News from September 1993

Bure Feels Little Of The Pressure As Superstar
Russian Rocket has adapted to life in the NHL
- - Sports Vue
September 29 - October 6, 1993 edition

Pavel Bure has made rapid adjustment to the high life in North America after living his first 20 years under the Communist regime in what once was the Soviet Union.

After stumbling through his first year interviews in halting, broken English, the quiet Russian must have realized that his services as interviewee would be in even greater demand last season and worked hard on his English. He wasn't all that comfortable in the glare of the spotlight but after each game he dutifully showered, wrapped a towel around his midriff and walked briskly to the interview room to face the barrage of cameras, microphones and notepads.

The Canuck brass has made the most of Bure's arrival and subsequent elevation to super stardom and few could blame them. Marketing the group of generally faceless players the Canucks have been blessed with in the past years must have been a nightmare, so Bure's arrival was like Christmas Day - every day.

After the initial year the marketing took off - literally. Bure's image was reproduced on everything from sweat bands to bus shelters, rocket attached to his back with the slogan "We have lift-off."

Bure didn't say as much but he appeared uncomfortable with the glare, saying at one time early last season that "I liked it better when I was a hockey player, not a rocket."

But hockey has been cursed in recent years with a dearth of marketable players,only "The Great One" Gretzky and Mario "The Magnificent" Lemieux had qualified for nicknames, so the "Russian Rocket" it was, whether the object was happy or not. The hype didn't affect the Russian on the ice though, club records fell, almost on a weekly basis, as he quickly became the first ever Canuck to score 50 goals and 100 points, an achievement that would have warranted some kind of nickname, regardless of nationality.

But fame can be an onerous burden to bear, and when that fame turns to almost hysteria then life can take on all the attributes of living in a goldfish bowl and then the stories begin. It was rumored that Bure had taken to spending most of his spare time at home, cooped in like a rich hermit, or going out to movies wearing a huge pair of sunglasses, privacy was becoming something denied to a Rocket.

Today Bure laughs at those rumors. "I never wore sunglasses," he says, "except for when it was sunny.

"I know I can't go just anywhere I want to but I think that applies to any other athlete," he says, "but I think I live as normal a life as possible under the circumstances. People do approach me in restaurants and say 'good game last night' or 'good luck' but I don't mind that at all."

Since Bure burst onto the national scene he has had to contend with hordes of adoring fans waiting outside of various dressing rooms, but the daily gatherings outside of the Pacific Coliseum have become a little too much. So now Bure drives his car inside the building for practices and games. This is not an attempt to avoid people.

"Some people don't understand that I may have some appointments in the afternoon, or else I'm tired after flying in the after a game the day before and just want to go home and get some rest after practice. I'm not avoiding them, it's just that I can spend too much time signing autographs when I could be doing something else. I don't mind signing them when I have the time, I like fans' attention," he says.

Since he joined the club his closest friend off the ice has been Gino Odjick and the big Algonquin says the Russian has had few problems adjusting to life in Vancouver. "He's realized pretty quickly that he was going to be a public figure and that he'd have to conduct himself well and he's really coped with it," says Odjick. "He knew what it was like to be poor in Moscow and learned to take care of himself, because we all learn in life that if you don't take care of yourself no else will."

Arriving in Vancouver and suddenly finding oneself pretty well off financially might offer a lot of temptations to a young man, especially one from another, less affluent country, but Bure took the lifestyle and the money in his stride.

"I think he had a pretty good idea of what was right and wrong when he came here," says Odjick. "He wanted to learn English so he could converse better and set his mind to it and now he's a lot more comfortable with people. Having people come up to you on the street and restaurants is all part of being a professional athlete these days. It's when they stop wanting to talk to you that you begin to worry."

But it's not really surprising that this summer Bure, with father Vladimir and brother Valeri in tow, headed south to the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles, a city just getting to grips with the sport of hockey but a city where an instantly recognizable Vancouver based Russian could spend some time in relative anonymity among the city's growing Russian population. The choice of cities for his vacation was not lost on some Vancouver fans who harbor the fear that, when the Russian's contract comes up for renewal, the Kings are one of the few teams in hockey that could approach Bure with an open cheque book and tell him to write his own deal.

But that wasn't the reason the Bures chose to summer in the City of Angels and neither was the trip a complete vacation. Vladimir, a former Olympic swimmer, had both the younger Bures working out every day so they'd be ready for the start of the hockey season. Bure senior is a fitness fanatic.

"They worked out every day, some conditioning, some skating," said poppa Bure.

Valeri was selected by Montreal in the entry draft in 1992 and the Bures are looking forward to being on opposing teams in a National Hockey League game sometime in the not too distant future.

Canucks' head coach and GM Pat Quinn has overseen Bure's arrival and instantaneous elevation to super stardom and confesses himself pleasantly surprised with the way the young Russian has handled himself.

"he's become something of a pop star; he's captured the imagination of people, not only here but around the league," says Quinn. "You see Bure sweaters in all the rinks we play in, even last week in Minnesota, where they don't have a franchise. But he has a very good disposition, he handles himself extremely well for a young man and I don't think any of this has gone to his head. There are times when he does get a little frustrated with all the attention but that's to be expected.

"Guys like Pavel, Bobby Hull and Bobby Orr all have their different approaches to this, Hull seemed to be a guy who had a lot of time for people but he found ways of avoiding the traffic; Orr, although he loved the fans, was a guy who would come to the rink at two in the afternoon just so he wouldn't have to bump into anyone.

"I don't think the adulation gets to Pavel too much though, don't forget he was something of a hero back in Russia and there's 200 million or more of them there so he probably learned to cope at an early age," he says.

Quinn added that the club hadn't made any special arrangements to look after Bure's sudden onset of wealth. "Most of the players leave that to their agents but we know that a lot of guys out there have a get rich quick scheme that they want to pitch to him and we did keep our eyes and ears open for anything like that and would have made ourselves known had a problem arisen. But Pavel has a pretty good feel for people and of course he's had Gino around with him to discourage the seedier ones," he says.

In less than two years Bure has made the adjustment from life in Moscow, and all that entailed to life in the laid-back fast lane of Vancouver and become the idol of thousands. As Canucks' marketing boss Glen Ringdal said recently, "There are people out there who will buy and wear Pavel Bure merchandise who would never think of attending hockey games. With Pavel on board we have to be able to reach a market that was unattainable in the past."

So it looks as if the unassuming Russian will have to learn to live with being a 'Rocket' for many years to come, unless, of course, he could lead the Canucks to a Stanley Cup win and request that the "Rocket" be grounded. He's get his way.

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