Q: How difficult has it been for you to sit and watch rather than be playing
PAVEL DATSYUK: Oh, I tell you, just this is not fun to watch. I take in lots of beer.
Me too, Pav. And I don’t even have the luxury of imagining how different things would be if only I was on the ice.
Well, I suppose I do, but even in my over-active imagination, the most I could pull off would be to take a Donald Brashear swing at Evgeni Malkin’s head as he blazes past, then ankle-burn my way over to the penalty box.
And that wouldn’t help anyone.
Pavel Datsyuk in skates and a uniform, however, would look better than a Playboy centrefold right about now. It’s still somewhat unreal that the Wings managed to beat Chicago and take this lead on Pittsburgh without him. It’s pretty staggering, really.
Had you told me, before the playoffs, that Datsyuk would miss most of the conference finals, I wouldn’t even ask you if he was going to play in the Stanley Cup Final, because I would have just assumed we wouldn’t be there.
So … yeah. This is welcome news, and may even cut down on my beer consumption.
(The rest of the Datsyuk/Osgood interview is here.)
