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Saturday, October 16, 1999
Octagon has Yashin in sights
With reports that the Senators want Yashin to dump his agent, Mark Gandler, rival agents have been hovering above Yashin, hoping to snag a new client.
Yashin was spotted Thursday in Zurich at a women's tennis tournament, the SwissCom Challenge. A source told the Sun yesterday that at the tournament, Yashin spoke with Phil DePicciotto, president of athlete representation for Octagon, a company formerly known as Advantage International.
Detroit Red Wings' Sergei Fedorov switched representation to Octagon from the International Management Group during a contract holdout two years ago.
Other Russian NHL players the company represents include Calgary rookie Oleg Saprykin and Montreal defenceman Igor Ulanov.
The company also represents a number of tennis stars, including Anna Kournikova.
A source said DePicciotto approached Yashin to make an Octagon sales pitch. Gandler declined to comment.
Yashin will remain in Europe until his contract battle is settled, says Eric Wuthrick, manager of the Kloten hockey club of the Swiss league who spoke face-to-face with Yashin yesterday.
"He's here in Zurich. Two hours ago, I spoke with him in my office," said Wuthrich.
Rumours of Yashin's whereabouts have been circulating this week; one had him in Phoenix hanging out with the Senators while a supposed deal was being worked out.
But the reality is Yashin remains in Kloten practising with the team coached by his mentor and Russian Olympic coach Vladimir Yurzinov, and has been doing that since he arrived in Europe after boarding a plane bound for Switzerland Sept. 8 in New York.
"He's working as an assistant of our head coach," said Wuthrich. "I think for him, it's just for fun."
Yashin has an apartment close to the team's arena, about a 10-minute walk away.
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