Appreciate Your Artist, Alex Kovalev
February 17, 2009, by Homme De Sept-Iles
“Never liked him – always thought he was a cancer – about time…..”
Whatever happened to being objective and fair? Seems this is something that fewer and fewer Montreal fans and media members are concerning themselves with.
Alex Kovalev, we are told, is staying home from the team’s upcoming two-game mini-road trip» . He is not suspended. He is not injured. He will be getting paid.
It’s an unusual situation. But the press and several TSN forum groundlings (and many, many others) were quick to take the unusual, stamp it with their branding and interpret in a negative way. In the almost ritual anti-Kovalev way.
Their read is that Kovalev is up for a trade. And that his poor play is being punished.
Their read is wrong.
And though a trade may indeed take place, it will be because Alex Kovalev has at last had enough of those loudest and most bombastic of the press and fan corps.
Do you ever wonder why so many players don’t want to come to Montreal?
In so many other cities, Kovalev would be free to be the great player he is, with his flaws. Name me one flawless player in NHL history.
You can’t.
I’m glad I was able to find Bob Gainey’s point de presse on RDS today. In his statements, Gainey makes it clear, to this chonicler anyway, that Alex Kovalev’s days in a Montreal uniform might not be numbered after all.
Listening to it gave light to what might really be happening here:
Here are the salient points:
- Kovalev is emotionally not in a good place (not something that the macho world of hockey can be expected to understand or sympathize with, I realise)
- Kovalev wants to stay in Montreal
- A trade is possible but Gainey implied that it would be two-party decision
- Kovalev wanted to go on the mini-road trip
- It was Gainey’s idea that Kovalev take two games off.
- Kovalev is taking what amounts to a break from it all. Bravo! Healthy decision and may help rejuvenate the artist. Now if only the press and fans would give him some breathing space.
- Both Gainey and Kovalev are not happy with AK27’s play.
- Sometimes Kovalev is on the same page with the coaching staff, sometimes not.
And the final and most important point; Gainey said that sometimes Alex himself doesn’t know why he gets offtrack.
Listen up folks. Whatever that is code for, the meaning is plain. Alex Kovalev cares about playing well and does what it takes to keep playing well.
Are there different personality types out there? Sure. Do they cope in different ways? You bet. Has this happened in other fields, in other times? Under less scrutiny? Of course.
Is Alex Kovalev an artist trapped in a hockey assassin’s body? Perhaps. He is not a uni-dimensional person, this Alexei Vyacheslavovich Kovalev. He learned the saxophone early in his career as a Ranger. He took up flying planes and he is certainly the most creative Montreal Canadien since Guy Lafleur. One might suggest (with a gasp of heresy) that he is more creative than Le Demon Blond. Kovalev is considered easy-going and jovial by members of the press and by teammates. And his generosity with fans and children is well-known and regarded (google it).
This is not a hockey cyborg, a one-dimensional, nose-to-the-grindstone personality. He is a great player, a skilled hockey offensive threat who has worked hard to develop his great stick-handling, passing and shooting abilities. These are not the natural gifts of an easy biological inheritance. What nature did give him was great speed and strength (and this 35-year old kid works hard at that, too).
He chose Montreal. (How many didn’t, haven’t, won’t and never will?)
And when he first stepped on the ice as a Montreal Canadien, he was granted a standing ovation. There are still overwhelming numbers of les partisans who still appreciate the legendary Russian captain.
But, let’s face facts, the ones that don’t are not making it easier for Kovalev to help revive his slumping team. There is far more to be gained with honey than with vinegar (to use a term many hard-scrabble Canadian households have popularized).
It’s time to embrace this great champion of on-ice grace and artistry and forgive those things that keep him from perfection.
We have other guys who can pick up that type of slack.
This is not to say that Montrealers don’t want the best of Alex every night. But it just may be that stoking passion is a more likely tactic than critiquing shortcomings.
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