Varlamov isn't a hard name for North Americans to pronounce - I think he just got tongue-tied rather than mispronouncing it out of ignorance or lack of skill.
The Hockey-Announcerification of foreign names in general is kinda racist and announcers should be shamed for not practicing the intonation found in common Slavic/Scandanavian/French/etc names imo
I think names should be spelled on jerseys as the players prefer (who knows, maybe some might prefer it be spelled such that fans can say it easier. I feel like certain ‘non translated’ spellings would actually make way more casual fans mess up more often than the current spelling)
But North Americans aren’t used to saying a lot of the names and if you tried to make them try to say everything right, they’d still say most of it wrong all the time lol. I mean reasonable effort, but some legit really struggle with a number of names
Also, have you ever heard an American technically accurately pronounce guacamole or the name of any, say, Spanish city while speaking English? It always comes across so douchey, it can sound like you’re trying to be almost pretentious in that context. Even a number Spanish speakers I know will say it ‘properly’ when speaking Spanish, but say it like most of us when speaking English (if they’re American at least)
I’ve been to other countries and far as I can tell they all do it with my and my friends names too unless English is really close to their language (Allen —> Ah-Lawn.) People’s speech patterns and such are so deeply ingrained, I’d be surprised if most players weren’t understanding as long as it’s not intentionally saying their name way wrong.
I don’t view it, with my name, as disrespectful so much as almost translation.
