Miroslav Tsarov Junior Review

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Miroslav Tsarov has had one of the more unique career paths out of the players recently drafted in the VHLM for sure. His professional hockey career bagan at the tender age of 15, when he was a full head taller than others from his grade. During a previous article we examined Miroslav’s early career and exposure to the Chernobyl radiation in the reactor meltdown which stunted Miroslav’s height and muscle gain. He was a pretty avid basketball player, and immediately after exposure when his height started rapidly growing he was able to use this new found height to dominate the sport. Unfortunately for him his weight seemingly had a delayed start, but he began gaining a lot of muscle all over his body, dense heavy muscle that began wreaking havoc on his joints, soon he was unable to jump out of the strain it put on his joints and ligaments.
Moving from sport to sport Miroslav eventually settled on ice hockey, finding he was able to glide his way around and release some of the strain from impact. This began his skating lessons at 12. He practiced every day, his peers were already years ahead of him, but Miroslav had a ton of raw athletic talent. 3 short years after first learning to skate Miroslav was signed to his first “pro” contract - $50 a week to play with one of the near by junior teams. Not only did Miroslav get to play against higher skilled competition, but it was a under 21 league, meaning that young Miroslav played against men 6 years older than him, even though his imposing figure put these men to shame.
Enjoying the Junior life, Miroslav was given free equipment, meals and lodging, so his small salary was actually pretty substantial as none of it needed to be spent to sustain himself.
Quickly eclipsing the skill level of this Junior league, Miroslav joined a senior league in Minsk, signing the contract on his 18th birthday. Here the skill level was much higher, and the compensation as well. This is where Miroslav made his home for the next 29 years, settling in Minsk and elevating his game up to the longest serving captain, wearing the C for 12 straight years, and leading the Minks to 4 Championships during that tenure.
Contemplating retirement for a few seasons near the end, Miroslav was waiting for his body to start giving out, but he felt and played like someone half his age. It seemed another side effect of the radiation was rapidly slow aging on his body, he was able to keep up with kids younger than his children.
Eventually having enough, and really wanting to pursue the top league in the world, Tsarov retired from his lengthy career and declared for the VHL draft, he would be entering the 79 draft as one of the older players (although not the oldest!) after having a very lengthy career already behind him.