Bruckler Bernd - This is Russia: Life in the KHL: Doctors, bazas and millions of air miles

THIS IS RUSSIA: LIFE IN THE KHL

Doctors, bazas, and millions of air miles
By Bernd Brckler
with Risto Pakarinen

2013 Bernd Brckler and Risto Pakarinen

Cover image: Michael Lorber

Design: Martin Lyxell

ISBN: 978-1494379285

1st edition

www.thisisrussiathebook.com

Bruckss acknowledgements

The process of writing this book repeatedly reminded me of how lucky I am to have experienced living and playing hockey in Russia, memories of which I will always carry with me. Never once did I take that opportunity for granted and I really tried to make the most of my time in that intriguing country.

I was fortunate to have a great team of people who helped me turn this book into its final form:

Mika Rautakallio was the first person to push for the idea of writing a book about my time in the KHL. He has had my back since the beginning of my professional hockey career, and Im grateful for everything hes done for me.

Risto Pakarinen took a chance on this project and became a great friend along the way. He was instrumental in helping me to bring this book together, and is, simply, brilliant.

Wolfgang Grtner is one of my best friends, and the one who lead me to pursue the connection with Risto. He also helped immensely in reviewing drafts of this book.

Many thanks to my wife Veera whos stood by my side through the good and the bad, the joyful days as well as the painful ones. Her attitude towards following me to Russia was extraordinary and without her support it never would have been possible.

To my family, mother Doris, brother Klaus, and grandmother Josefine: Thanks for keeping me motivated to finish this book.

Last but not least, my grandfather Kurt, who was my biggest fan, and who really believed in me. To this day, I have enormous respect for him. Im so glad that he got to visit me in Nizhny Novgorod and see everything with his own eyes.

And of course, thank you, dear reader. I hope this book sheds some light on life in beautiful Russia.

Ristos thanks:

To Jessica, Hannes, and Hilda, for making sure I smile every day.

To Brucks, for entrusting me with his story.

This is Bernd

Terminator: Ill be back!

The Terminator (1984)

When my grandfather, Kurt, was a boy during World War II, a group of Russian soldiers marched into his familys house in Austria and told my great-grandmother to cook them lunch. They also told her theyd be in the neighbourhood for a while and asked her, or maybe told her, to cook lunch every day at noon.

She did, and the soldiers returned every day.

When the Russian soldiers eventually left the village, my grandfather and other kids happily raided the soldiers camps to take anything they could find. The soldiers had sunk one of their tanks in a nearby lake, so the kids dove down to see what remained. They didnt find much, except bags of chocolate that the soldiers had left inside the tank. Of course, the chocolate had been there for a while, and the bags had leaked, so they couldnt eat it.

I only heard these stories after I had signed with Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod in the KHL, the Russian hockey league founded in 2008. I signed with Nizhny in 2009, and in November of that year my mother and my grandfather (her father) came to visit me in Russia.

Grandfather, Opa in German, was very proud that I had signed a big contract with a KHL team. He was a man of the old school, the kind of man who still thought of money in Austrian schillings, instead of euros, even though Austria was among the first countries in Europe to adopt the euro back in 1999.

But Opa was thrilled to visit me in Russia and see my new home. The only things he knew about Russia were what he read in the papers, and what he knew from wartime. Basically, he thought Russians were tough and hard to approach because of the language barrier. By then I knew not much had changed in that regard, but now Opa had a chance to see things for himself and build his own opinion.

From wartime, my grandfather remembered the Russians talking about butterbrod, which for him and me meant just bread and butter, but for Russians meant a full sandwich. Some words in Russian are the same as in German, and among the older generation of Russians it was easier to find people who spoke German than English.

My grandfather, being the friendly and curious man that he was, somehow found people who knew a little German and he loved it there.

Grandpa, of course, came with me to the rink he was my biggest fan because he wanted to see firsthand what practices were like in Russia. He wanted to see me in action again.

Unfortunately, he got off to a less-than-perfect start when he tore his hand on his luggage. My mother told me Opa bled easily, so we took him to see the Torpedo doctor. Dr. Ivanovich was a slightly older fellow, not quite my grandfathers age, but old enough to really connect with him, and they did. After he had fixed my grandfathers hand with some green, glue-like paste, which would heal the wound in two days, Dr. Ivanovich found a bottle of vodka in his office and poured a shot for Opa.

My grandfather loved the warm welcome, if not the wound in his hand, and he left the country with a smile on his face because he had a lot of respect for the Russian people and their hospitality. He would be able to tell everyone back in Austria that I was well taken care of in Russia, just as he had envisioned all along.

* * * * *

I was born in Graz, Austria, which is probably most famous for being the hometown of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Terminator, the former Mr. Universe, former governor of California, and former and current movie star. Of course, Graz is more than that, it is the second-biggest city in Austria; but Austria is a small country. The population of Graz is now about 320,000, but when I was born it was about 250,000 (And before the good people of Thal get angry, let me go on the record and say that Schwarzenegger was born in Thal, a village just outside Graz).

Arnie was honoured in Graz by having his name on a football stadium even if it was later renamed to protest the use of the death penalty in California which just goes to show how big a sport football, or soccer, is in Austria. When I was a kid, in the late 2009980s, everybody played soccer, including me.

In Austria, skiing has always been a big sport, as well, and back then even Formula 2009 racing was, too, mostly thanks to Niki Lauda, who won the Formula 1 in 1975, had a horrible accident in 1976, made a comeback just six weeks later and won two more World Championships before retiring, for good, in 1985.

Right about then, the nice people at my kindergarten asked us kids if we wanted to try ice hockey. I played soccer, but I figured here was my chance to be a little different, a little special, by taking up a less popular sport. So I said yes. But by then it was September, and the rest of my group had started to play about a month earlier, which meant that I was way behind them.

Especially since I couldnt skate.

After about a month, the coaches asked if any of us would want to play goal. I was awful at skating, so I saw my opportunity to be a part of the team without having to skate. It made sense, I thought, for me to go to the net. And thats where Ive been ever since.

Now, my clever plan to avoid skating backfired, because our coach was a Czech man (back then, from Czechoslovakia), and in his opinion, the goalies were supposed to be the best skaters on the team. Suddenly, I was practicing skating more than anybody else.

My parents werent sure how they felt about me playing hockey. The sport seemed a little dangerous, especially for a goalie, but just like any other parents they wanted to see that I was happy. And hockey made me happy.

But my parents also wanted to see commitment. Once I was at a friends birthday party when my mother came to pick me up mid-party. My friends family owned a lumber yard, and we got to play outside, and it was a fantastic party, so I didnt want to leave, and instead, I was on the floor, bawling. My mother simply told me I couldnt let the other kids on the team down.