Alexander Semak
From SAS Wiki
Alexander Semak, now retired, is a former hockey player who played for the New Jersey Devils, the Tampa Bay Lightning, the New York Islanders, the Vancouver Canucks, the Chicago Wolves, the Syracuse Crunch, Dynamo Moscow, Ufa Salavat Yulayev, the Las Vegas Dicethrowers, the Massacheussets Semi-Pro Sort of Rec League Budweiser Bruisers, CSKA Lokomotiv Star Litex Sheriff B58 Olympique Red Bull Sarajevo, Some Team In Germany, and pretty much whoever would pay him to play hockey until he realised that he was in fact nearing forty and should retire with his wages he earned from playing in New Jersey for three years. He was decent at international tournaments or something, winning a gold medal in the World Junior Championships.
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Childhood Years
Semak was born on February 11th, 1966 in Ufa, a town in the Soviet Union so small it's name actually means small. Apparently it's like Edmonton without the Ukranians, which I don't buy because if you subtract Ufa's population from Edmonton's, that might mean that Edmonton would have more Ukranians than Kiev. He grew up there, learning how to drive in the Ufanese tradition of navigating their cars on pedestrian sidewalks, and joining local club Salavat Yulayev (no I did not make that name up) at the age of 17. He stayed there, playing in the Russian elite league and second division for three years before being snapped up by Moscow Dynamo, the only Russian club anyone had ever heard of before the lockout when anyone skating on ice holding a stick was worshipped by puck-bereft NHL fans. He won plenty of international medals and league championships, developing into a decent player.
Breaking into the NHL
In the 1988 NHL Entry Draft, he was selected by the New Jersey Devils 207th overall, which was odd considering what a great player he promised to be. The real story behind his low placing was the fact that there was some sort of curtain made of iron that Semak had pass in order to enter the NHL. Iron's rather difficult to just walk through, so Semak stayed in Russia for three years before Scott Stevens joined the Devils in 1991 and helped them break through this iron-like curtain with his formidable strength.
He stayed in New Jersey for 3 years, playing 180 league games and 8 playoff games, with only one full season. This led prestigious Internet website Sportcyclopedia.com to list him as a Devils Legend among players inseperable from the idea of the team such as Mike Rupp, NOT former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, and Zach Parise. During the 1994-1995 season, while the NHL was locked out, Semak enjoyed a brief sojourn back to Ufa for nine-game stint with Salavating or whatever the team is called. Now, as previously discussed, Ufa would not exactly be my first choice for a vacation. But hey, it's his hometown, and 15 points in 9 games is not exactly soul-crushing labour that was full of privation.
Trying to find a stable job
After returning to New Jersey at the beginning of the shortened 94-95 season, an early performance of 8 points in 19 games saw him traded to Tampa Bay. He didn't have a lot of fun in Florida, failing to make the playoffs, and started the 95-96 season with the New York Islanders, when he played 69 games, more than he ever would again in the NHL. Semak, now 30, bounced around in the minors, playing in the IHL and the AHL, managing to regain entry to the NHL with Vancouver, where his three points in 19 games gave him the status of a Great Forward of the Vancouver Canucks. He never played in the league again.
Out on the road
Semak spent the next few years traveling the highways and byways of the North American hockey world, working as all of the professions represented in the Village People, even the American Indian. He stopped wherever he would be paid, winning a championship with the AHL Chicago Wolves and flirting once more with the Devils system in Albany before heading to Europe for a fresh challenge.
This "fresh challenge" wasn't so much a challenge as an ego booster, as he spent the 99-00 season in Freiburg EHC, a German club in the second division where he recorded 93 points and a PPG of 1.83. He wasn't, however, his team's highest scorer; this honor went to Oleg Znarok, a player so obscure that literally nobody has ever heard of him ever.
With a fresh wind behind him, Semak went back to Russia where he chilled out in Ufa for two years again, putting up what I guess you could call decent numbers. However, he moved before the end of his career, playing for Moscow for one season. He retired in 2004 with some Russian team I never heard of whose name sounds like it's pronounced "cherry-something". This was sort of out of the blue, as he'd never had any connection to them ever.
By the time Semak retired, he was forgotten so profusely that his Legends of Hockey profile says he played his last pro season in 99-00, despite the fact it lists stats for him dating to 2004.
External Links
- Alexander Semak at Legends of Hockey
- Alexander Semak's profile at the Hockey Database, which only has four numbers in it's ID for some reason
- Oleg Znarok's profile at the Hockey Database, which happens to have eight
- Alexander Semak at the Russian Hockey Player Webring
- Boy am I getting tired of typing out Alexander Semak
- I don't know what's sadder, the fact that Semak is considered a NJD Legend, or that I know more about Semak now than pretty much anyone alive ever.
- Ufa is pretty much the only thing less interesting than Freiburg EHC, but here's a handy guide on everything you need to know about it, which is pretty much incomplete because Semak isn't mentioned once
