Who Do You Trust in Russian?

By now, most folks who follow the NHL have heard the report out of Russia from Sport-Express about Alex Ovechkin getting into an altercation with Gennady Ushakov, currently the agent for Pittsburgh Penguin Evgeni Malkin:

At a pre-tournament matches in Mytishchi known in the past goal keeper, and now agent Gennady Ushakov emerged from the trauma person. It was the "SE", a few days ago after a party in a nightclub near Ushakova off with the club attackers NHL Washington Capitals' Alexander Ovechkinym. After Ovechkin heard insult in his address, among them, and owns an argument, in which the latter had broken jaw. The victim is an agent of another Russian NHL star and friend Ovechkin-forward "Pittsburgh" Yevgeny Malkin.

Something else that the report neglected to mention: Ushakov also used to be Ovechkin's agent. And by now, you've probably also heard Ovechkin's denial, one he provided to Pavel Lysenkov of Sovetsky-Sport (via J.P.):

Pavel Lysenkov, a Sovetsky Sport editor, called Alex Ovechkin about an hour ago to find out if the rumor regarding his alleged fight was true. Alex Ovechkin stated that this was not true. Alex added that this was just a rumor. Alex also stated that Ushakov and he have a good relationship.

But what I'm sure you haven't heard. and what a whole lot of people don't realize, is how and why Lysenkov ever asked Ovechkin the question in the first place. And once you know that, you'll be able to figure out a little more about the Russian hockey media and just what you ought to think about unsigned reports that emerge in mangled English from Google Translator.Like a lot of other folks, I picked up on the same report late on Tuesday night. But unlike those others, I have a resource here in Washington that I can use as a BS detector. His name is Dmitry Chesnokov. He's a lawyer by trade, but he also moonlights as a freelance hockey writer for Sovetsky Sport, Russia's answer to Sports Illustrated.

When I first read the report, my first instinct was to shoot it to Chesnokov, who did a quick translation for me before asking for a chance to contact his editors back in Moscow. Right off the bat he identified two details for me that should have tipped everyone off as to the reliability of the report: First, there was no byline on the story; Second, there were no quotes either.

I've gotten to know Dmitry pretty well over the past year, and I was happy to give him the time to nail down the story. With that I went to bed.

By the time I got up in the morning, Lysenkov's report was in my mail box. But not just mine. By prior agreement, whenever Chesnokov checks out something in the Russian press, he checks it out for a number of other local bloggers, including Japers' Rink, OFB and Dump n Chase. All of us have the option of picking up Dmitry's translations. In this case, a busy morning that left me no time to get anything done before heading to the office meant I had to take a pass.

In any case, there are a couple of other things that Chesnokov passed along:

• Sovetsky Sport thought so little of the initial report, that they didn't bother to include it in any of their editions. The only place anyone saw this rebuttal from Ovechkin was in J.P.'s pickup of Lysenkov's quote.

• When Lysenkov contacted Ovechkin, he didn't simply deny that the incident had taken place, he also referred to the story as a "duck". In Russian, that's an idiomatic term that's used to describe a false story that's purposely placed in the media to stir things up.

• Normally, a story like this would be picked up by the tabloids in Russia simply because it involved Ovechkin, but according to Chesnokov, there has been absolutely no secondary pickup of the story.

Chesnokov also assured me that in general, the level of professionalism in Russian hockey journalism is quite high. Most writers stick with the teams they cover for years and develop pretty close relationships with them and the Russian Hockey Federation.

Further, according to Chesnokov, Russian libel law is written in such a way to make it easier for a plaintiff to obtain relief against a journalist -- something that happened recently in the case of one prominent Russian sports writer. As a result, his counterparts have learned to be a lot more careful.

On another front, Chesnokov passes along the news that Ovechkin has been pretty happy with his preseason training and will be coming to Washington in far better shape than last year.

So there you have it, a little bit of inside baseball on Russian hockey journalism. The lesson here: The first report you read out of Russia might not always be the final word. Act accordingly.