Pavel Bure

Pavel Vladimirovich Bure (Па́вел Влади́мирович Буре́, ; born 31 March 1971) is a Russian former professional ice hockey player who played the right wing position.

Bure was born in Moscow in 1971 to Vladimir and Tatiana Bure.

Vladimir Bure, a Russian swimming legend, had dreams of Pavel becoming a professional swimmer, but he aspired to play hockey at an early age.

He attended his first tryout with the CSKA Moscow hockey school at the age of six, despite his limited skating ability.

Until that point, Bure had only played ball hockey on the streets.

After Bure failed to impress in his first tryout, his father told him that if he did not show significant improvement within two months, he would withdraw him from the hockey school.

By age 11, he was named the best forward in his league.

Around that time, in July 1982, Bure was selected as one of three young Russian players to practice with Wayne Gretzky and Soviet national goaltender Vladislav Tretiak in a taped television special.

At age 12, his parents separated, and he remained with his mother.

By the time he was 14 years old, he was named to the Central Red Army's junior team.

In December 1986, he embarked on a tour of Canada with the Soviet national midget team from Ottawa to Vancouver.

He was invited to the senior club's training camp for the 1987–88 season.

Although he was deemed too young and not yet ready for the Soviet League, Bure earned minimal playing time filling in for absent regulars.

He made his debut in September 1987, and played five games for the senior team, scoring his only goal in his first game.

Bure joined the club full-time in 1988–89 and amassed 17 goals, a Soviet League record for rookies.

Selected 113th overall in the 1989 NHL Entry Draft by Vancouver, he began his NHL career in the 1991–92 season, and won the Calder Memorial Trophy as the league's best rookie before leading the NHL in goal-scoring in 1993-94 and helping the Canucks to the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals.

After seven seasons the Canucks traded Bure to the Panthers, where he won back-to-back Rocket Richard Trophies as the league's leading goal-scorer.

His individual success helped CSKA Moscow capture their thirteenth consecutive Soviet championship and twelfth consecutive IIHF European Cup in 1989 (they repeated as European champions the following year).

As a member CSKA, Bure joined a lineup that featured several future NHL players, including linemates Sergei Fedorov and Alexander Mogilny, as well as Igor Larionov, Viacheslav Fetisov, Sergei Makarov, and Vladimir Konstantinov.

As a member of the Soviet Union, he won two silver medals and a gold in three World Junior Championships, followed by a gold and a silver medal in the 1990 and 1991 World Championships, respectively.

Nicknamed "the Russian Rocket" for his speed, Bure played for 12 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Vancouver Canucks, Florida Panthers and New York Rangers between 1991 and 2003.

Trained in the Soviet Union, he played three seasons with the Central Red Army team before his NHL career.

After the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, Bure competed for Russia in two Winter Olympics, claiming silver at the 1998 Games in Nagano as team captain, and bronze at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.

In 1991, he joined his father and brother, Valeri in moving to North America as he embarked on a National Hockey League (NHL) career with the Vancouver Canucks.

His mother arrived two months later.

They settled initially in Los Angeles where Vladimir continued to train and coach both Valeri and Pavel in hockey and physical conditioning.

Nearly five years before Bure made his NHL debut with the Vancouver Canucks in 1991 at the Pacific Coliseum, he played his first game at his future home rink as part of the tour.

Bure also earned another opportunity to meet Gretzky, as well as defenceman Paul Coffey, when his team stopped in Edmonton to play at the Northlands Coliseum.

At age 16, Bure began his professional hockey career playing for CSKA Moscow.

However both became estranged from their father, along with his second wife and their half-sister Katya, by 1998.

Neither brother has explained a reason for the split.

Bure struggled with knee injuries throughout his career, resulting in his retirement in 2005 as a member of the Rangers, although he had not played since 2003.

He averaged better than a point per game in his NHL career (779 points with 437 goals in 702 NHL games) and is fourth all-time in goals per game.

Following Bure's retirement in 2005, he was named the general manager for Russia's national team at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.

The record would last for 18 years until Alexei Cherepanov scored 18 goals in 2006–07.

Bure added 9 assists for 26 points to earn the league's rookie of the year honours.

After six years of eligibility, Bure was elected into the Hockey Hall of Fame in June 2012.

Bure was later recognized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) for his international career, and was inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame in 2012.

In 2017, an NHL panel named Bure one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players in history.

Internationally, Bure competed for the Soviet Union and Russia.