Todd: Andrei Markov's stick did his talking during superb run with Canadiens
A quarter century ago, Russia was a strange and difficult place.
When I was there to research a series on Russian hockey in winter 1999, mighty Russia was on its knees. The ruble had collapsed the previous August. On every street corner, young women sold themselves to survive. Their older sisters and mothers and grandmothers stood in the snow selling what they had to sell — cracked picture frames and broken lamps.
It was the very brief interval between the massive tyranny of communism and the massive tyranny of ex-KGB thug Vladimir Putin. The Russian economy was in tatters, but hope that the nation might become a functioning, enlightened democracy was at an all-time high.
What emerged instead was the Wild West, with rival mobsters murdering each other at a rate that would put Prohibition Chicago to shame and bankers who refused to launder their dirty money gunned down on the streets.
This was Andrei Markov’s Russia. The place where he grew up. A world all but unimaginable to Canadian parents driving Janey and Johnny to hockey practice at 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning, a world that was frightening and fascinating in equal measure.
While in Moscow, I keyed on three young players for the Dynamo Moscow team who had all been drafted by NHL teams: the flashy forward Maxim Afinogenov, drafted 69th overall by the Buffalo Sabres in 1997, power forward Nik Antropov, taken 10th overall in 1998 by the Maple Leafs, and Andrei Markov, drafted 162nd overall by the Canadiens in ’98.
All three would have solid NHL careers, but it was Markov, the quiet man, who would stand out as one of the best defencemen of his time, the one who made his defence partners rich. Markov, as you surely know by now, played 990 games and notched 199 goals and 453 assists, all for the Canadiens — enough to claim his place among the pantheon of Montreal defencemen with Doug Harvey, J.C. Tremblay, Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe and Larry Robinson. Anyone who saw him play between 2001 and 2017 will never forget the subtle, heads-up intelligence of his game, the smooth skating, the tape-to-tape passes.
I was apparently the first Western journalist to talk with Markov, in a group interview with Afinogenov and Antropov and with a translator present. (Not long ago, I learned from fellow scribe Gare Joyce that I was also the first Western journalist to talk to another Russian, a teenager who was a pupil at the Dynamo Hockey School at the time. And although I watched him through a long morning of drills, I failed to spot the great talent that Alexander Ovechkin would become.)
Markov was all but silent that first time we talked, even in Russian. Even in Montreal years later, he did his talking with his stick. Knowing where he came from, however,
made this week’s ceremony at the Bell Centre all the more moving
— even the stoic Markov himself was clearly moved at the outpouring of affection from the Montreal crowd.
In hindsight, former GM Marc Bergevin’s behaviour toward Markov at the end of his career was as unforgivable as it was childish. Generous to a fault with veterans like Carey Price and Brendan Gallagher, Bergevin decided for no obvious reason to get tough with Markov. It wasn’t even a matter of dollars — Markov was willing to play for the same salary he had been earning, but he wanted a two-year contract, not one.
This was a guy who had spent 16 seasons with the Canadiens, who had been the best defenceman on the roster even during some very brutal seasons, who had never once brought dishonour or embarrassment on the CH during his long career.
It was Markov who had endured three knee surgeries and a torn Achilles while performing as the greatest Canadiens defenceman of the early decades of the 21st century, Markov who kept some truly awful teams from looking as bad as they were.
And Bergevin repaid his star defenceman by saying, in effect, “It’s a one-year deal. If you don’t like it, go back to Russia.”
Markov did just that. He would play parts of three more seasons in Russia, two with Ak Bars Kazan and 23 games in the 2019-2020 season with Yaroslavl Lokomotiv before hanging them up. Markov’s performance fell off rather sharply during his second season with Ak Bars, perhaps an indication it might have done the same in Montreal. So what? It was one year of a contract he had more than earned.
Now it’s all in the past, except for those 10 games that will always be in the record books, the gap between 990 games played and the honour that should have been his when he reached 1,000. But perhaps it’s better like this, now that fans really appreciate what he was.
It was a delight to see Markov with
, whose sunny personality is the polar opposite of Markov’s Slavic sadness.
And if it isn’t too much to ask of the hockey gods, we would like very much to see M. Demidov play 1,000 games in the bleu-blanc-rouge.
