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Nice blog post on Ruslan Salei, the former Ducks player who died today in the Russia plane crash, by Chris Foster of the L.A. Times. Salei was from Belarus and taught himself English by watching TV in the minor leagues in Las Vegas. His Sopranos-esque accent was dubbed by another writer as “Bela-Rooklyn." Foster says Salei, a tough hombre to play against, became the Anaheim locker room quipster, as well as a friend.
One rainy day after practice, I was cruising through the dressing room, wearing a duster raincoat. Rusty nodded at me and said, "Hey, you look like that guy in the movie -- you know, ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer.' "Meaning matinee idols Freddie Prinze Jr. or Ryan Philippe?
No.
“The guy with the hook,” Salei said, smirking....
He would spot you and nod, saying, "How yoooo doin'?" From that point, you never knew where the conversation would lead.
[skip]
My lasting thought will always be the night I was alone in a St. Louis restaurant when Rusty and two other Ducks players walked by the table. Salei stopped, kicked my chair, and said, “I see you’re havin’ dinner with all your friends. Enjoy.”
* Added: Times hockey columnist Helene Elliott wrote on Facebook that this is a difficult story to cover. "Knew Ruslan Salei fairly well and always liked him," she posts. "There are many newly fatherless kids tonight." Also: Helene's story on one of the most tragic days in the history of sports: the death of almost an entire team, composed of players from ten countries and touching every team in the National Hockey League.