Here are two things I bet you didn?t know.
The centre of the Toronto Maple Leafs? first line has a tattoo on his left shoulder that depicts a hockey player skating under the watchful eye of an angel.
The tattoo belongs to Mikhail Grabovski. The angel is his mother Olga.
If you ask Grabovski about the tattoo he will explain but he is not an expansive man in English. Even in hockey-mad Toronto, not all that much is known about the linchpin of the number one attacking unit.
Although his vocabulary has improved, Grabovski struggles to find words. His accent is thick and at first encounter seems more Parisian than Russian. He is a little shorter than you might think, probably an honest five-foot-10 and there is a shy vibe about him. The bright pink lines imbedded in his chin and cheeks point to a player unafraid of high-traffic areas...
...?I want two number one lines,? Leafs coach Ron Wilson said the other day.
?Why wouldn?t I consider it (the Grabovski unit) the number one when line when everybody who played on that line scored over 20 goals??
Grabovski is 27 and in the final year of a three-year-contract. Acquired for a prospect and a second rounder in July of 2008, Grabovski was the last player to jump on the bus before Brian Burke rode in to succeed Cliff Fletcher.
There isn?t all that much more to tell. He feuded with country mates Andrei and Sergei Kostitsyn. He was unhappy as a Montreal Canadien and at one point left the team. There is a story about a scuffle at the Vancouver Olympics but all that amounts to not much.
Grabovski provided one of the Leafs highlights last season when he was pilloried into the end boards by the Bruins? Zdeno Chara, wobbled to the bench and then came back to deliver the goal that beat the eventual Stanley Cup champs. He is a fierce worker whose preparation to play is the team?s gold standard.
What you get in bits and pieces is that he didn?t come from a family of great means. A couple of years ago, Grabovski allowed how he used his first hockey stick, a Christmas gift, for five years, and continually taped it back into service. He still keeps the battered stick at home in Belarus. The rest, Olga, his family, the journey to get here, that stuff belongs to him.
He says he has never seen himself as a first line player. He usually played up an age group or two as a kid so when he did play on the first line, it was usually late in the game.
?I think everyone is the first line,? he said.
?You can?t think like that, that you are the first line. If you do, it makes you suck. If you want success you need three great lines.
In a real way, first line status is often determined by the opposing coach. The unit he tries hardest to thwart, not the highest paid or the most well known, is your first line.
Put it this way: ?It doesn?t matter what colour sweater you wear in practice,? said Mikael Grabovski. ?It matters where you are at the end of the game.?
