With the NHL on Thin Ice, Russia Goes on Power Play

The array of midwinter diversions in this small Siberian city is not bounteous. You can see the place where Fyodor Dostoevsky spent four years in a prison camp, ice-fish on the Irtysh River, visit the Pushkin library. You can sit back and wait until March for the thermometer to rise above zero.

Or you can watch Jaromir Jagr, the highest-paid player in the National Hockey League, skate at the local arena for the hometown hockey team.

For once -- thanks to a convergence of the NHL lockout, the Czech native’s willingness to forgive Russia for invading his country in 1968 and the changing dynamics of international sports -- Siberia has been blessed.

Jagr, the star right wing for the New York Rangers, arrived in this frigid city of 1.5 million at 6 a.m. on Nov. 12, one of more than 50 NHL players who have sought refuge in the Russian Super League since the lockout began Sept. 15. Waiting at the tiny airport in the predawn darkness were hundreds of fellow players, journalists, city leaders and enthusiastic fans.

“The entire city was on its head,” recalled Masha Pryadukhina, 17.

“I don’t think I would wake up that early for anyone, even for a president,” a somewhat bemused Jagr said later.

By this week, Jagr was already dominating the ice in a match against the Severstal team from northern Russia, scoring a goal and two assists, unleashing pandemonium in the sold-out arena of 5,500 and sending a line of gazelle-legged cheerleaders into cartwheels and screams of “molodyets!” -- great job!

Fans flocked outside after the game for a chance to get their picture taken with Jagr and congratulate him for putting Omsk on the map for something besides the former Stalinist gulag 25 miles outside of town and Sibneft Oil, whose billionaire owner, Roman Abramovich, has taken the ninth-place Avangard team, No. 1 in the Russian Super League last year, under his wing.

“With the arrival of Jagr, for the first time in seasons, today it was impossible to get a ticket for this match,” said Mikhail Mandel, a hockey broadcaster for Omsk Radio and Television.

“I’m a coach myself, and I can say that I am coming to this game with the very greatest of pleasure. For the first time in my life I have seen a player of this dimension. I have never seen a player able to survey the field with such guts, with such a desire to struggle.”

For Jagr -- whose contract at a reported $1.6 million to $2 million specifies he can leave at a moment’s notice if the attractions of the Russian winter turn out to be overrated, or if the lockout ends -- the enthusiasm has been infectious.

“People love hockey here. There’s only one sport, and they just live for hockey,” he said. “It’s good here.”

Several North American veterans preceded Jagr in the trek to Omsk, some even before the lockout, including goalie Norm Maracle (formerly of the Atlanta Thrashers), Alexander Guskov (Columbus Blue Jackets), Oleg Tverdovsky (New Jersey Devils), Yaroslav Bednar (Florida Panthers) and Maxim Sushinsky (Minnesota Wild).

In Moscow, Los Angeles King veteran Alexander Frolov has temporarily joined the former Soviet army team CSKA in his native city for about $500,000 -- the equivalent, in relatively low-tax Russia, of the $1 million he was making pre-lockout in L.A.

“It’s the best situation for me right now: be at home for a little while, see my family, see my friends, play hockey,” the Manhattan Beach resident said.

“I’m not here trying to tell anybody how to play,” he said. “Everybody here is a professional. Everybody here already knows what he’s supposed to do.”

Gradually, $50-a-barrel oil and a booming economy is restoring Russian hockey to what it was in the days when the Soviet government poured huge subsidies into sports and Moscow stadiums were jammed with spectators who lacked other diversions.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 sent Russia’s hockey stars bolting for the West. The young, inexperienced players who remained suddenly had to compete with nightclubs, casinos, restaurants and movie theaters for the public’s attention. Today, the once-mighty CSKA -- which during the Soviet years simply drafted promising hockey players into the army -- is lucky to attract 2,500 to 3,500 spectators to a game.

In the Russian provinces, however, hockey has remained the passion it always was. “Hockey for Siberia is like hockey for Canada -- it’s the people’s game,” said Arkady Alexeyev, spokesman for the Avangard team.

The debut of corporate sponsorship now promises to catapult Russian hockey back to what it once was -- perhaps, many Russians hope, even rising to a close second behind the NHL.

Abramovich, who also recently bought Britain’s Chelsea soccer team, has poured millions into the Avangard lineup. And in Kazan, the capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan, Tatneft Oil has augmented a budget for the AK Bars team now exceeding $80 million a year.

The AK Bars have signed at least nine NHL veterans, most recently free agent Alexei Kovalev, as well as Brad Richards, Nikolai Khabibulin and Vincent Lecavalier of the Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning.

Clearly, the opportunity to play for clubs in Russia, Sweden, the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Europe has eased pressure on the NHL players’ union to agree to the league’s demand for “certainty” in player salaries. The NHL reports it lost $273 million last year on revenues of $2 billion.

In Russia, the entire budget for a mid-level team averages $12 million to $15 million. But teams such as AK Bars and Avangard are upping the ante. Regional governors often throw in perks such as free apartments and cars.

“Russian hockey has been gradually picking up since 1995. It is already on such a level that the arriving NHL players can’t make it seriously better,” said Mikhail Zislis, a writer for the weekly All Hockey. “What is so good about the NHL players coming back to Russia even for the time of the lockout is that they change the atmosphere on the ice.

“Young and medium-generation players now have a very good incentive to prove that they can play on par with the stars, that they can even beat them. The competition is becoming more intense.”

And although many predicted that North American veterans would quickly get bored with the level of play outside the NHL, a large proportion of the emigres to Russia started their hockey careers here, and are quite at home with the larger, European-size rink and faster style of play.

“It’s tough to compare the two,” Jagr said. “This is a bigger size of rink. But in every team now there are at least five or six players from the NHL, and this level is so high, you know, the players are so fast and so strong.”

Some NHL veterans have had trouble adjusting to the disciplined training regimen of the Russian Super League; at CSKA, instead of practicing 40 minutes in the morning as he did in Los Angeles, Frolov practices two hours a day and must report to the training camp for the 24 hours before each game.

“Here, you’re always either traveling or sitting in a camp, and you have no free time. It [stinks],” he said.

Jagr, who played briefly for his hometown Klado team in the Czech Republic before moving to Russia, said he insisted before signing on retaining his signature jersey number -- 68 -- in memory of the year when Soviet troops invaded Prague. Both of his grandfathers died that year.

Had the number not been available, he said, “I would simply be playing for a different team.”

Asked by the Moscow-based website MosNews.com whether he held a grudge, Jagr said no.

“It’s not true that I dislike Russia or Russians,” he said.

In Omsk, Jagr lives in a comfortable apartment at 50 Lenin St.

In the moments before the game with Severstal, the young Czech stood at attention as the flag was raised to the strains of the Russian national anthem. Then he quietly crossed himself and skated onto the ice.

Two minutes 37 seconds into the game, he had already scored a goal. The arena exploded.

“He’s a great player, a brilliant player,” Valery Belousov, the coach for the opposing team, said after the game.

“Jagr remains Jagr, even in Omsk.”