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Karlis Skrastins Stephine Chavez Today is Tuesday, January 10th, 2006 and I went to the Conoco sponsored
autograph signing for Latvian hockey player Karlis Skrastins.
As you may or may not know, Karlis is # 3 defenceman for NHL team: The
Colorado Avalanche
in Denver, Colorado. Karlis is a very under-rated player in my
opinion.
He is extremely durable and full of energy. Currently, Karlis is the
top shot-blocker
in the NHL with 126. Also, Karlis owns the longest active consecutive
games-played
streak in the NHL at 394 games. He is the "ironman". Karlis has not
missed playing in a game since
Feb. 18th, 2000 when he was a Nashville Predator. He has played in all
82 games for each
of the past four seasons! To keep healthy and injury-free, Karlis
sticks to his previous comments
that he does nothing out of the ordinary. He works out and maintains a
healthy diet. He does not
do yoga nor any other regimine. I personally believe a positive
attitude and outlook on life helps
the immune system too. If you have ever met Karlis, you know he is a
very happy, somewhat shy
person who is sincerely happy to be a part of the Avalanche team and
community.
Karlis is a very down-to-earth guy and really easy to talk to. He and
I talked for
about 45 minutes today about hockey, the olympics, family life and our
pets. He has a love for
all. Speaking of, Karlis has a beautiful one year old daughter,
Karolina, with his
also beautiful and stunning wife, Zane. They reside in Colorado
during the season
and travel back to Riga for the summer months. Although, this season
has been a bit trying
for them as there have been issues with the visa for the baby.
Hopefully that will be resolved
soon.
Karlis has a love for life. He is very proud of his heritage and
family. His parents still live in
Riga on the family farm where they have many animals including five
dogs. Karlis, Zane
and Karolina have a dog as well which is a yorkshire terrier/ poodle
mix. Karlis loves dogs
and animals very much. I was able to share with him photos of my
husband and dogs and
he commented he once had a tiny dog like my toy manchester terrier/
chihuahua mix. It is
nice to talk to a famous sports figure and know they are just like you
and me.
Karlis is excited to be named to Team Latvia. He will leave for
Olympic training in February
and Karlis says Team Latvia will be playing John-Michael Liles and Team
USA first! I told
him I will have a tough time choosing who to root for on this one. He
just laughed. He is
really happy to be playing in his second Olympics and to be
representing his country. All of
us in Colorado wish Karlis the best!
Karlis is very grateful to Nashville for all they have done for him.
He appreciates that he was
first drafted into the NHL by Nashville in 1998. Karlis remembers his
fans in Nashville, like Pam
who greets him at every game Colorado plays in Nashville. He had some
great times in Nashville
and enjoyed his career there but says he is happy to be in Colorado and
is hoping to play for the
Av's as long as possible. So, in closing, I want to tell Nashville-
thanks for one of the best
defencemen ever in the NHL! We are happy to have Karlis on our team
and you can visit him
anytime.
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