Hockey Wives returns, following the Booths all the way to Russia

When his KHL team was eliminated from the playoffs earlier this month, David Booth returned to North America with his wife Ashley after a five-month stay in Russia.

When they arrived, the first thing they wanted to do was eat. They headed to their favourite spot in Vancouver, a vegan restaurant serving up meals you can’t find on the menu in Russia.

“I got mac and cheese,” David said, before Ashley interjected that it was all dairy-free.

“I got like four entrees and I ate them all. I do remember that,” he said.

“We were hungry,” Ashley added, smiling as she recalled eating a coconut yogurt parfait.

The Booths were in Toronto this week to promote the return of the W Network’s reality series Hockey Wives, which begins airing new episodes on Wednesday. The second half of the show’s sophomore season, which follows the Booths along with 10 other hockey couples, begins with the summer winding down and the NHL season just days away.

But unlike their co-stars dealing with the ups and downs of the NHL, the Booths’ storyline focuses on their uncertain status with the league and finally their decision to move to Russia and play in the KHL. Unfortunately for the audience, the film crew doesn't capture their time in Russia, but in an interview with Eh Game the Booths describe some of the challenges they faced there.

After being cut by his former club the Florida Panthers during training camp, Booth decided to continue his playing career in Europe. There were several options — Sweden, Switzerland, and Russia — but in the end it was his wife, Ashley, who decided they’d head to the KHL’s Admiral Vladivostok.

“It is funny because that was the one place I said, ‘I’ll probably go anywhere, but Russia,'” Ashley said. “But whenever he laid out the options, you just kind of have to weigh everything. Your quality of life in each country and what the contract is offering. Russia just seemed like the clear answer and I was OK with doing that.”

While David gave her the choice to stay behind, Ashley said she “never entertained the thought.”

“If he’s going to go to a different country, he’s obviously going to be going through very difficult circumstances and difficult adjustments,” said Ashley, who put her modeling career on hold while in Russia. “Part of my job as being his wife is to be there and support him and help him in any way that I can.”

In November, the pair packed their bags and headed to Vladivostok, a major Pacific port city, not far from the borders of China and North Korea. It’s described on the Lonely Planet travel website as Russia’s San Francisco due to “pointed mountains springing up above a network of bays.”

But for the Booths, both originally from the United States, living in Russia was a far cry from the lives they led in North America. For one, Ashley said, the language barrier was a huge obstacle. Trips to the grocery store — something she adored doing back home —were miserable.

“I would have to stand like this,” she said, pretending to hold her phone up in front of her face, “with Google Translate on all the labels trying to figure out what things were. You really just have to take one day at a time and just figure things out and keep yourself busy otherwise I think it would be very easy to just kind of sulk or get bored.”

David’s experience with language was made easier by the fact that he had other North American teammates he could bond with, including Jonathon Blum, the former Minnesota Wild defenceman and Hockey Wives Season One cast member.

“You do have a good relationship with the guys that speak English over there and he was a big help when I got over there,” he said about Blum.

Communicating with the team’s staff wasn’t a major issue either because Admiral had four English-speaking coaches, David said, adding it was a reason he chose to play there in the first place.

“The head coach spoke very little and when he would address the team, he would always speak in Russian, but we had four other coaches that were English-speaking (and) could help translate,” he said.

Aside from the language, the Russian league differs greatly from the “glamorous” life of the NHL, said Booth, who recorded six goals and 10 assists in his first season with Admiral.

“Travel’s different; the size of the arena’s different; the style of game is different,” he said. “Those are all just things that were cool to experience — except the travel that was not cool.”

What’s not cool is the distance between cities. In the NHL, the most teams will travel is across three time zones — West coast to East coast — whereas in Russia, a trip from Booth’s Vladivostok to Moscow covered eight time zones, and equaled a 12-hour flight.

Once on the ground, the accommodations didn’t live up to NHL standards either, Booth said.

“I took pictures of some of the hotels we stayed in just cause, guys I really don’t think would believe how (we) would stay,” he said. “You walk into a hotel, the steps are covered in ice,” adding that would be a lawsuit waiting to happen here.

Despite the adjustments, the Booths said they each gained a new perspective through their Russian retreat and realized there are things North Americans take for granted.

“For me, the biggest thing was how we here feel like we’re entitled to a lot of things. We feel like everything’s owed to us here,” he said. “At first (Russians) can come off a little rugged, but they are very tender-hearted, and they just enjoy whatever they have.”

Hockey Wives returns to the W Network with new episodes airing on Wednesdays starting on March 16 at 10 E/P.