Ilya Samsonov may be married now, but he still has a special place in his heart for Vitek Vanecek.
On Tuesday, the Czech goaltender was named the Hershey Bears’ player of the week after posting a shutout and back-to-back victories.
In the comments of the Instagram post announcing the news, Samsonov congratulated his former teammate.
Yes, it included the kissy face emoji.
“congrats my broooo!!! Great game!! 😘🥳” Samsonov wrote.
Thank you so much big boy! 😘” Vanecek replied.
The two goaltenders developed a special bond in Hershey during the 2018-19 season. Samsonov even crashed one of Vanecek’s press conferences acting as a reporter.
Ilya Samsonov crashed Vitek Vanecek’s postgame press conference with media and Shippensburg University. Sammy asked a question, but also addressed how he was clean shaven now pic.twitter.com/YOyasF7cIP
— Kyle Mace (@kyle_mace) March 20, 2019
“Ilya Samsonov, New York Post. Tomorrow – day off or no?”
Vanecek then joked that Samsonov must have cleaned up the facial hair for his girlfriend, who is visiting in April.
“I don’t know, I think he want to just look good, you know?” Vanecek said, laughing. “His girlfriend come in April, I think? So he shave it too early. His family is here, that’s why he shaved it too.”
The two also called each other “Boss” and “Big Boss” in Russian and early last season Samsonov credited Vanecek as one of the people he is closest with on the team.
“He calls me Boss, and I translated to Russian,” Samsonov said. “The Czechs understand some Russian, and now we call each other Nachalnik and Big Nachalnik. We have a great relationship with Vitek. I even met his family when they were in town.”
“We help each other,” Vanecek said over the summer. “When we’re in the goal, we always want to win. We’ve never argued once.
“He even invited me to his wedding, but unfortunately, I couldn’t make it,” Vanecek added. “Ilya’s English isn’t very good yet, so I tried to help him in America. We talk to each other in Czech and Russian. We curse too, I know some bad words in Russian now.”
This goalie bromance has stood the test of time despite having to go long distance. Let us hope it never ends.
Headline photo: Chocolate Hockey/Instagram
