Life with "The White Bear"

I've sometimes wondered if me and Vincent Lecavalier woudl ever meet somewhere or somehow cross paths in life. He's only a few months younger than I am and when he was drafted and the big hoopla was made about him, I had this premontion that Vinny and I could be friends, could get along, could hang out.

And yet with each day, every season, every interview that I've read (not many, because Tampa Bay is not Montreal or Toronto) that link... that kinship that I felt disappeared. Vincent is a big name star, he's got it all and he's got confidence... He dates models and he's an icon in Canada.

And today in the St. Petersburg Times, that link was renewed... That sort of hopeful understanding.

Tom Jones traveled to Kazan and spent time with Vinny. This is all chronicled in a piece called Rough Translation and some of the things that Vincent has gone through in Ak Bars Kazan have made me feel... well, like someone would understand some of the crap I go through daily being hard of hearing. That lack-of-understanding and such.

But to get off my personal points, this article by Jones chronicles some of the adversity that Vincent has faced in Kazan and how he's kept a positive attitude. How trying it can be to understand his coach's rants (Zinetula Bilyaletdinov speaks English but addresses his team in Russian), how not understanding what someone says makes you want to shrink away because you don't know the translation, and the difficulty just to order a bowl of Oatmeal in Kazan.

And if you are interested in seeing the photos associated with the article (and there are a few), please check out this link.