Pavel Bure was the first athlete I ever truly idolized as a child. Growing up there were few things that brought me joy more than watching the Pavel Bure: The Russian Rocket VHS tape until my eyes bled, it was the ultimate babysitter and my mom employed Pavel to distract me more than a few times as I watched every classic Bure play from his early years as a Canuck over and over when little Chase was still barely out of diapers.
I could take you through every play. From his dazzling rookie season where he compiled 60 points in just 65 games (an amount that would become a standard from the injury plagued Pavel) and his Game 6 hat trick against the Winnipeg Jets that showed what was to come for Bure and the Canucks as led by Trevor Linden and goalie Kirk McLean, were quickly becoming one of the best teams in the NHL.
I was just a newborn child when the Vancouver Canucks went through their first golden era, but thanks to that VHS tape I felt like I remember almost everything about that 1994 Cup run. Entering the 1994 Stanley Cup Playoffs as the seventh seed, the Canucks went on a magical run to the seventh game of the Stanley Cup, and Bure, already becoming a star, was a feature player in the dream spring for Vancouver.
In the seventh game of the opening round series against the Calgary Flames, Bure scored one of the most significant and well-known goals in Canucks history. After receiving a breakaway pass from defenceman Jeff Brown, he deked and scored on Flames goalie Mike Vernon in the second overtime to win the series. The Canucks advanced past Calgary with three consecutive overtime wins after having been down 3-1 in the series.
In game two of the second round against the Dallas Stars, Bure knocked enforcer Shane Churla to the ice with an elbow to the jaw. The hit came after Bure had been cross-checked from behind by defenceman Craig Ludwig and showed the fire that the little Russian had when he would get pushed around in his early years.
After defeating Dallas in five games, the Canucks eliminated the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Campbell Conference Finals to meet the New York Rangers in the Stanley Cup, the second trip in the Canucks history and the first under head coach Pat Quinn as the Canucks battled the entire spring to get to the bright lights of the Finals as the unlikely seventh seed.
With the series tied 1-1, Bure was ejected in Game Three after delivering a high stick to Rangers defenceman Jay Wells. Bure's stick caught Wells beneath the eye, drawing blood and resulting in a five-minute major and a game misconduct. With Bure out of the game, the Canucks lost the contest 5-1. The loss would be a terrible start for Bure's only Cup Final as a moment of poor discipline would cost the team.
After a 4-2 loss in Game Four put the Canucks at the brink of defeat in the series, the young Bure stepped up in a do or die Game Five in New York. Bure's two goals lifted the Canucks to a huge momentum shifting win at Madison Square Garden with the return to Vancouver for Game Six where they would defend home ice to force a Game Seven and put the team one win away from their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.
In the deciding game, the Rangers ended Vancouver's playoff run by a 3-2 score to capture the Stanley Cup. Still the future looked bright when Bure finished with a team-high 16 goals and 31 points in 24 games, second in playoff scoring only to Conn Smythe winner Brian Leetch. Bure's points total also remained the highest by any Russian player until Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins recorded 36 in 2009, an impressive feat considering it was the winger's third NHL season.
After that magical 1994 run things in Vancouver were never quite the same. His first ACL injury sidelined him for an entire season and would be the start of an injury plagued career. With contract disputes looming and the Canucks slowly becoming a losing franchise in the late 90's, Bure demanded a trade out of Vancouver and famously sat for the first three months of the season, a move that soured Canucks fans from a player who at the turn of the decade made Vancouver one of the most popular franchises in the league.
Bure would go on to continue to score goals in his early years for the Florida Panthers, continuing to put up 50 goal seasons before knee injuries put an end to Bure's career after a forgotten stint with the Rangers, the team that prevented Bure from winning his only chance at a championship.
Bure's short career was one of the most iconic careers of any athlete in the 1990's. A skilled skater and puckhandler from the Cold War era Soviet Union, Bure came out of nowhere in 1991 to become one of the most entertaining hockey players to watch of all time. Still despite an impressive body of work by way of 50 goal seasons and a highlight reel that would take weeks to get through, Bure had to wait until last year to get inducted into the Hall of Fame. Now, with time passed and Bure and the Canucks mending the fence, it was announced that the iconic #10 of Bure's will be retired.
It is 2013 and Pavel Bure is still one of my favorite athletes of all time. My first favorite player to watch, I wouldn't have been a Canucks fan without that first VHS tape and you might not be reading this column if it wasn't for the hundreds of hours I spent as a kid in front of the TV watching the Canucks with my dad growing up. If I had to list the three Canucks jerseys I would want to have in my closet, Bure's #10 would rank in that list right beside Markus Naslund's #19 and Trevor Linden's #16. It is only fitting that Bure's will be next to theirs at Rogers Arena.
