The Extremely Exhaustive Evgeni Malkin Primer: Summer 2013 to Olympics 2014
Old Stuff (Recently Found):
- An old but cute article about how much Geno hates to lose - so much so that he's known for cheating.
- Transcript of a Russian radio interview Geno gave the fall after he won the Cup where he talks about a lot of things, including winning the cup, and possibly playing against friends like Gonch and Sid.
- Translation of an adorable old article where Geno drafts his fantasy team (it's all Russians and Sid, and then he wants to get popcorn and watch).
- A cute article on Sid and Geno finally getting to play together after a long stretch of one of the two of them always being injured.
- Speaking of cute, a super-duper cute collection of quotes where Sid and Geno talk about each other.
- Remember how two summers ago Geno was in a Russian movie? It's now online!
- A fascinating article about Geno leaving Russia from the time it was happening.
- If you'd like a nostalgia bomb, here's a cute early article about Geno and Sid from Geno's first season.
- This is actually recent and came out just before the Olympics, but I didn't know where else to put it - a great, fascinating article about Geno's upbringing in Magnitogorsk and his parents.
End of Summer
Geno had a few things to do before heading back to Pittsburgh. The first was to attend some sort of Team Russia... thing. I'm not sure what it was. A presser? A meet and greet? A summit? A thing. Let's call it a thing.
He also had to do his (annual? semi-annual?) charity hockey match.
This one was particularly special because he fought/wrestled a kid. I'm not kidding. He actually fought a kid.
And I think he kind of lets the kid beat him? Which is adorable.
Pre-Season
By early September, guess who had rolled back into town (specifically, into NYC to do some pre-season press):
That, by the way, is from the twitter of the Pens official PR lady, Jennifer Bullano, and she's great. If you're a Pens fan, I highly suggest you follow her.
Geno also had another very familiar superstar with him doing press:
And he recorded an interview on his own.
(This is from when Sid chooses Geno as his first pick for his fantasy hockey team, which is adorable, so you should watch it even though Geno isn't in it.)
Next up - season ticket deliveries! As you may remember, the Pens personally deliver tickets to season ticket holders every year, and Geno's English has gotten a lot better from when he's done it in previous years. (WARNING: the video features Geno being cute with a baby. Proceed with caution.)
To wrap up their pre-season, the Pens went to West Point for "team-building", which means they did a bunch of hiking and fake shooting stuff and playing football and hanging out and practicing and taking pictures with people.
When the Penguins got back, they decided after practice to play wiffle ball on ice to honor the Pittsburgh Pirates finally making the post-season after many, many years. I'm not sure how many years and I'm too lazy to try and figure it out, but everyone in Pittsburgh was super-stoked. Also, wiffle ball on ice is adorable.
In the midst of all this, a lot of attention was being paid to Russia and their new anti-gay laws. A lot of Russian stars were being asked their opinion of them, and most either were in favor of them (Kovalchuk, Datsyuk) or ambivalent/evasive (Ovechkin). Geno fell in camp ambivalent/evasive, though he did say he would have no problem with a gay teammate, which is pretty supportive and about as supportive as he could afford to be, considering he was about to represent Russia in the Olympics.
Mostly, though, pre-season, aside from the few exciting things, is lots and lots and lots of practices. And while exciting news rarely comes out of these practices, lots of great pictures do! So here, let's peruse pictures of Geno practicing, shall we? That's always a good time.
2013-2014 Season (First Half)
(This is a reminder that if you ever want to know what's going on with the Pens at any given point in time, your best bet is In the Room, a fabulous series PensTV produces about once a month.)
Geno had a bit of a slow start to the season -part of that is historic (Geno always starts slow) and part of that was because Geno's linemates kept being juggled due to injury. (A second article on linemate juggling can be found here and another here.)
Despite his slow start, Geno got his first goal of the season on October 11 against the Panthers, and kept on rolling from there. We'll get back to this in a bit.
But first, PUPPIES!
The Penguins every year do a Pens and Paws charity calender where they pose with adoptable dogs and cats and it's great. Because, like, once a year you just need your favorite hockey player cuddling a puppy or kitten, right?
Around this time was Halloween, and Geno went as Batman:
I don't know who the kid is. A kid of his friend who was visiting, I think? Who cares, the whole thing is adorable.
(Geno wearing his practice jersey for Hockey Fights Cancer.)
The Penguins have this recurring segment where they take twitter questions for players/coaches/announcers/Pens personel, and this fall it was Geno's turn! He talks about what he misses about Russia, when he started playing hockey, his pre-game routine with Sid, his favorite animal, and his favorite goal he's scored.
Geno had an interesting November. On one hand, James Neal returned from injury, which is always good for Geno, especially scoring-wise (and because they're BFFs), but in November he hardly scored any goals. That isn't to say he had a bad month, because he was racking up assists like no one's business, but he wasn't scoring. He finally broke a 15 game drought on the 22nd of November against the Islanders.
This lead to him being named NHL First Star of the Week for the week of November 25th, and again for the week of December 5th. If you want to read a super-cute article about how James Neal helped Geno play better after coming back from injury and how well the two of them work together, I highly suggest reading this.
(The last shot is by Carmen Mandato Photography, which is a guy - I think, could be a girl - who takes fabulous Penguins pictures. If you're a fan you should definitely be following their facebook page.)
Unfortunately for Geno, the hot streak ended when he got injured (lower body) on December 14th in a game against the Red Wings, which put him out for a month. But don't worry, it was the holidays and there was plenty to keep him entertained.
First this excellent Russian article came out, which is worth Google Translating and wading through the garble to read. In it Geno talks about Sid, Ovie, and trying to sneak James onto the Russian Olympic team by changing his last name to "Nealov" or "Nealkin". (He obviously did not succeed.)
The other thing that came out was Geno's Head and Shoulders ad. It was announced in the summer that Geno would be doing an ad campaign with them (here is a Russian article on that), and this picture came out, which features shirtless Geno so you may need a moment with it:
Moment over? Okay, good, because you will need to gird yourself for the ad and behind-the-scenes that came out. They're in Russian, so I don't know what Geno's saying in them, but that's not important because there are a lot more interesting visual things happening that need zero translation. Like Geno showering. I know. Consider this your warning.
Anyway, here's the ad:
And here's the behind-the-scenes:
Here is a Puck Daddy article that translates the ad, though they make fun of it along the way. Which I suppose is warranted, but it should also be mentioned that Puck Daddy is run by straight dudes who don't understand how highly important this ad is, even if it is totally ridiculous.
Also around this time, the Penguins did their annual Christmas visit to UPMC Hospital.
(WARNING: the following pictures contain both Geno with children and James Neal in glasses.)
Geno also had friends visiting him over the holidays, including Max Ivanov (of course):
And somebody's really super-cute daughter:
After Christmas followed a series of events which may or may not be the greatest things to ever happen.
Okay, so, background: Geno is sidelined with his injury, and James Neal scores the overtime game-winner against Carolina. Geno was, uh, excited during James' postgame interview.
And then next game against Columbus, James Neal got a hat trick. And, well, Geno couldn't let that event pass un-commemorated.
(Sorry, that's the best copy of it there is - here's gifs of a better version I can't find and another better version from a different angle on tumblr.)
James Neal then videobombed a Russian interview of Geno's (I can't find the source video of this one), and Geno commemorated the entire thing on his instagram.
(With the caption "Happy New Years Lazy)))".)
Geno came back on January 5 and jumped right back into old form, which apparently includes a new-ish ritual we didn't know about he likes to have ROOT announcer Bob Errey touch his stick on occasion. (Some other gifs of the same ritual.)
Next up were two charity events, Pens and Pins, an event where the players bowl with Make A Wish recipients (and wear terrible bowling shirts).
And then the Children's Charity Practice/Luncheon, where a bunch of Make A Wish kids come to see a practice and then have lunch with the Penguins players.
Geno also did a autograph signing at the mall, where he wore the same gray hat for the trillionth time in a row, for no discernible reason. (Otherwise, he looked good - but that hat.)
Geno was playing hockey during all of this, too. He ended the first half of the season before the Olympic break with 18 goals and 40 assists, putting him in eighth place in the entire NHL for points (and 5th for assists). Not too shabby.
2014 Olympics
Okay, so going into the Olympics, it should be known that there was a huge amount of pressure on the Russian men's hockey team. Huge. Sochi was Vladimir Putin's Olympics, and Vladimir Putin loves him some ice hockey. Putin personally financed and picked the coach for the hockey team. It was basically decided that it didn't matter how many medals Russia won (spoiler alert: they won more medals and more gold than any other country) - if the men's hockey team didn't win gold on home ice, the games were a failure. No pressure! (For some background on the pressure, there's this article and this article from after their elimination.)
Ovechkin was the face of the hockey team and therefore under the most pressure to produce, but Geno as an elite goal-scorer was probably number two in terms of high expectations. (Here is a pre-Sochi article on Geno and the expectations/how he was looking forward to the Olympics.)
If you needed a sign of the crazy-high expectations, the Russian hockey team recorded a victory song sometime over the summer and released it in October-ish. You get to see Geno sing! Or chant. It's kind of unclear what he's doing. But it's cute.
Or if that wasn't enough, here's Geno's five-minute ad for Samsung:
Geno's mom also got to carry the torch as part of P&G's "Thanks Mom" initiative, which, similarly, was adorable.
Speaking of adorable, this is Geno's official Olympic profile, and he lists Sid as one of his heroes. Awwww. Awwwww!
Geno didn't seem terribly comfortable with all the attention, preferring to deflect it to Ovechkin when he could. (Sidebar - the last article linked is pretty good except it refers to Ovie as a "diva" which is terrible for a lot of reasons, so just, like, ignore that part.)
Russia did okay in the first round of competition. They had 1 win, 1 overtime win, and 1 overtime loss. Geno netted a goal and two assists. He seemed to be playing in the mode that his Pittsburgh teammates refer to as "The Bully".
This record took Russia to the elimination rounds. They beat Norway and went to the quarterfinals, where they lost to Finland, 3-1. And that was the Olympics for them - no chance to even play for a medal.
This was obviously a big blow for Russia, and a lot of Russians considered their Olympics to be prematurely over. (Again, never mind that they won the medal count or gold count, because hockey was what counted to many of them.) Geno apologized for losing and left the games early to spend some time with friends in Moscow before flying back home. There were some reports (though they were a) hearsay and b) from Rob Rossi - so take with a large grain of salt) that there was friction on the Russian team between the coach and his star players, but it ultimately didn't matter - Team Russia didn't do what they came to Sochi to do. It was time for Geno to go back to Pittsburgh and focus on winning the Cup.
Click to view