Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff reports that former Red Wing Slava Kozlov gave an interview to Sport-Express in Russia regarding the passing of Sergei Mnatsakanov, and Duff provides excerpts from the original Russian-language interview:
Mnatsakanov, formerly the Red Wings team masseir, died last week in Florida of cancer. He was 71. Mnatasakanov was left paralyzed below the waist and with debilitating brain injuries when he was a passenger with Red Wings players Vladimir Konstantinov and Slava Fetisov in a July 13, 1997 limousine accident.
“We saw each other after the accident, in Florida, until I returned to Russia,” said Kozlov, today serving as an assitant coach with Dynamo Moscow of the KHL.
“He was very good-natured,” Kozlov said of Mnatsakanov. “Everyone on the team loved him. He spoke little, his English was not very good. But he treated everyone with respect, gave everyone his time and attention.He was very much appreciated in Detroit.”
According to Kozlov, the Ilitch family, owners of the Red Wings, would continue to pay Mnatasakanov his salary throughout his life. He also was recalling how Red Wings coach Scotty Bowman kept a 24/7 vigil at the hospital bedsides of Mnatsakanov and Konstantinov following the accident.
Konstantinov was also left with debilitating brain injuries, ending his all-star career just days after winning the Stanley Cup.
“(He) talked to them the whole time they were in a coma,” Kozlov said. “It was the off-season, and his big family was waiting for him in Buffalo. But Scotty flew out as soon as he heard about what had happened.”
Continued; when the accident happened, outside of Detroit, the story was about Vladimir Konstantinov suffering his life-altering injuries in the limousine crash…
But in Detroit, it was always, “Vladdie and Sergei,” from the news coverage to the “Believe” patches that said VK for Vladimir Konstantinov and SM for Sergei Mnatsakanov.
It was always about both of them. And now that one has passed away, it’s terribly sad, because Sergei Mnatsakanov mattered to Red Wings fans.
