Peoples reactions to Pavel's comments , he's mad, he's a propagandist, a communist, deluded are mere reflections of their own prejudices which have been quite evident and indeed their arrogance with regards to hockey as a global sport over the last couple of days.
Pav is also humble but according to some must have a huge ego for saying something that comes from the heart. Anyway I am sure he is losing sleep about what posters on this board think. A member of the triple gold club, one of the finest players (indeed one of the very few recent Russian players who could claim a roster spot on a Russian legends team) to grace the ice with his ingenuity and skills, a model professional, the number 13 will be raised at Little Caesars Arena sometime soon and he will be a Hall of Famer.
And as for those that claim Russia could never ever win a best on best title. Well. The netminding has come on leaps and bounds. More defencemen are coming and the offensive talent is still there. People outside of Russia still don't seem to realize the enormous damage to sporting infrastructure the collapse of Communism caused and the chaos. The loss of an enormous amount of coaching talent, athletes emigrating (many of whose children now compete for other countries) and facilities being closed or becoming unusable. It's taking time to correct and the FHR could do a lot better in many respects but slowly but surely Russian hockey is recovering. The roots are far too deep for it to have been permanently damaged.
