News from January 1993

First meeting huge success

More than 90 enthusiastic Pavel Bure fans gathered early in December 1992 for the inaugural meeting of the Pavel Bure Fan Club held in the meeting room in the back of 'Sportsbook Plus' at 230 West Broadway, Vancouver. Highlights of the evening included a 10 minute video highlight film of Pavel, plus guest speakers from the Vancouver Canucks Booster Club as well as the local chapter of the Patrick Roy Fan Club.

Also on hand were an impressive and ever-growing collection of Pavel press clippings and photographs, Pavel's mother Tatyana and a 19-card set of Pavel hockey cards.

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Bure first Canuck to win rookie award

Pavel Bure is the first player in Canuck's history and the second player from the former Soviet Union (after Calgary's Sergei Makarov in 1990) to capture the Calder Memorial Trophy for best rookie. (Trevor Linden finished as runner up to New York Ranger's Brian Leetch in 1989).

Bure received 222 points in voting, including 26 first-place votes and was named on 64 of the 69 ballots, edging Detroit defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom and New York Rangers' right winger Tony Amonte, each finishing with 183 points, in a close threeway race.

Bure tallied 60 points (34-26-60) to finish third in rookie scoring behind Amonte (35-34-69) and New Jersey Devils' Kevin Todd (21-42-63) despite missing 15 games of the season.

He led all rookies in shorthanded goals (three) and shots (268), tied for the lead in game winning goals with Buffalo Sabres' Donald Audette (six) and posted a regular season eight-game point-scoring streak.

He also finished second among rookies in goals (34) and tied for second place with Montreal Canadiens' Gilbert Dionne in power-play goals (seven).

The calder Trophy is presented by the NHL in memory of Frank Calder, (NHL president 1936-37) to the player selected as the most proficient in his first year of competition in the national Hockey League as selected by the National Hockey Writer's Association at the end of the regular schedule.

To be eligible for the award, a player cannot have played more than 25 games in any single preceding season nor in six or more games each in any two preceding seasons in any major professional league, and since 1990-91, must not have attained his 26th birthday by September 15th of the season in which he is eligible.

The winner of the award received $10,000 and the runners-up receive $6,000 and $4,000.

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Pssst! Wanna know some secrets about Pavel?

• Pavel's father, Vladimir Bure, who competed in the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Olympics for the Soviet Union, is now a swim coach at the University of British Columbia, and works out on a daily basis with Pavel.
• As a free-styler, Vladimir won four medals and twice finished behind Mark Spitz in the 1972 games.
• Pavel's boyhood idols were Valeri Kharlamov and Boris Mikhailov.
• He once played on a line with Sergei Federov and Alexander Mogilny in the 1998 World Junior Championships and was 8-6-14 for the gold medal winning USSR.
• More than 2,000 people attended Pavel's first Canuck practice at Britannia rink in November 1991.
• Pavel's first two goals were in his third NHL game, an 8-2 win over LA Kings on Novermer 12, 1991.
• His 100th point came in his 96th game, an 8-1 thumping of the San Jose Sharks on December 18, 1992.
• Pavel loves to travel and made two trips to Russia last summer and another two trips to California.
• When the Winnipeg Jets were in toen, Pavel picked up Evgeny Davydov from his hotel and they spent the day together - they are pals from their Moscow days.
• Linemate Anatoli Semenov's sister and Pavel are also good friends from Moscow.
• Semenov used to play for the KGB sponsored Moscow Dynamo.
• Both Sergei Makorov of the Flames and Igor Larionov tease Pavel to be careful what he says in front of Semenov; they kid him that Semenov may have KGB ties.
• Pavel had two tickets for the Russian ballet when they visited here last month, but he cancelled, and his mom Tatyana was angry with him.
• His mom collects Pavel newspaper clippings in a scarp book.
• Yes, she speaks English.
• One clipping reported Pat Quinn's reference to Pavel as 'playing lazy' and mom called Pavel's translator, Nick and wanted to know 'what is this crap'?
• She enjoys watching games on TV but doesn't go to games.
• In addition to his three other languages (English, French and Algonquin) Gino Odjick is learning Russian from Pavel. He was able to carry on a conversation with semenov's eight year old son.
• Pavel recently moved to West Vancouver.
• Ottawa Senators Darin Madely after surrendering a pair of goals to Pavel Bure in a 4-1 Canucks win: 'They should get rid of him - kick him out of hockey. They got rid of Wayne Gretzky, they should get rid of mario Lemieux and Bure now'.
• On team flight to Calgary earlier this month, Pavel didn't arrive at the airport until minutes before take-off. Said PR man Steve Tamberllini, 'We wouldn't wait for anyone else, but we probably would have waited for him'.
• Pavel has the same agent, Ron Selcer, as Chicago Black Hawk netminder Eddie Belfour.

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Pavel's dad - guest speaker!

The main event at the January meeting of the Pavel Bure Fan Club was a question-and-answer session with Pavel's father, Vladimir Bure.

More than 30 Pavel fans braved near-blizzard conditions to attend the event, and they weren't disappointed. The easy-going Vladimir fielded questions about life in Russia, Pavel's brother Valeri, Igor Larionov, and even shared some boyhood secrets about Pavel.

• On Pavel's childhood: - "I was a swimmer and it was always my dream maybe Pavel would be a swimmer like me", revealed Vladimir. "But Pavel, when he is five, all the time tels me, 'I want to play hockey'. So I had no choice".
• On Pavel's fame: - "It's not possible to comprehend".

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Bure voted to all-stars
- - News Services
6th January 1993

Pavel Bure has become the first Vancouver Canuck voted to the Campbell Conference all-stars and joins Brett Hull of St.Louis and Steve Yzerman of Detroit on the front line.

Hull led the fan voting for the third straight year. He had 303,963 votes. Bure had 246,447 and Yzerman had 199,122.

The 44th NHL all-star game will be played Feb. 6 at the Montreal Forum.

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