“You’re like a baby, you can’t speak” – Georgii Merkulov works hard to earn spot with Boston Bruins

“You’re like a baby, you can’t speak” – Georgii Merkulov works hard to earn spot with Boston Bruins

Georgii Merkulov

Russian ice hockey forward Georgii Merkulov worked hard to learn 50 words in English each day. The youngster watched a lot of YouTube videos to accomplish that, in particular, ‘The Big Bang Theory’, and started small with words like cow, dog and grass.

The Ryazan native Merkulov arrived in The United States of America almost three years back in November 2019 and he seems both comfortable and fluent in the language. The 21-year-old is now trying to make the jump from college hockey at The Ohio State University to the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Boston Bruins.

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“You’re like a baby. You can’t speak, you can’t understand. You’re just quiet and you listen,” Merkulov said at Bruins development camp last month, as quoted by NHL.com. “And a couple of months go by and you start to understand more. A couple more months and you try to express yourself. You have [bad] pronunciation and no one can understand you, but you can’t give up.

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“You just keep working, working.”

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“You’ve got to be better and you’ll have success”

Georgii Merkulov
Georgii Merkulov

Georgii Merkulov led the Buckeyes’ campaign with 20 goals and 34 points in 36 games before signing a three-year, entry-level contract with the Bruins on April 9. He later joined Providence of the American Hockey League (AHL) on an amateur tryout and registered five points (one goal, four assists) in eight games.

“That’s been an issue since I was like 13 years old,” Merkulov said. “I’ve been working on that in school and juniors. Even when I played for Youngstown (of the United States Hockey League) … my coach was telling me, that scouts always ask about you, but they don’t like how you play in [the] ‘D’ zone. So you’ve got to be better and you will have success.

“They always say ‘D’ zone, ‘D’ zone, ‘D’ zone.”

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