Imagine for a moment that you were transferred to the other side of the world because of your occupation.
Maybe you knew it would eventually happen in your line of work and that the prestige of your profession is higher in your new destination. But try to put yourself in those shoes where you don’t speak the language or understand the basics of something as simple as buying groceries.
Welcome to being a young Russian player in the American Hockey League.
“It’s a much different life,” Henderson Silver Knights forward Pavel Dorofeyev said in Russian through interpreter and teammate Daniil Miromanov. “Everything is different.”
The Silver Knights employ two Russian forwards who are spending their first season in North America, Dorofeyev and Maxim Marushev, and a defenseman who has had two tours of duty on the continent and is back for a third in Miromanov.
The list of differences between Russia and Nevada is extensive, but the most obvious is the lack of shared language. Dorofeyev, 20, and Marushev both understand enough English to communicate with their coaches and teammates but preferred to have a translator when they sat for interviews. That job fell to the 23-year-old Miromanov, who played junior hockey in Canada and a season in the ECHL in Massachusetts and speaks fluent English.
“Not the first time (translating),” Miromanov said. “It’s kind of my job, you could say.”
Both Dorofeyev and Marushev began English lessons in Russia, anticipating an eventual jump stateside. They spent their entire careers to this point in Russian development programs, working their way up to the top league in the country and arguably one of the best in the world outside the NHL, the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), as well as playing for the Russian national teams.
But as anyone who took a language class in school can attest, it’s one task to take the classes and a whole different one to put that into action.
“It’s so much different when (we) came over here and everybody speaks pretty fast, it’s tough to understand,” Marushev said through Miromanov. “(We’re) trying to do our best to learn and to understand it.”
Dorofeyev came to Henderson in January, and for months he was the only Russian on a team full of English speakers. Miromanov signed in March but didn’t arrive until more than a month later. Marushev joined the team in April.
No one was happier than Dorofeyev when Marushev came to Henderson. They’ve been “joined at the hip,” as one Silver Knights official said, as now they each have someone with whom they could not only speak their native language but connect on a cultural level.
They recently even started playing on the same line, flanking center Jake Leschyshyn, but also flipping the language dynamic. Suddenly, it was the kid from Saskatchewan — Leschyshyn — who was on the outs.
“I guess I’ve got to step my game up as much as they have to step up their English game,” Leschyshyn said.
“We were just joking around that there are two Russians now on one line and he’s the only one who’s like a local,” Marushev added through Miromanov. “He needs to learn Russian now so he can understand us.”
Putting them together wasn’t an accident. Silver Knights coach Manny Viveiros spent his playing career all over the world and said he naturally gravitated to the other anglophones when in a non-English-speaking country. He says it does matter, and that off-ice comfort leads to on-ice success.
Viveiros said that while Dorofeyev and Marushev understood most of what the coaching staff said to them, occasionally direction gets lost in English jargon and slang. Viveiros keeps a translation app on his phone handy so sometimes he types what he’s trying to convey into his phone and hands it to them, where they can type their responses back.
“Thank God for technology,” Viveiros said. “We kind of chuckle a lot because we think they understand more than they let on, so that part of it is nice to know.”
The comfort level is an organizational philosophy. None of the players are on the team solely to help another fit in — the Golden Knights used a third-round pick on Dorofeyev and a seventh-round pick on Marushev in different drafts — but there’s no denying it helps.
These are future NHL-caliber players, but they’re also young men moving half way around the world for the dream. Remember that job metaphor? Now picture yourself as a 20-year-old like Dorofeyev or a 22-year-old like Marushev. Miromanov is more-traveled than his countrymen, but he’s still just 23 years old.
The language of hockey is fairly universal and players tend to pick up on-ice words and phrases, but how would you handle it if you were dropped in a foreign land and suddenly had to pay taxes?
“That’s what I try to do with all of our prospects is put myself into their shoes,” said Wil Nichol, theGolden Knights director of player development. “To be that age and to be going from Russia and not speak the language, you’re putting a lot of trust in the organization.”
On a recent video call with Dorofeyev’s father and agent, Nichol assured his dad he would help take care of his son. Nichol put that into action when Dorofeyev arrived in Henderson, taking Dorofeyev and Marushev suit-shopping and helping Dorofeyev set up a bank account.
The off-ice adjustment in many ways is harder than trying to make the NHL. Dorofeyev, Marushev and Miromanov are living out of a hotel currently, car-pooling to practice and games and going to the store to buy groceries together.
“Pretty much everything here is different than at home,” Marushev said through Miromanov. “You can’t say a single thing that is the same.”
No matter what league a player comes from, whether it’s a Russian pro league, a Canadian junior league or an American university, there is an adjustment to be made when joining the AHL. For some it’s the step up in competition. For some it’s the cultural aspects. For some it’s both.
This is the first season in North America for both Dorofeyev and Marushev, and Miromanov’s first season in the AHL. It’s rarely easy, and while Marushev and Miromanov have not played that many AHL games, Dorofeyev’s development has been evident from the time he arrived, capped by a two-goal effort in a showcase game Saturday at T-Mobile Arena.
Maybe that’s him getting used to the North American game, where the ice surface is smaller with less area to maneuver. Maybe it’s getting used to his new Henderson home, where he’s settling in and getting comfortable after a few months.
Hockey is Dorofeyev’s job, just like it is for Marushev and Miromanov. That’s hard enough as it is without taking everything else into account.
So how will they do at the doorstep of the NHL while also learning how to live on the opposite side of the world? That’s a challenge Dorofeyev and Marushev are undertaking that few people can relate to.
“We try to make sure we set them up for success, and we’ve done that,” Nichol said. “They’re both doing a great job learning English — and credit to them for that — but there’s a lot more that goes into it than just the hockey, no question.”
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