Kingston Frontenacs GameDay December 4, 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
OFFICIAL GAMEDAY PROGRAM, VOLUME 43, 2015
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