July 17, 2021

Russians Play Crucial Role in NHL Championship


Russians Play Crucial Role in NHL Championship
The star of the NHL this year, Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevsky. Wikimedia Commons user Michael Miller

The Tampa Bay Lightning just won the NHL championship for the second year in a row. As always in the NHL, Russians were involved. In fact, the Stanley Cup championship-winning and playoff-MVP-trophy-winning goaltender is a guy from the Siberian city of Tyumen: Andrei Vasilevsky.

Only a year and a half ago, Vasilevsky was featured on the cover of The Hockey News as "the NHL's new crease king" – the crease being the blue semicircle in front of the net. His father of the same name was a goaltender in the Russian Superleague.

During these four-round playoffs, Vasilevsky was accused of having more-than-regulation goaltender padding in what the New York Post called "the NHL's dumbest controversy." The publication concluded that it was just a matter of the camera adding 10 pounds. Actually, it is a pretty hilarious photograph and Twitter conversation, here. Extra padding or not, Vasilevsky is recognized by many as the world's top goaltender at the moment.

Living in coastal Florida as they do, the championship-winning Lightning scheduled a celebration boat parade. During the parade, 26-year-old Vasilevsky put his playoff MVP trophy (the Conn Smythe) on his head, and one sports reporter called it the "lasting image of the 2021 NHL season," a season plagued by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Check out the parade video of the team's second-most famous Russian, Nikita Kucherov, or Kuch (pronounced "Cooch"), from Maykop. Kucherov said that the league's best goaltender trophy (the Vezina) was stolen from "Vasy" – a move that Kucherov called "Number One Bullshit." (How do you translate that into Russian?) At any rate, the phrase has already been turned into a meme-t-shirt, which "Vasy" wears along with the trophy on his head at the parade.

There is one more Russian on the winning team, Mikhail Sergachev from Nizhnekamsk.

Maybe all the memetic shenanigans being generated by the winning Russians will help put hockey on the map for American sports fans – many of whom know nothing about hockey.

Something else that happened at the boat parade: the 128-year-old Stanley Cup got majorly dented. As far as we know, the Russians had nothing to do with that.

You Might Also Like

New Life Breathed into the Museum of Hockey
  • February 28, 2021

New Life Breathed into the Museum of Hockey

Moscow's stunning Museum of Hockey and Hockey Hall of Fame is a hidden gem with new investors ready to keep it going – hopefully for a long time to come.
Not-Russia Does Great Figure Skating
  • April 25, 2021

Not-Russia Does Great Figure Skating

The non-doping "Russia" won three out of four events at the recent world figure skating championships and swept the ladies' podium.
KHL Victor Crowned
  • May 23, 2021

KHL Victor Crowned

Omsk Avangard clinches Russian hockey's Gagarin Cup with some famous NHL faces.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of our Books

White Magic
June 01, 2021

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.

The Samovar Murders
November 01, 2019

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas
October 01, 2013

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.

 
The Little Humpbacked Horse
November 03, 2014

The Little Humpbacked Horse

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.

How Russia Got That Way
September 20, 2025

How Russia Got That Way

A fast-paced crash course in Russian history, from Norsemen to Navalny, that explores the ways the Kremlin uses history to achieve its ends.

Woe From Wit (bilingual)
June 20, 2017

Woe From Wit (bilingual)

One of the most famous works of Russian literature, the four-act comedy in verse Woe from Wit skewers staid, nineteenth century Russian society, and it positively teems with “winged phrases” that are essential colloquialisms for students of Russian and Russian culture.

The Moscow Eccentric
December 01, 2016

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.

The Latchkey Murders
July 01, 2015

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...

Murder at the Dacha
July 01, 2013

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.

Moscow and Muscovites
November 26, 2013

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955