For those of you who don’t know, there is a hockey team in the KHL (Kontinental Hockey League) called Vityaz Chekhov. Actually, calling them a “hockey” team is pretty generous. Let’s just call them a team.
Their claim to fame is losing almost every game and then beating the ever-loving crap out of their opponents in fights and line brawls. They are essentially a team of hired goons, some even dabbling into careers in mixed martial arts. Some of the comments on their fight videos on YouTube call the team a bunch of “stupid Russians,” which is ironic, considering the main offenders Kip Brennan (Kingston, ON), Jon Mirasty (Meadow Lake, SK), Nick Tarnasky (Rocky Mountain House, AB), and Jeremy Yablonski (Meadow Lake, SK), are all Canadian.
The following is a video of their latest episode against Atlant, a team that features former NHL players like Nikolai Zherdev and Alex Kovalev. The action starts at 3:40 or so. Just for fun, try to imagine how many games worth of suspensions would be handed out, particularly for assaulting an official.
The KHL is trying hard to recruit players and live up to the standard of the NHL, but with shenanigans like this, keep dreaming. Shenanigans, I say!
4 Comments
I believe the coaches are forcing them to do this stuff. In the NHL Tarnasky was an enforcer but he never ran around doing stupid stuff like this. Yablonski and Mirasty were also just enforcers and not cheapshot players. But what I can’t understand is why they would even want to do this. Is there some sort of bonus money for beating the crap out of someone?
So much for stereotypical “nice” Canadians…
What are the Boston Bruins doing in Russia…?
Tarnasky – out for the season (Shanny standards)
The rest – assorted 5/6 game suspensions