posing as a reporter<\/a> or throwing towels to distract him during an interview. He also regularly tags along with Protas and Ovechkin for meals on the road.<\/p>\nBoth players were essential to Washington\u2019s on-ice success last season. Protas, who had a previous career high of 6 goals, quintupled that record and put up a monster 66-point (30g, 36a) performance in 76 games. Thompson, meanwhile, established himself not only as the Capitals\u2019 starter but as one of the league\u2019s elite goaltenders, posting a 2.49 goals-against average, a .910 save percentage, and a fourth-place Vezina Trophy finish.<\/p>\n
But as impressive as Thompson\u2019s talents on the ice, Protas didn\u2019t hold back when asked about his language skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s trying, but I\u2019ve got to be honest \u2014 he\u2019s terrible,\u201d he said. \u201cHold each other accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though his Russian seems to be good enough for locker-room conversations, Thompson ultimately agreed with Protas\u2019 assessment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t even remember (what I\u2019ve learned),\u201d he said. \u201cJust the swear words.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aliaksei\u2019s brother Ilya, now with the Hershey Bears, got to see the pair\u2019s dynamic this fall when he came to Washington for training camp. He told RMNB that the lack of a shared native tongue hadn\u2019t held the two of them back.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I see from my standpoint, I think they\u2019re really close friends,\u201d he said. \u201cEven (if) it\u2019s not the same language, different countries, it doesn\u2019t matter. They\u2019re really close, and I think you see how they\u2019re having fun in the practices, and outside of the rink\u2026it\u2019s pretty fun to watch.<\/p>\n
Ilya, too, had heard about the Russian lessons, and without the incentive of chirping his friend to a reporter, he offered a somewhat rosier picture of Thompson\u2019s skills.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Aliaksei said) he picked it up quickly,\u201d Ilya said. \u201cAnd he knows some things. He was telling me actually some things, when I was up there in the camp, and yeah, he knows some stuff, but I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s swear words, most of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though Thompson\u2019s the newest player to the language, he\u2019s not the first North American Capitals player to learn Russian. Aliaksei was surprised to learn just how much Quebec native Pierre-Luc Dubois had picked up over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cPierre-Luc Dubois is low-key maybe \u2014 I was so surprised how much he knows in Russian, actually,\u201d Protas said. \u201cThat was crazy, when he started to talk to me, some things he knows, I was shocked.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Thompson\u2019s been a relatively recent student, Dubois\u2019 Russian-language experience dates back to his time in juniors, when he was teammates with Maxim Lazarev and Evgeny Svechnikov on the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles. He and Lazarev were road roommates, and Lazarev insisted he follow along with Russian media.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019d make me watch Russian shows with him, listen to Russian music,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I liked it. I like languages. So yeah, they taught me a few things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dubois then got even more practice in the NHL, playing alongside teammates like Artemi Panarin, Sergei Bobrovsky and Vladislav Gavrikov during his time with the Columbus Blue Jackets.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve played with Russians pretty much all my career since 16 years old,\u201d he said. \u201cSo you pick up a few things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dubois, a native French speaker who has also picked up on some Italian from Duolingo and TV shows, noted that being a polyglot has given him an unexpected leg up around players who assume he can\u2019t understand them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something I have in my bag, that I just wait to play with Russians to surprise them,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s helped me a few times. Sometimes I know what they\u2019re talking about\u2026surprisingly, I\u2019ve used it to my advantage at times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now Thompson, like Dubois, can add another surprise weapon to his arsenal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, VA \u2014 Hockey players are no stranger to bridging the language gap. With more than a dozen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-313322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}