Kingston Frontenacs GameDay November 27, 2015

How do you turn a devastating
injury to a promising Finnish
import into a 6’5” Russian
rookie defenseman? Darren Keily
and the Frontenacs staff pulled it off
and they did it without much time or
preparation.
After playing all 68 games for
Kingston last season, promising
defenseman Jarkko Parikka tore his
Achilles tendon in a practice prior to
the start of the playoffs. The injury
was described as traumatic but the
training staff held out hope that he
might be able to return in the fall.
After talking to Jarkko, his family
and his agent in June, Keily said
that the injury was not responding as
well as had been expected. Following
some discussions the parties came
to a mutual decision and Parikko
was released. Unfortunately by the
time they reached that conclusion,
the Frontenacs were well behind in
terms of scouting the 2015 import
class.
“Normally I’m at the U18’s
because no matter how much you
look at the scouting reports, you’re
always more comfortable if you see
the boys play before you draft them,”
said Keily. “Since we thought we
had our imports (Lamikko and
Parikka) I didn’t attend the U18’s
last spring so I had to depend on our
scouts and advisors.”
Those advisors had discovered
Konstantin Chernyuk, a lanky
Russian defenseman playing tier
two junior hockey in Wichita Falls,
Texas. The native of St. Petersburg,
Russia had a good foundation of
skills and as the saying goes in
hockey circles, you can’t teach size.
Coach Paul McFarland praised
Keily and the hockey operations
staff. “Doug and Darren worked
hard on digging up information
and finding the right player,” said
McFarland. “Konstantin is a player
that’s come in and gotten better
each and every day. We like big
defensemen and he’s got great feet
and moves the puck well.”
For his part Konstantin feels he’s
adjusting to the speed and high skill
level of the OHL. “The first game
with the Frontenacs wasn’t that
good for me and I knew it was going
to be hard,” said Chernyuk. “Coach
told me it was going to be much
faster and I didn’t really understand
the tactics but now I’m starting to
know what the players will do and
how they will play.”
By the end of October, the young
Russian was still looking for his
first point but in a game against
Peterborough he did manage to
acquit himself well in an OHL rite of
passage – his first fight. Chernyuk,
who at 17 and 175 pounds isn’t
yet the imposing rearguard he
will eventually develop into, took
OFFICIAL GAMEDAY PROGRAM, VOLUME 43, 2015
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