A global game

Hockey Digest, Nov-Dec, 2004 by Chris Dolack

ONE OF THE THREE PLAYERS on the cover of the issue of HOCKEY DIGEST in your hands is San Jose goaltender Evgeni Nabokov.

The Sharks have had recent success finding goaltenders, including Calgary's Miikka Kiprusoff, who nearly led the Flames to the Stanley Cup championship in the recently concluded season. Kiprusoff was a third-stringer on the Sharks before he ended up in Calgary.

The first time a Sharks goalie graced our cover was in April 1995 when Arturs Irbe appeared with the headline "Artist Irbe." At that point, Irbe was on one of his hot streaks, where he stops nearly everything in sight, and indeed "paints a pretty picture between the pipes" as we said.

As popular as Irbe and teammate Sandis Ozolinsh were in San Jose at the time, they were even more famous in their native Latvia. "Let's say the Sharks play tonight," Irbe said at the time. "When the game is over, it's 8 o'clock or 8:30 in the morning [in Latvia]. By 9 o'clock, on radio and "IV, there is the news how we did. A lot of people, I know from friends, don't wait for the weather news. They wait for the Sharks news."

Irbe fled his country, which was under Soviet rule, shortly after he helped the Soviet Union win the gold medal in the 1990 World Championships.

"I could have played a couple of more years and maybe [in the 1992] Olympics for the Soviet team," he said. "It was a hard decision, but ... I could see the people were looking at me as the one who could make a statement."

Irbe eventually reached the Stanley Cup Fmais with Carolina in 2002.

It has been a long time since another Sharks goalie has had a following like Irbe's. If San Jose contends this season for a title as many, including us, expect them to do--then it might once again have a legion of fans in a former Soviet republic: Kazakhstan, Nabokov's native country.