One Game Wonder #2: Alexander Andrijevski

026_alexander_andreijevskiThe Chicago Blackhawks wasted a lot of draft picks on Eastern European players in the early 1990s. For a time, it seemed like they drafted anyone and everyone from Russia or former Soviet Union countries who even showed a glimmer of promise to perhaps one day become the next Sergei Fedorov or Jaromir Jagr. One such draft pick is Alexander Andrijevski from Belarus, who played a whopping ONE game for the ‘Hawks in the 1992-93 season.

Of course, that one game was enough to merit an Upper Deck trading card the following season in their Series One set. The front of the card shows Andrijevski scoring the zero goals and zero assists he was credited for. On the upside, he didn’t get penalized either.

The back of the card shows us Andrijevski’s advanced onset of male pattern baldness. It also touts him as a “tall, rangy winger” and notes that he scored 51 points in 66 games for Chicago’s minor league team in Indianapolis the previous year.

026_alexander_andreijevski_backBut Andrijevski’s production would drop to 29 points in 61 games in the minors the following season, and he’d play the rest of his career with different European teams.

The international stage is a different story, though. Andrijevski helped put Belarus on the hockey map. As explained on the Legends of Hockey website:

Andrievski played at the 1995 World Championships, helping Belarus win the tournament and gain promotion to B pool the following year where he won a bronze medal with the team. The next year he won a gold that earned the country a promotion to A pool, and in 1998 the Belarussians finished eighth in their first time in A pool competition at the WC. Additionally, Belarus was a pleasant surprise at Nagano [in the 2002 Olympics], finishing fifth and establishing itself as a solid A pool nation.

Andrijevski was also the team captain of the Belarus ice hockey team in the 2002 Winter Olympics — the same team that upset Sweden 4-3 in the quarterfinals and finished a surprising 4th overall.

So while his NHL career lasted all of 60 minutes, Andrijevski was a force for his country, representing Belarus in seven World Championships and two Olympic games.

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Author: Sal Barry

Sal Barry is the editor and webmaster of Puck Junk. He is a freelance hockey writer, college professor and terrible hockey player. Follow him on Twitter @puckjunk

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