9806020781
DETROIT FREE PRESS
980601
Monday, June 01, 1998
METRO FINAL
1A
Photo GABRIEL B. TAIT/Detroit Free Press
Midway through the first period Sunday, chants of "Vladdie, Vladdie,
Vladdie" reverberated through Joe Louis Arena as special guests in Mike
Ilitch's box were introduced: Irina and Vladimir Konstantinov, who smiled and
waved hello, and Sergei Mnatsakanov, who waved a pom-pom.
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1998, Detroit Free Press
VICTORY FOR VLADDIE
WHILE FANS' LOVE ECHOES, SO DOES THE MYSTERY CALLED FATE
STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS: RED WINGS 3, STARS 2
He sat up high in the owner's box, wearing a warm-up suit, a cap and a smile
that could not help itself. Vladimir Konstantinov, the fallen soldier. He
could no longer do his old job, which was skating and hitting and shooting on
a professional hockey team. He could no longer walk on his own or even
remember many of the best moments of his life. Last year at this time, he was
on the ice, one of the best in the NHL. Now, he needed help doing the simplest
of things -- eating, bathing, being understood. Still, as the cheering began,
he smiled and raised his hand.
Next to him sat Sergei Mnatsakanov, in a brown sport coat, a dark shirt and a
wheelchair. He, too, can no longer walk, can no longer ply his old trade,
which, as a masseur, had been tending to the Stanley Cup champions. A year
ago, he did that proudly, strongly. Now, he needed someone to wheel him to the
elevator. Still, as the cheering started, and fans rose to their feet, he
raised a white pom-pom and shook it vigorously.
"PLEASE WELCOME BACK . . ." the PA announcer at Joe Louis Arena said, but that
was all you heard, because everyone knew the rest, and as their faces appeared
on the big screen, the cheers, the screams, the roars of hope could not be
contained, they drowned out your thoughts, they shook the rafters and
swallowed the air and threatened to burst the glass of the suite to which they
were directed.
It was a love scream, the affection of an entire city directed at two wounded
men. And all the while, down on the ice, through a fate that hung as thick as
the moisture in the summer air, Slava Fetisov listened and absorbed. Then he
looked down and skated a small circle, as if he somehow could go back around
to a time before it all happened.
"If not for an inch," he would later say, his voice a near whisper, "maybe it
is me up there in that box, and not on the ice."
How does fate make such weighty decisions? All three men -- Konstantinov,
Mnatsakanov and Fetisov -- were in that limousine last June 13, all three of
them had been laughing and enjoying memories of the golf outing earlier in the
day, all three of them were reportedly aware that something was suddenly wrong
with the driver, that the car was drifting, that they were heading for
trouble, even before the vehicle smashed into a tree on Woodward Avenue and
the world went black.
But two of them awoke in a whole new place, a place of wheelchairs and doctors
and charts and rehab. And one of them was now back at work.
All the Red Wings on Sunday felt a lump in their throats when Vladdie and
Sergei returned.
Only one man felt that way because he never left.
Why Slava still suffers
"Every day since the accident, I ask myself this question, 'Why me?' " Fetisov
had said, the day before Konstantinov, 31, returned to Detroit for the first
time since leaving for rehab in south Florida last year. "I wake up in the
night sometimes, I see the pictures in my head, but I cannot find an answer.
Why this happen to Vladimir and Sergei and did not happen to me, too?"
Fetisov, a grizzled-looking veteran defenseman, shook his head. He sustained
injuries in that accident, but none that wouldn't heal. He was released from
the hospital, even as Konstantinov and Mnatsakanov remained immobile, their
doctors wondering whether they'd ever walk or talk again.
Tragedies always will claim victims. But they won't let go of survivors,
either. So as the months passed, Fetisov kept seeing the accident, again and
again, at night, or in a car, or whenever he gazed upon Konstantinov's locker
in the Wings' dressing room. He is 40 years old, the oldest player in the NHL,
born when Eisenhower was still president and Russia, his homeland, was the
evil empire behind the Iron Curtain. He has lived through communism, detente,
glasnost, democracy, a handful of Olympics, a dozen world championships, two
sports systems, two languages, two cultures.
You would think Slava Fetisov had seen enough to prepare him for anything.
And then the accident. And then the recovery. And then the months of inner
torture. And then this. Saturday. At practice. Konstantinov is wheeled into
the Wings' locker room.
And their eyes meet.
"Vladdie ...where have you been so long?" Fetisov says.
"Slava," Konstantinov answers slowly.
And the flood of emotions starts all over again.
Ask yourself how you'd feel if you emerged from a crash miraculously intact,
but the person alongside you was changed forever. What's the right emotion?
Gratitude? Guilt? Now add the fact that Konstantinov was not just a teammate
to Fetisov, he was virtually a younger brother. Fetisov's real younger brother
-- who, back in Russia, had been best buddies with Konstantinov -- died in a
car crash when he was 17. It was only natural that Slava and Vladdie gravitate
to each other to fill their aching voids.
"This is why this accident hurt Slava so much," his wife, Lada, was saying in
the arena tunnel Sunday. "First, it was his brother dying, and he is
surviving. Then it is Vladdie getting hurt, and he is surviving. Always, he is
surviving, surviving."
She sighed sadly.
"He ask himself, 'Why?' "
Why do I survive? What an unbearable question.
Victory isn't the only thing
After a few minutes, the thunderous cheering from the fans, the Wings and even
the Dallas Stars players gradually subsided. Play continued. And a few hours
later, as the game went deep into the third period, Konstantinov and his wife,
Irina, who lovingly tends to him now, were ushered downstairs for an easier
exit. They had heard the cheers, they had been reminded of their public
affection. Now it was time to go. Never mind that this game was tied and fans
were hanging on every shot. This wasn't really about the game, anyhow.
So Konstantinov was wheeled through the basement level and as some people saw
him, they stopped and clapped. As he passed the players' wives lounge, Lada
Fetisov and several others burst out to greet him.
"You know who I am," Lada said first, in Russian, making sure.
"Yes ...Lada," Konstantinov said.
"We are so happy to see you. Tomorrow, I'm coming to your house and bringing
the food I used to make you. You remember?"
Konstantinov beamed like a child. Then Fetisov's young daughter, Anastasia,
who was licking an ice-cream cone, bounced over to Konstantinov and offered
him some. He took a lick. Someone gave him a pink rose, and he held it.
Suddenly, there was a roar from inside the arena. The Red Wings had scored,
grabbing a 3-2 lead.
"You see, Vladdie?" Lada said. "They are winning for you! They are winning for
you!"
And Konstantinov, sitting in that hallway, ice cream on his lips, unable to
even see the play on television, beamed even more broadly.
Sometimes, you don't have to be on the ice to be part of the action.
And sometimes you don't need to show wounds to be part of the hurt. So even as
the Wings won the game, Slava Fetisov came off the ice with a mixture of
emotions. And as Konstantinov was wheeled to a waiting Mercedes limo, where a
man took his rose, placed it on the car roof, then helped lift him out of his
wheelchair, Fetisov went to the trainer's room and iced his sore body.
And as the limo pulled away from the parking lot, Fetisov emerged from the
shower. Around him were the sounds of victory. He wore no such look.
"How often did you look up at them?" he was asked.
"Many times," he said, softly. "I see them waving to crowd."
"And what were you thinking?"
"What am I thinking? I am thinking how lucky I am to be here.... I am thinking
how good is to see them in person.... I am thinking this could be me up there,
watching the other guys play . . ."
He inhaled.
"I am thinking how I have to help them for the rest of my life."
Just then, his young daughter raced into the locker room with two of her
friends. She jumped into his arms and kissed him, then rubbed the stitches of
a large scar around his eye.
"My Daddy got hurt," she said.
"No," he told her, smiling sadly, "it's just makeup."
And holding her hand, he went out the door, with Sunday's mental snapshots to
both inspire and haunt him. Three men in a tragedy. Two now wave from
wheelchairs. One circles on the ice below. Anyone who thinks they can explain
fate is out of his mind.
To leave a message for Mitch Albom, call 1-313-223-4581.
THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED ARTICLE.
HOCKEY;VLADIMIR KONSTANTINOV;SERGEI MNATSAKANOV;JOE LOUIS ARENA;VISIT