4 мин.

Struggle with fears

5

Struggle with fears / Борьба со страхами / Ю.Розанов

«We simply have to step on ice and play our game”, said Ovechkin after game with Czechs. And he didn’t mind that these words are perfect for quarterfinal. I knew Alex for years and I pretty sure that if I ask him “And with Canada too?” he might definitely answer:” Sure. Especially with Canada”.

We definitely scared. But if this fear makes you assign who are guilty of that fear, you’d better stop reading. “Everything might go fine, if we did not lose to Slovaks” you think. First, it is second-guessing. Second, it’s kind of the glory hunting. Our wish for easy win is the reason why we lose to Slovaks. On Slovaks place it could be any other team, not so strong. Who could possibly have imagined Canada could not beat Switzerland during main time?

Let′s figure out what are we scared of? Sure, we have to worry – we play against Canada, not Brazil. So, the question is what fear is stronger? On one side, our team came away with anything less than a gold medal. On other side, lose to Canada. No result? Try again. We have to eliminate one fear. “Solve your problems step by step” every psychologist would say that. No other way.

So, if you worry about came away without Olympic medal – this fear is the strongest, like panic. Usually at this time you’d better scream. For example, you have claustrophobia and you get stuck in the lift. When you think that the Fear is stronger than you, you think that Canada is stronger than Russia. So, you can set your mind in rest by consider us as outsiders. It might help in some case. Or, you can think: your panic is their panic. “their” means “our players”. So, you have to hide you fear for «Them». For example you get stuck in the lift with your son.

If we worry about Canadians (and the fear sounds like I agree with Turin result, if we beat Canadians again) you’d better consider yourself as a kid who got stuck in the lift, and every player is your father. “Does he scare? No. So am I.”

Ok, let’s change Canadians dress for Russian ones. Imagine what would we say about our (and actually Canadian) team? Considering that they already knew about quarterfinals draw when they play against USA.

So fear is useless. But if someone think that “I have no fear” means “I forecast victory to Russians”, he is wrong. Only Russia or USA can beat Canada, I said before tournament. But that was not forecasting too. We can win. We can lose too. There are equal chances we will lose or will win, and there is a little chance that we will defeat Canadians with more then 2 goals difference. And it’s not forecast, again. Remember 79’s or 81’s? No could forecast that?

We should make clearing more accurate. Czechs forgives that. Canadians will not. Avoid useless penalty. And bury all of our chances. If we play our game, opponents are nervous very much.

New problems appear with Zinoviev’s injury. Problems are about line roster and order of line appearance. Starts with 3 lines and do not use 2 forwards? What if this question could be solved by an internet poll?

I don′t believe that two forwards will be staying on the bench, it’s unreasonable. So I guess we‘ll start in 4 lines. Someone will play in 2 lines, perhaps Malkin or Datsyuk. Considering that, lines order will define. First problem is how man advantage will implement? Probably we will play by regular lines otherwise a mess will occur.

Also it is possible to use constant special team for shorthanded situations (Radulov or Kozlov or Volchenkov) with minimal execution of special team members during non-power play time.

Everything is possible. And one more thing I want to say: “Hey, goalie, be ready!”. It does not matter what is your name – Ilya or Eugeny.

Even if we will lose, it’s not right to be scared of Canadians more than our team do. Anyway it’s not right, if we want be in unison with our team, with all of their pluses and minuses. I just say:”Good luck to us!” and will keep silence till the end of the quarterfinal.