A Tough Guy Moment: Theme Week

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Everyone loves a tough guy, especially in hockey. But while not every player can be considered to be one of those who will hit every person in sight or drop the gloves when even the slightest hint of disrespect from an opponent is felt, we here at the Oblivion Walker Agency feel like there can be a little tough guy in even the most mild mannered of people and we would like to take an in depth look this theme week at a game where a player that some refer to as "Mr. Congeniality" had finally had enough of someone's nonsense and decided to settle it in true tough guy fashion.

 

Now for this game, we're going to have to take you back to Season 96 of the VHLM. Our Mr. Congeniality, one Stanislav "Slava" Kovalenko, was the captain of the Mississauga Hounds at the time. He ranked (as usual) very close to last for penalty minutes in all of the VHLM, but that total was about to go up in a way that no one could have seen coming.

 

The game that day was against the Halifax 21st and for the most part, the first period seemed like this was going to be a normal matchup. Halifax was getting a little bit spicy, with three of their players having all of the penalties in the first 20 minutes of play but things were about to get interesting.

 

However, just literal seconds into the second period, three separate fights broke out, one of which included Kovalenko.

 

"I'm still not sure even now how everything popped off." Kovalenko said when we reached out to him for comment for this story. "I do remember in the locker room we were getting pretty aggravated with the way that Halifax was clearly trying to get under our skin and I'll give them that, they did." With being six foot eight, Kovalenko got the better of Ty Duke in that fight and won. Online videos show a pretty nice right hook and when asked where he learned that, the defenseman laughed.

 

"My older brother Sergiy made sure I could defend myself if something came up and in this case, I guess it proved to be useful, just probably not quite in the way he was intending it!"

 

Although not necessarily proud of himself or his team for deciding to get into the mix with Halifax, Kovalenko doesn't regret standing up for himself at the end of the day.

 

"I'm a pretty quiet guy usually, my penalty minute totals will show that but if you stay quiet forever, people will think that they can walk all over you and I think I proved in that moment that I'll whup some ass if there's a need for it." Slava told us and we definitely believe him on that count.

 

Some guys are tough all the time and some are tough when they need to be and after reviewing the footage of that chaotic Mississauga game, we can confidently say that Slava Kovalenko is definitely tough when he needs to be.

 

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