Why Siberia?
8 September 2007
I am writing from 30,000 feet flying over the cold and frozen Siberian landscape. I signed a one year contract last summer with the club Lokomotiv Novosibirsk who finished 10th last year in the Russian Super-league. We received an email from my Italian agent, Luca Novi asking us what it would take to get us to Russia. I yelled the question to my wife in the other room and she blurted out one number…and then another number pushing the envelope. I simply typed in the numbers and pressed send….3 weeks later in France, I signed the official contract and we were bound for Siberia!
It was definitely intimidating. I mean, I have played and lived in a lot of different places but this was different…this was far, unknown, scary. But so are the home prices in Orange County so we packed our bags and hit the road.
The 2007/08 season is really the best season to play abroad for any National Team player. On the year preceding the olympic games, National Team obligations take up much of the calendar and the Cub teams are obligated by the FIVB to release NT players at least 14 days preceding a major tourney. The salary on these years don’t change so in fact you are earning the same as you would for a full 8 month season, while only being there for 60% of the time. This is the good news. Read the rest of this entry »