Former scout “Toronto » Leonid Weisfeld spoke to about the former Russian national team striker Sergei Berezin died at the age of 53.
Berezin’s death was announced on Thursday June 27.
– This is terrible news that I learned from you. It all happened at night… I have a lot of memories of Sergei and I drafted him when I was working as a scout in Toronto. We took him low, only in the tenth round, and Berezin was not considered a superstar. But he was distinguished by a rare quality: he did not need partners at all. No matter who he was paired with, even some kind of diary could have been given to the top three – Sergei simply scored goals in every game.
I told my friends that this guy should absolutely be hired. We recruited him, but suddenly Berezin signed a contract in Germany. Okay, he went there. Toronto responded calmly to this. But Sergei scored 49 goals in 45 matches for Cologne in this championship, which remains a record for a German championship. It was there that Berezin became a superstar, with crowds of fans following him around the world, even when he moved to North America. A real fan club.
Berezin’s five seasons in Toronto were good; during the 1998/99 championship he scored 37 goals. And with the Maple Leafs, his style was compared to that of Pavel Bure. There are very few players of this type who are absolutely independent of their partners. Berezin’s shots and skating were very good. When he finished playing, I didn’t communicate with him. And now I’m shocked by what happened. I express my sincere condolences to Sergei’s family, it’s a terrible loss,” Weisfeld told .
Berezin is the author of the first hat-trick in the history of the Russian national hockey team. This happened on April 25, 1995 in a match against the Swiss national team (8:0). Berezin played for the Russian national team at the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, four World Championships (1994, 1995, 1996 and 1998) and the World Cup (1996).
In the NHL, Berezin played for Toronto, Arizona, Montreal, Chicago and Washington. In the regular season, he scored 286 points (160+126). In the Stanley Cup, Berezin played 52 games in which he scored 30 points (13+17).
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