Kevin Forbes
06-22-2009, 10:13 AM
I'm just finishing up Dave King's book, King of Russia. During the 2005-06 season, King coached Magnitogorsk Metallurg in the Russian Super League. Anyway, he ended up writing a book about the experience.
It's pretty interesting read. Metallurg was Malkin's team before he came over to North America and other players like Yushkevich, Korolev, Kaigorodov and Kulemin are also on the team, as is a familiar face, Stanislav Chistov.
Throughout the book, King refers to a troubled player on his roster as the Fish. The Fish was born in 1983, has played in the NHL before, is absurdly talented, but has trouble turning that talent into on-ice success (sound familiar?). Moreso, the Fish every now and then develops odd injuries (some of which King suspects are fake) and has a drinking/partying problem. His rights are still held by an NHL team who continues to enquire about bringing him back. As the playoffs begin (where I am in the book), King has already kicked the Fish off the team and the veteran players have convinced him to let him come back on the condition that he enters into rehab.
Anyway, as I already indicated in the title and as the description likely leads you to believe, I would suspect that the Fish is actually Chistov. As you may remember, Anaheim did entice him back to the NHL for the 2006-07 season, but soon shipped him to Boston. He spent last year playing for Metallurg again. I think this might shed a bit of light on the enigmatic Russian when he played for Anaheim.
I would really suggest the book, not just for the talk about Chistov (there's another great anecdote about when King was talking to Babcock about Chistov and Babcock's quote was "we don't think he wants to score as much as he just wants to make it look cute").
It's pretty interesting read. Metallurg was Malkin's team before he came over to North America and other players like Yushkevich, Korolev, Kaigorodov and Kulemin are also on the team, as is a familiar face, Stanislav Chistov.
Throughout the book, King refers to a troubled player on his roster as the Fish. The Fish was born in 1983, has played in the NHL before, is absurdly talented, but has trouble turning that talent into on-ice success (sound familiar?). Moreso, the Fish every now and then develops odd injuries (some of which King suspects are fake) and has a drinking/partying problem. His rights are still held by an NHL team who continues to enquire about bringing him back. As the playoffs begin (where I am in the book), King has already kicked the Fish off the team and the veteran players have convinced him to let him come back on the condition that he enters into rehab.
Anyway, as I already indicated in the title and as the description likely leads you to believe, I would suspect that the Fish is actually Chistov. As you may remember, Anaheim did entice him back to the NHL for the 2006-07 season, but soon shipped him to Boston. He spent last year playing for Metallurg again. I think this might shed a bit of light on the enigmatic Russian when he played for Anaheim.
I would really suggest the book, not just for the talk about Chistov (there's another great anecdote about when King was talking to Babcock about Chistov and Babcock's quote was "we don't think he wants to score as much as he just wants to make it look cute").