SKA St. Petersburg weren’t messing around this off-season. First they signed Pavel Datsyuk and they’ve followed that up with arguably the most incredible hype video ever. Flames? Check. Gunfire? Check. Fan eating what appears to be raw meat? Check.
When veteran Pavel Datsyuk left the Detroit Red Wings this past season, there were rumors of a few times looking to bring the Russian star aboard but Datsyuk ended up signing on with SKA St. Petersburg.
There were no doubt a number of things that went into Datsyuk’s decision to sign in St. Petersburg, including the details of his contract, being close to his family and probably the fact that SKA told him if he signed with the team they’d produce an absolutely bonkers commercial that includes everything from a flame-shooting guitar to a fan eating a chunk of raw meat.
Datsyuk, the newly minted captain of SKA, features heavily in the 55-second commercial spot, but there’s no shortage of mind-blowing moments in the commercial. Check it out:
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGRmbfaQAjM[/embed]
For those keeping score at home, the commercial included — but was not limited to — a hand-cranked grinding stone, a re-wired goalie mask that lit up into a sad face and a random horn section playing while the members danced.
However, all of that is almost tame compared to the fact that in the second half of the video the actual SKA players are walking through sparks that shower down on them, a trail of fire is set to lead up to an entire flaming SKA logo and, completely out of nowhere, gunfire from what appears to be an AK-47. Oh, and that’s all laid over some arena rock.
With Datsyuk at the center of it the entire video as the captain, you’d almost think he was Mad Max inking a deal to join Fury Road’s team for the upcoming season. Hard to say which character Ilya Kovalchuk would be in that situation.
Unfortunately for SKA, the hype video didn’t work the first game out. St. Petersburg dropped their season-opener 2-1 in overtime to Traktor Chelyabinsk, but SKA will get another chance to pick up their first win — and Datsyuk his first point — of the season when they play their home-opener Thursday against Salavat Yulaev Ufa.
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