Па́вел Вале́рьевич Дацю́к, центр
The Russian National Team (screw that O.A.R. crap) just won the Gold Medal in Olympic Hockey. Led by former NHL standouts Ilya Kovalchuk and Pavel Datsyuk, the Russians squeezed out Germany in overtime, 4-3. As the Olympic flag was raised over the arena, the Russian team started singing their National Anthem. Problem is, their anthem was banned during some Olympic Committee standoff with the Russians over doping allegations.
Point is, they sang the song and the Russians deserved Gold. After the medal ceremony:
"I think from the beginning we had this inkling inside each one of us and then, as we lined up, we said we will sing the anthem and that's it," Bogdan Kiselevich told reporters after the OAR's 4-3 overtime win. *We're prohibited from having the flag so we had to do something at least. We sang because we're Russian people and when you win, the anthem is played. It was in our souls and heart." Questioned whether he was afraid the team would be punished for singing the anthem, Kiselevich responded: "It's freedom of speech."
The same day, arguably the best Russian hockey player in the world, Alexander Ovechkin, was helping his NHL team, the Washington Capitals, pound Eastern Conference doormats, the Buffalo Sabres, 5-1. Despite scoring 2 goals, where do you think Ovechkin wanted to be? As great as Datsyuk is, he's 40. So not only did the Russians win, but they won without their best player. Did the Russians have an advantage? Yes they did, because the KHL DID send their best players to PyeongChang.
The Olympics are now history and it's time to start looking toward Bejing. What does NHL Commissioner think about THAT Olympics? Funny you ask, he just held a new conference a few days ago and said this: Scumbag Gary Bettman on 2022 Olympics: ‘I don’t know that we want to go to China’
FIRE GARY BETTMAN
Update March 1, 2018
The video of the Russians singing their national anthem disappeared from the internet. I can't find another version of it anywhere.