News from October 1992

Pavelmania
Hot-shot right wing Pavel Bure is burning up the hobby with his Rookie of the Year past and promising future.
Jim Jamieson - - Beckett Hockey Monthly Issue #24
October, 1992

The skyrocketing popularity of his Rookie Card is only one indication that the hobby has a new sensation on its hands. Teenage girls follow him to sports card shows, lining up for hours for the honor of nabbing his autograph on a piece of cardboard and, maybe, a 20-second chat.

He can rarely go for a walk on the Vancouver streets without attracting a crowd. At the airport, customs officers have him sign scraps of paper and pose for impromptu photographs.

This is the life in the new world of Pavel Bure, the young Russian right winger whose on-ice panache and choirboy good looks have given long-suffering Canucks fans new hope.

FAST START

Even now, after his delayed rookie season in the NHL was capped with the league's Rookie of the Year trophy - making him the first Canuck player to win a major award - Bure is still adjusting to all the attention he receives.

"It's very unusual, that somebody in the Soviet Union is recognized," says the 21-year-old Bure, who's likely the fastest skater in the NHL and certainly one of its brightest young prospects. "Of course, some of the more famous people, but not like here where everybody knows you.

"It's inconvenient at times, but you would never refuse because these people support me and it wouldn't be right to not give an autograph."

The more enthusiastic seekers of his signature no doubt are card collectors, but Bure says the hobby wasn't nearly as popular in Moscow.

"In Russia, (hockey cards) were just starting then," Pavel recalls. "I was playing a lot, and I had lots of other things to do so I wasn't really involved. Moscow is a big city, like New York or L.A., so you don't notice something like that as much. But people here seem to enjoy it."

GOAL ORIENTED

Currently No.2 on BHM's Hot list, Bure's popularity is mirrored by the demand for his presence at card shows. Besides making numerous personal appearances, Bure was featured at three major shows during the summer - in Vancouver, Toronto and Kelowna, a small city in British Columbia.

"I like to meet people, especially kids," Bure says. "So I enjoy it."

Winning the Calder Trophy was the most obvious highlight for Bure in a storybook season. It was a target he set his sights on in late January at the prompting of then-teammate and Russian countryman Igor Larionov. After scoring just six goals in his first 26 games, Bure finally started cashing in on the always plentiful scoring chances. Larionov told him if he could average two points a game, he could be the top rookie. With that in mind, Bure took serious aim at the prodigious goal.

He gained momentum down the stretch, scoring enough beauties to hog the Canucks' highlight video, and finished the regular season in a flourish with 22 goals and 32 points in his last 23 points.

Bure's totals were 34-26-60 in 65 games to establish a new Canucks record for goals by a rookie and to tie another for points. Although he was second in freshman goal scoring to season-long Calder Trophy front-runner Tony Amonte's 35, Bure's flash and dash prevailed for a clear edge in the Calder voting.

"I was very happy that I won, but I was surprised, too," Pavel says. "I know there was talk before that I had won it, but I didn't say yes until I had it."

Larionov, who was one of Bure's heroes when the former played for the dominant Soviets in the 1980's also sees something special in his young countryman.

"For him, every game, every day it's like a joy to play hockey," Larionov says. "He's got lots of talent and ability to score so many goals, maybe similar to Sergei Makarov when he was younger. It was different hockey 10 years ago. I think it's not polite to compare each other, but maybe Pavel takes something from Makarov and adds his own skill."

Greater expectations - especially from hobbyists - are always the price of high achievement. And Bure, heading into his first full NHL season, will be facing a truckload, as will the rest of the Canucks. But he'll have to do it without Larionov, the center-man with whom he established such a profound understanding last season. Larionov, 31, a Group 3 free agent, left the Canucks to sign a three-year deal with Lugano of the Swiss League in July.

"I've lost my partner on my line and my friend," Bure says. "He gave me a lot of help when I first came. I lived in his home for 10 days. He and his family gave me everything."

Can Bure be as effective with a different center?

"Nobody knows," Bure says "I'll try. But it's hockey. We'll just have to see what happens."

Bure's biggest goal this season is for the team to perform better in the playoffs - and, of course, win the Stanley Cup.

"After that, it would be nice to play in the NHL All-Star Game," he says.

50 OR BUST?

The Canucks, whose benchmark season of last year belied their mostly unimpressive history, are one of just three established clubs never to have a player score 50 goals in a season (the other two are New Jersey and San Jose).

No stranger to pressure, Bure acknowledges the half-century mark as another goal, albeit a lesser one.

"Yes, sure, I'd like to try and score 50 goals," he says. "But all I can do is try."

Fifty goals or not, Bure's lightning-fast style has excited Vancouver like no other player in its 22-season history. And dazzled by his special talent, collectors still may be looking at just the dawn of "Pavelmania."

----Back to Headline List----

Taking the town by storm: Pavelmania
Bob Ross - - The Province
October 11, 1992

Kids chase him down the street.Teenage girls scream and swoon. Adults smile and gawk. Finally, it seems, Vancouver has has its very own superstar. In a city starved for sports heroes, Pavel Bure has tens of thousands of fans eating out of his hand.

He's young. He's good-looking. He's unassuming. But when laces on a pair of skates and picks up a hockey stick, he's electrifying.

Dubbed the Russian Rocket, Bure, 21, played his first game with the Vancouver Canucks last November and instantly captured the hearts of fans with his dazzling rink-length rushes.

Scoring 22 goals in his final 23 games last season, he led the Canucks to their first division title in eons and capped things off by winning the Calder trophy as the National Hockey league rookie of the year.

Now, heading into his second NHL season, he is idolized wherever he goes. Scraps of paper are endlessly pushed his way for autographs. People want to pose with him for pictures. Everyone wants to be his friend.

"It is true, I can go nowhere that I am not recognized," he says in a soft Russian accent. "But that is part of my job, too. I am not only hockey player. I think people here love hockey and for me to sign autographs is no problem."

He spoke little English when he arrived here from Moscow, but he no longer needs an interpreter in day-to-day conversation. He credits a season-long course "in the dressing-room school."

"I keep trying to take (regular) English classes, but I just don't have the time," he says. "That is story of my life now, no time."

In most ways Bure has adapted very quickly to his new life here.

With the security of a four-year $2.7-million Canucks contract, he has set himself up in a downtown condo with a knockout view of False Creek.

He quickly acquired his driver's license and he now bombs around in a nifty Dodge Stealth sports car he picked up in exchange for promotional work with a car dealership.

..(missing)...roller-coaster ride in the past year, but he seems none the worse for wear.

A mysterious eight-month marriage to an American fashion model ended in divorce last spring.

Now he lives with his 19-year-old girlfriend, Elena, with whom he returned after a visit to Moscow this past summer.

"I know Elena before I came to Canada, but she was not my girlfriend then," he says shyly. "She only became my girlfriend when I go back. We are happy together, but no marriage plans yet."

His brief marriage to the woman known only as Jimmy was shrouded in speculation that he undertook it as immigration insurance in case he couldn't come to contract terms with the Canucks.

"It was difficult," he told The Province" last summer. "We were from different cultures ... I don't really like to talk about it."

In what little spare time he has away from hockey, Bure mostly socializes with other Canuck players.

"We go out to dinner, a movie, sometimes we go to clubs," he says. At home he watches TV, particularly sports, or listens to popular music.

The Canucks drafted Bure in 1989 when he played for the Russian Red Army team, but various wranglings with the NHL and Russian hockey authorities kept him in Moscow 18 more months.

Then, in September last year, Bure, his father Vladimir and younger brother Valery flew to Los Angeles, where Bure's agent, Ron Selcer, resides. After two months of negotiations with the Canucks, the way was finally cleared for him to ... (missing) ...

Bure's mother, Tanya, later joined her husband in Vancouver, where they both now live. Valery, 18, is playing junior hockey with Spokane Chiefs and he appears headed for a NHL career after he was drafted last spring by the Montreal Canadiens.

Vladimir Bure, a freestyle silver medalist at the 1968 Olympics, oversees his son's business affairs and is his guiding conscience.

"My dad gives me a lot of help," says Bure without elaboration.

While he may have a live-in girlfriend, it's not surprising that his angelic good looks and soft blue eyes have put thousands of female hearts aflutter.

Alexandra Pavlovich, a 15-year-old Lord Byng high school student, is a typical smitten teenager.

He's gorgeous and he's, like, very built," gushes Alexandra. "I'd give anything to meet him."

She keeps Bure's poster taped inside her locker.

"There's tons of kids at school, especially girls, who think he's just the greatest."

We're never had a superstar to drive sales like this," says Brian Parkinson, manager of the Pacific Coliseum shop. "Anything with his name or number on it is outselling any other player by at least two to one."

Besides the standard jerseys and hats, a school binder with Bure's picture on the front is a hot new product that's selling well.

"Thank God he's got a short name," says Parkinson. "We press his name on a lot of customized shirts and it sure saves us time with only four letters."

On-ice expectations are high for Bure this season - and he didn't disappoint in Tuesday's opener, scoring the winning goal in a 5-4 victory over Edmonton.

Province hockey writer Jim Jamieson measures his praise carefully, but he predicts Bure will establish himself "as the most exciting player in the league."

Canuck coach Pat Quinn can't say enough good things about his young charge:

"He's still a baby, but under a lot of pressure he's made himself very comfortable here. He's not full of himself like some young guys with lots of talent and he has earned the respect of his teammates."

Quinn particularly likes his "effervescence."

"He's not dour like a lot of east Europeans. Counter to the stereotype, he's very upbeat."

But Quinn offers some cautious advice as Bure is swept up in Pavelmania.

"As he becomes a bigger and bigger star he's going to come under more intense media scrutiny and he'll have to learn how to handle it. It's not easy."

"His English was pretty bad then, so I had to use sign language and draw the practice drills on the glass so he'd know what to do," says the ever-smiling Odjick.

"His English has really improved but he still asks me what a lot of words mean. We get a laugh when he'd try to look up some of the bad words we'd taught him and they weren't in the dictionary."

Odjick says Bure's best trait is that "he calls it the way it is ... I think there's something about Russians ... they're really honest and really open."

Odjick says Bure's no party animal either. "Away from hockey, he leads a pretty quiet life. I don't think he drinks. I saw him drink a vodka last Christmas and that's it."

Right-winger Gary Valk is another of Bure's Canuck buddies.

"We're both bachelors so we spend time hanging out together, going to a movie or going out for dinner," says Valk, 24. "It's amazing to me how good he is with people in public. Lids run after him like he's a movie star, but he's always got time for them. All the attention hasn't gone to his head."

After last season, Valk took off with Bure, his dad and his brother for a holiday at a Club Med in Mexico.

"Pavel loved water-skiing," says Valk. "He was a real maniac. He loves the speed on water skis as much as he does on skates."

Bure says he looks forward to a long future playing hockey in Vancouver. "I like it here very much. Lots of nice people, very friendly."

----Back to Headline List----

Bure big beyond blue line
Jim Taylor - - The Province
October 19, 1992

So what is it about this Pavel Bure kid anyway?

Why is he the darling of Vancouver Canucks fans? Why do normally sane adult males elbow their way past little kids in the autograph lineups? Why do women old enough to be his mother plead with reporters to get his picture signed "for my little girl"? Why do they want it signed, "To Alice with love," when their daughter's name is Susan?

It can't be just talent, or the promise of even greater talents to come. There are a dozen other great new young players around the NHL, yet apparently not even Eric Lindros has engendered the James Dean-cum-Elvis response triggered at even an unconfirmed sighting of the newest Russian Rocket.

Someone had to find out. But who to ask.

Hockey people would be a waste of time. They'd just spout the same old stuff about acceleration, anticipation, super speed, great shot and a million moves and tell you that "the kid has just scratched the surface." None of that explains the intangibles that apparently set him apart.

There was only one possibility, one group who might possess the answer.

Forget the kid hockey players and the midget moguls of the trading-card pyramid game. Forget the fathers, basically out there to show Junior what he has to do to ensure old Dad's retirement.

Women. Girl women, young women, married women, older women. Women would know. Women know all kinds of mysterious stuff, like what's a flower and what's a weed and why it's perfectly logical to wait until the car is six inches from the intersection and then scream "GO LEFT RIGHT HERE!"

So, over the past few weeks, I asked a bunch of them. Women hockey fans of all ages. What was it about Pavel Bure that makes them turn to custard?

Here are some of the more popular answers, edited for brevity (You'll have to take my word for this. No names, no pack drill):