Check Out Sergey Zubov's Recent Statement On His Decision To Not Participate During The 2010 Vancouver Olympics As A Reserve
“...I have been reading articles in mass media for these six days, read commentaries and online blogs. I was surprised that fans responded to my announcement aggressively, but most of all I was sad that atmosphere of the national team’s preparations for the Olympics had been disturbed...I am not a politician, I am hockey player and I don’t predict all my public moves unlike hockey ones. Moreover I haven’t lived in Russia for a long time and I haven’t restored my vocabulary yet...I think that most probably I was right except the harsh form of my refusal. At the same time I would like to introduce clarity in my announcement...Believe me that I have no claims to the head coach Vyacheslav Bykov. Slava and I are both products of HC CSKA, we played in one club and national team and we are in perfect relations...I know that he has done a lot to restore atmosphere in the national team and Russia’s two victories at the World Championships. I also know in which situation he is ahead of the Olympic games...My refusal was provoked by a call of administrator, who warned me that coaches take me to Vancouver as reserve player. I won’t hide that this conversation shocked me and the explanation is not in the fact that I would be in reserve. The main thing is the form how they informed me about it. To my mind people showed they are not professionals by behaving this way, and I was not ready for it after seventeen seasons of playing in NHL..I think that not all people deal with their own business in the Russian hockey and Bykov is just a hostage of this system. The team of managers should be responsible for formation of the national team’s squad and holding talks with players, while in Russia the head coach has to deal with this job...Vladislav Tretyak is famous former goalkeeper, the world hockey legend, he is manager of our national team, however managers’ work is something absolutely different from what we used to see in Russia. In NHL junior administrator or masseur would never call you and inform you that coaches take you to the team’s roster or not. It’s all manager’s responsibility”.
To view Sergey's statement in whole, please visit this link.
1 comment:
People can reasonably agree or disagree about whether Bykov should have taken Zubov on the team - I think Zubov should be on the team - but it's an absolute joke that Zubov was informed of his reserve status by a call from a junior administrator. As Zubov states, that kind of stuff would never fly in the NHL or with Team Canada or Team USA. It's a shame that Bykov didn't contact Zubov directly and explain the situation.
Jay, most people think all of this stems from Zubov backing out of the first stage of the Eurotour and allegedly not calling Bykov to explain the situation. Can you shed any light on this?
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