The beauty from Channel One stole the hockey player’s heart, followed him to the USA and was terribly sorry. Love story of the Butsaevs

However, this story has a happy continuation.

The now famous coach of KHL clubs, Vyacheslav Butsaev, once built a brilliant playing career. He won the Olympics, the World Championship, the Russian Championship and even made it to the NHL, where he was drafted by Philadelphia. However, such successes would hardly have been possible without the reliable support provided to the forward by the assistant director of the music program “50 to 50” and his future wife Svetlana.

A regular guest of the concerts, in the organization of which the hockey player’s future wife was involved, was CSKA hockey player Evgeniy Davydov. He also knew Butsaev. And one day Davydov approached Svetlana and confronted the young girl with a fact – his friend really wanted to meet her. Svetlana’s heart was free, so she agreed. Although the girl had never been interested in hockey before and knew nothing about it. To meet her mysterious admirer for the first time, Svetlana had to come to a hockey match for the first time in her life. Then at Luzhniki in the semi-finals of the Izvestia Prize the national team played with Butsaev in the lineup. The long-awaited acquaintance occurred at the end of the meeting.

This story definitely cannot be called love at first sight. The spark between the lovers did not run immediately. Moreover, after several meetings, Vyacheslav was forced to go to North America to play several matches with CSKA. Upon returning, the love story continued and gradually moved to a new stage.

“I remember he had precious free time, and he made an appointment. But I had to submit a program on television and had to be delayed due to the production process. I ended up being an hour and a half late for my date. There were no mobile phones back then and there was no way to report that I was late. I was driving and was terribly worried. I thought, what if he doesn’t wait and leaves, and it’s unknown when we’ll see each other. Slava was waiting for me on the street all this time. In general, our relationship was very calm and gentle, no quarrels ever arose. Everything was going smoothly.” – Svetlana recalled.

The girl was very attracted to Vyacheslav’s thoroughness and confidence. Next to him, she felt like she was behind a stone wall and never thought about anything bad. Because she was sure that her lover was able to solve absolutely any problem.

“One day he came from another tournament and brought a chic suit. And to my question why he bought it, Slava replied: “For the wedding, of course.” And the next day he came with a huge bouquet of flowers to ask for my hand. That year, in addition to ours, three more hockey families were formed: the Mironovs, Kovalenkos and Zhamnovs. So the summer turned out to be fruitful in this sense. We got married in July, and in September Slava left to play overseas. At that time I was studying at the correspondence department of the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University, so I took an academic leave and a month later followed my husband,” — said the wife of the Olympic champion.

Svetlana said that for the first time after moving to the USA she felt simply terrible. She didn’t know English. She had no friends or acquaintances. And my husband was constantly on the road. So the forward’s wife had no choice but to call her mother in Russia every day and spend fabulous sums on phone calls. Vyacheslav supported his wife as best he could. He understood perfectly well how difficult it was for her. However, over time, everything got better. The couple got used to life in America. Moreover, they even began to like it there. They bought an apartment in Miami and settled firmly in the United States. But there is no stability in hockey life, so soon the Butsaevs had to leave their usual place.

“When it became clear that we were going to Russia, our feelings were ambivalent: on the one hand, it’s always nice to return to our homeland, on the other, it was a pity to leave American prosperity. And Yaroslavl at first seemed somehow small and dreary to me. But when I first came to the Arena, not a trace of this feeling remained. Having seen its magnificence, I simply did not want to leave there. And the conditions that Lokomotiv offered us turned out to be very good. First of all, the apartment. And this is important, because by that time Dani had already been born. The son was born in America. I knew in advance: if it was a boy, I would name him Danila. But then we did not yet know where we would live, in America or in Russia. Therefore, we settled on a kind of middle option: Daniel. But I always wanted a girl, so we’re not going to stop there!” — admitted Svetlana Butsaeva.

Soon after these words from the wife of the world champion, the couple gave birth to a girl, who was named Alexia. Svetlana and Vyacheslav are still together and have two children.