March BEAT

THE SPORTS & MUSIC CONNECTION

by Shelly Harris

“About 10 years ago when I got my first car, I put about 8 or 12 speakers in
there!”
– Alexander Karpovtsev on his fascination with music growing up in the former
Soviet Russia.

     AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, Metallica….I’m certainly not
surprised to hear the come-out-with-yer-guns-blazing music of choice loudly
emanating from the door to the Chicago Blackhawks’ conditioning room at The
Edge hockey facility in Bensenville. However, what does make my antennae
really stick up is the hilarious and boisterous sing-a-long being generated
by some of the team’s late-training members such as “tough guys” Bob
Probert, Ryan VandenBussche, and Steve Dubinsky.

     But out from this comical atmosphere incongruously emerges one of the
team’s two formidable Russian warrior-defensemen, Alexander Karpovtsev.
(Boris Mironov is the other.) Though I’m told, truthfully, that Karpovstev
can be painfully shy, the first things I notice right now are his
(momentarily) gruff demeanor and his most recent badge of courage: a gigantic
bandage on the inside of his right forearm--the result of a deep,
opponent-inflicted skate gash which required thirtysomething stitches. But
then Karpovtsev, who often doubles as the field General of the Blackhawks’
defensive strategies, also underwent arthroscopic knee surgery earlier in the
season, and is almost as well known for sacrificing his body in the line of
battle as he isfor his workhorse reliability. Indeed, the rock-solid
Muscovite---recently called “the best defenseman on the team right now” by
coach Alpo Suhonen---is a Most Wanted desperado and team lynchpin during
penalty kills and other times of game-on-the-line crisis. Or, as one Hawk's
fanatic (and season ticket holder) recently commented, “My favorite player
right now is Karpovtsev. He’s a MAN out there!”

    Thankfully, though, he is not nearly as intimidating off the ice as he
initially appears. He even looks down and blushes when I mention his
bandaged wound. “It’s not really ‘bad luck,’” he explains in a near
whisper, “because it could be worse.” And Karpovtsev the Lionhearted warms
up even more as I ask him about his background with Dynamo (a famous
Moscow-based professional hockey team), his 7-plus-years NHL career (first
with the Stanley Cup winning NY Rangers and, later, the Toronto Maple Leafs),
and his most recent experiences with the Blackhawks, including his obvious
high regard for Coach Suhonen and his new system. In fact, he becomes
downright animated when we talk about history, books (reading about “all
kinds of things” is a favorite road-trip pastime), and culture in general.

     But, beyond a doubt, the 30-year-old Karpovstev melts most—and becomes
visibly earnest and excited—when he reminisces about his life-long
fascination with music. Since his kindergarten days in the former Soviet
Union, and even before he began playing hockey at age 9, he recalls thay he
constantly listened to “plastic disks” with his ears virtually glued to the
record player’s speakers.

      “I’ve always liked music very, very much,” declares Karpovtsev, who
was also a classmate of Hawks’ star center Alex Zhamnov. However, his ardor
for music continued to grow---even while Western music, movies, and culture
remained “Black Market” in his homeland. “In fact,” he reveals, “about 10
years ago when I got my first car, I put about 8 or 12 speakers in there!”

     But what kind of music did he listen to back then, classical Russian?
“No, No, No!” Karpovtsev corrects, smiling. “You know, the reason why is
that we had. .. a Big Wall. . . but then we started trying to know what was
happening in the rest of Europe. So, it’s not true that we sat and listened
to just Russian music; we listened to everything. We went to many countries
and tried to bring things back.”

     Like many Eastern European players who broke into the NHL after the
demise of the “Iron Curtain,” Karpovtsev did not speak any English until he
first entered the league in ’93. He also admits that Western cultural
contraband, especially CDs and movies, was always hard to come by, but he
explains that he and his friends still had their “methods” for obtaining
it---and quickly passing it along: “It’s true that it was illegal…Because my
mother worked for the KGB, but she would bring back some new CDs that were a
mix of many styles, like “Flashdance,” and stuff like that. . . and I would
listen and say, ‘F#%*!, this is great music!’   Then I would give it to my
friends, andthey would give things to me.

     “We listened to European music,” he adds, “which is about the same as
American music. When I came to the United States, I started collecting some
of the old music I listened to in Russia many years ago. And I can’t tell
the difference [from] back then, because it is still great! But we loved to
listen to it!. . . It was like, okay, George Michael, Madonna, Michael
Jackson, Depeche Mode….and all kinds of different things like Def Leppard,
Scorpions, and Bon Jovi, who had a big concert in Russia back in ’89. I
can’t say I listen to Russian music now; I really like the English music and
words---and I listen to everything.”

   That said, does he like the stuff he hears blasting in the Hawks’ training
room?   “Well,” muses Karpovtsev, grinning, “I just bought a CD recorder,
and what I like to do is take many CDs and make my own mix!”

Next Month: More from Country music’s fastest rising star, keith urban, and
Blackhawks’ Country singer/guitarist/defenseman Jamie Allison.