Pavel Bure's hockey jersey auctioned for $4,250
Pamela Fayerman - - Vancouver Sun
November 19, 1992
Collectible items like Pavel Bure's Vancouver Canucks hockey jersey helped to make this year's Endeavour charity auction a hugely successful event, organizers said Wednesday.
At the Endeavour event held last weekend, car dealership owner Pete Kulyk outbid others to claim ownership of the player's jersey for a whopping $4,250.
The bidding set a record for Canucks jerseys. Previously, Trevor Linden's jersey had been auctioned for $1,250. The Bure jersey was regarded as even more collectible because of the player's popularity, and because the jersey was a limited edition bearing a crest marking the National Hockey League's 75th anniversary and was worn during the league playoffs last season.
Kulyk, owner of Marine Plymouth Chrysler, said he bought the Jersey because ever since Bure joined the Canucks, he's been involved in the dealership's advertising campaign as the celebrity spokesman.
He said he plans to frame the jersey and hang it on display at the dealership on southeast Marine Drive.
"Pavel has been our spokesman for a year and will be as long as he is with the Canucks. It's been a mutually beneficial, and very successful relationship," said Kulyk, referring, in part, to the $50,000 Stealth car that Bure was given as part of the promotional deal.
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Reluctant Rocket can't stickhandle around public scrutiny
Mike Beamish - - Vancouver Sun
November 21, 1992
Say cheese. Pavel. Say something. Pavel.
Mention the word "interview" to Pavel Bure and his eyes start to roll. It's the one word in the Russian-English dictionary he'd just as soon forget.
The Russian Rocket is able to make the most difficult high-speed manoeuvres imaginable. But stick-handling through the almost daily give-and-take of a media scrum or an extended interview leaves him bored and slightly baffled.
Throwing the media dogs an occasional meaty bone is about the only skill the Rocket has yet to master in the National Hockey League. Oh, and playing a little defence, of course.
"I don't care too much about interviews, but it is always easy for me." Bure says. They always ask the same questions. Every time I tell them the same story."
It'll work for a while. Until people start changing the questions.
In spite of all the coverage and rock-star adulation, Bure is a little uneasy in the media spotlight, part of his ongoing adjustment to a North American lifestyle. Indeed, most of the Russians who came before him have found the process alien.
"I don't like talking with reporters," says Sergei Makarov of the Calgary Flames. "I didn't like talking to reporters in Russia. In one game, you play really good and they want to talk to you. But if you play a bad game, they forget about you."
Certainly, Bure isn't unique in this way. There have been countless North American athletes who have allowed their consistent facts and acts to speak more eloquently than their words.
Reporters found no secrets, dark or otherwise, in Steve Carlton's locker because he simply refused to speak to them. For years, Ted Williams feuded with the Boston press., but this made Splendid Splinter no less a candidate for the Hall of Fame.
At times, Pat Quinn can't contain his apparent contempt for the people paid to comment and write about his team.
The opinionated and worldly Igor Larionov was an exception, but even Iggy had his eccentricities. Frequently he would comment on anything but hockey.
In the final analysis, most athletes can think of better things to do than to stand around with just a towel between themselves and anyone waving a notepad, microphone or camera. At worst, reporters are regarded are regarded as the next form of life above the pond scum. At best, they're an occupational annoyance.
Most just accept the fact that the ever-present paparazzi is part of the price of being a professional athlete.
"Frankly, I'd prefer to go through a whole season without doing one interview," Doug Lidster told me at training camp. "But it's expected, so you do it."
Bure has the natural handicap of his youth, his inexperience in the ways of foreign culture and, of course, his limited ability to express himself in English. Also, he is a prideful young man who has refused to take part in celebrity golf tournaments because the sport is new to him and Bure never wants to be seen as a duffer in any endeavor.
To those that don't know him, Bure can come off as aloof and haughty. Trying to get him to open up, even with the help of a skilled interpreter, is heavy going. His private life is inviolate. He hasn't figured out yet that exposure can increase his marketability. Or maybe Bure is simply uncomfortable with hero worship.
"I run through 40 questions and get 40 one-word answers," says writer Kerry Banks, who did a cover story titled Boy Wonder on Bure in the November issue of Vancouver Magazine."(he) proves as forthcoming about himself as Ted Kennedy was about the events at Chippaquiddick."
When Sports Illustrated came calling last week to do a feature story on Bure, writer Austin Murphy expected a similar reluctance.
"I was ushered into the lounge like I was going to a star's trailer or something," Murphy says. "It was as if they were saying, 'Pavel can see you now'. I've had an easier getting access to Gretzky.
"I could tell right away he wasn't into it. But, to be doing this sort of stuff is all new to him, so it's probably a smart thing for the Canucks to restrict access to him. Lemieux was too god at the beginning and he's turned out pretty accommodating."
As the impact of Bure surges, so too, does the public's fascination. There is tremendous curiosity about him.
It is a fact of life from not even the Reluctant Russian and his sputnik speed, can escape.
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