure brothers and using Scandinavians Mats Sundin (Toronto), Teemu Selanne (Mighty Ducks) and Sami Kapanen (Carolina) as a unit.

“This is what they do in that room,” said Bowman, pointing back to the dressing room. “They all have their friends and they talk together. Naturally, they are going to be comfortable with their own people.”

It apparently worked, in part because of the Bure brothers.

“I don’t think I can say that much about him,” said Valeri, who then went on to say plenty about his brother.

“He is a very electrifying player, brings a lot of fans out of their seats.

“I am his biggest fan and sometimes when I am watching, I am doing a lot of standing.”

On Sunday, he was standing particularly close.

“I was playing with my brother,” Pavel said. “He set up two goals for me. He was on my line and he helped me to get MVP, so it is just a special night.”