St. Louis Blues Vladimir Tarasenko Called Out By Russian Reporter

The St. Louis Blues have plenty of things to worry about without any outside drama. The media never seems to care about that.

Despite their fame, pro athletes, especially hockey players, find a way to keep their personal lives reasonably private for being a celebrity. Normally the only time you see St. Louis Blues players’ families are in team promotional pieces or if they are out doing charity work.

If you don’t follow them on social media specifically, you might not even know whether they are married sometimes.

In the case of Vladimir Tarasenko, most of us have seen his kids more often than his wife. Some of that is the language barrier, since she is Russian as well, but other parts are just they like to be private.

When Tarasenko was seen doing squats alongside his wife during the pandemic, that was the first time we had seen her in quite awhile. Now, she has been brought back into the limelight, but not for anything good.

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Russian hockey reporter Alexei Shevchenko took the odd stance of actually saying Tarasenko was close to retirement. He then doubled down by calling out Tarasenko’s wife since she had the perceived gall to respond to his claims.

Tarasenko’s wife Yana got on her Instagram account to dispute Shevchenko’s claims of retirement. She called the report false and damaging.

According to TradeRumours.com, Shevchenko was not very polite in his response.

"“The only purpose of Tarasenko and other hockey players is entertaining the public. This is the only reason you’re here for. You get a lot of money for playing a children’s game. You should just pray to the fact that you’re being talked about. You’re useless.” – Alexei Shevchenko"

Because of this, Shevchenko’s contact list just got a little shorter. Many of the players that share an agent with Tarasenko are now boycotting the reporter.

Dan Milstein, the agent for Tarasenko, Nikita Kucherov, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Ilya Mikheyev, Ilya Sorokin, Alexander Romanov and others, made a statement saying his clients were outraged.

“Many clients and their families called me, they are outraged. Our agency and all the players whose interests I represent will no longer communicate with this correspondent and the publication he represents,” said Milstein, to Russian site championat.com. “You need to respect people and their work, but he does not respect him. By the way, his work depends on the hockey players, because he earns on them. No one is interested in it without hockey players.”

Shevchenko’s original statement is a little overzealous for a true reporter. Lots of editorials, such as my own, made a case that Tarasenko’s career could be shortened due to the repeated shoulder injuries, but I don’t need to rely on players as sources for information any more than your average radio host.

Losing some contacts with major Russian NHL players cannot help his cause either.

But, most of this likely boils down to the response. Regardless of whether it was a man or woman that wrote the response, why respond with such dismissiveness?

Why jump immediately to calling hockey players mere entertainers, paid to dance like monkeys on command for playing a game? Clearly he had no clue the backlash this would have, or he did not care.

Ultimately, this is good that so many players stood up with Tarasenko. Shevchenko likely learns nothing if only Tarasenko stopped talking to him, but when many of the high-profile countrymen stop talking to him, then it really hurts his business.

Hopefully Tarasenko can come back, if for no other reason than to stick it to his doubters like this man.

I will not pretend as though the end of Tarasenko’s career did not pop into my head. The difference is I’d rather he prove me wrong and be back to his best, whereas Shevchenko comes off as the type that would rather be correct in his statement as opposed to allowing a player to continue their career.