“Vladimir Bure suffered a stroke in 2017, after an unsuccessful bypass surgery – he had to change the heart valve,” Cooperman told . “But when the operation was almost over, the bleeding started. I had to open the already sewn seam and clean everything. The operation, instead of the planned six hours, lasted 12 hours. Then a stroke occurred, during which the heart stopped for 16 minutes. Vladimir was in a coma for more than a month. After leaving the hospital, he began not only to walk, but also to swim for an hour and go to the gym. He worked on himself. I learned to speak again, to form words.
We first met in the editorial office of Sports Games magazine, where I was the editor-in-chief of the hockey department. It was in the summer of 1990. At that time, I didn’t even know what to call Bure Sr. I called him “Vladimir Valerievich.” We met when I was collecting documents stating that his son Pavel had played a number of matches for CSKA and that Vancouver, which had selected him in the draft, could keep the rights to Pasha. Volodya had to sign the documents so that I could then rush with Igor Larionov to the Canadian embassy to fax the papers to Vancouver.
That’s how Vladimir and I met, and since then we’ve seen each other quite often. I remember the summer of 1992, when the Bure family arrived in San Diego. Late at night, he, I and 18-year-old Valera Bure, who had already spent a season in the Canadian junior league, were lying in the big pool. Volodya lay in the water, looked at the starry sky and said: “I can’t believe this is happening to me. A year ago, we were still in Moscow.”
Volodya’s father was repressed in the 30s. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he asked to go to the front. Vladimir himself told me that he was born in Norilsk, where his father was imprisoned. But when he was six years old, they returned to Moscow. We began a close friendship with Vladimir Bure when he began working as a physical training coach from New Jersey. And as a former swimmer, he emphasized intensive work to develop the endurance of hockey players. I remember how Scott Gomez improved under him, turning from an average player into an NHL star.
Once the Devils came to a game with the Phoenix Coyotes, where I worked, and I saw Vyacheslav Fetisov playing tennis with Bure. I stood next to Sergei Brylin and watched how they fought on equal terms, and Volodya was indignant when the ball went into touch, but Fetisov counted it. Brylin said with a smile: “These are our rules. What can you do? After all, Slava is a coach. We laughed a lot and were good friends. Many hockey stories …
Volodya is a unique person. First of all, he made a name for himself in swimming. And believe me, Vladimir Bure was known in the Soviet Union, just like Lev Yashin, Anatoly Firsov, Galina Prozumenshchikova, Elena Petushkova. Bure was one of the leading athletes of the USSR in history. In the pool, he won four Olympic medals: one in 1968, three more in 1972. Bure competed with the great American Mark Spitz. Volodya said that it was impossible to win against him. Then he had a little relationship with Mark. But Bure hesitated to talk to me about swimming when I started talking about Spitz or the broad-shouldered swimmers of the GDR. In general, Volodya behaved very modestly. He never flaunted that he had four Olympic medals or two Stanley Cups, that he was an Honored Master of Sports of the USSR in swimming and an Honored Coach of Russia in hockey. He never beat himself up about the fact that he was the one who prepared Pasha and Valera, at least in conversations with me. In his new marriage, Vladimir had a daughter, Katya; she now lives in New York and is a graduate of a prestigious university.
Vladimir and I called each other every three or four months, but we talked for a long time. In our last conversation, Bure said that it was recommended for him to swim in the ocean – for an hour, or even two. I was still surprised then, but Vladimir did it with pleasure. His wife Julia either swam with him or was on the shore. And during one of the swims, Volodya fell ill, his heart right in the water. He was taken to intensive care, where he was kept for three days, and then released. During the conversation, I noticed this: Bure usually did not complain about anything, but here he repeatedly said that he was in great pain. I did not ask where and how it hurt, but I realized that it could be the heart …
More sports news in our telegram channel .
Source : MatchTV
I’m Emma Smith, a dedicated journalist and avid storyteller. I have been writing for news websites for the past 5 years, reporting on hockey news and delivering in-depth analysis of the sport. In my current role as Author at Athletistic, I write about hockey events from around the world to keep followers up-to-date with what’s happening in the sport.
