Tag Archives: Stacy Dallman

Kazakhstan: Barys Astana Hockey Star’s Agent Speaks Out

17 Apr

The agent of Barys Astana captain, Kevin Dallman, has spoken out after the Astana defenceman hit the headlines in his natvie Canada last week with specualtion over his future role at Kazakhstan’s sole representative in the Continental Hockey League (KHL), Europe’s answer to the NHL.

Dallman’s agent said that his client’s contract is due to expire on 30 April and terms had been agreed for an extension, but the star’s wife, Stacy Dallman, is pregnant and the couple has not yet decided where to have the baby. This refutes allegations made in the Canadian press about why the Dallman’s had left Kazakhstan.

The Toronto Sun carried a story on 11 April that reported Stacy Dallman had been refused a Kazakhstan visa apparently because of a controversial blog she wrote about Kazakhstan, Adventures in Kaziland, while living in Kazakhstan. This post in particular seems to have got someone’s back up.

According to the agent, we will have to wait and see what happens after the ice hockey world championships in May when the final word on whether Dallman  will be playing in Kazakhstan next season will be given.

 

 

 

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Kazakhstan: Bloggers Beware as Hockey Star’s Wife Refused Visa

12 Apr

Stacy Dallman, wife of Barys Astana ice hockey team star Kevin Dallman, is reporting on her blog Adventures in Kaziland, that she has been refused a Kazakhstan visa after living in the country for four years.

Her blog took a look at life in Kazakhstan and didn’t flinch from criticising problems such as the endemic corruption in the country. After pressure from her husband’s agent, she was forced to remove a post from her blog in March 2012.

If you are wondering where the last post went…. well….Kevins agent made me delete it! Well the agent is blaming it on the team, the team is blaming it on the owner of the team, the owner of the team is blaming it on the president of the country. I’m not quite sure if the president of any country would have enough time on his or her hands to worry about one little blog that less than 100 people read per day…but that’s their story and they are sticking to it.

What’s got into Astana that it’s running scared of a blogger getting 100 hits a day? Have recent moves to stifle dissent within the country now been extended to foreigners?

With its new three-party parliament Kazakhstan likes to present itself as a democracy, but it takes more than a sham parliament  to make a true  democracy with a functioning civil society.

Not only has Kazakhstan lost a critical blogging voice, but Barys Astana has also lost its star defender as  Kevin Dallman’s contract, which had another three years to run, has now been terminated.

Stacy Dallman signed off with the following

I’m done.

No more blogs about Kazakhstan.

I leave behind some of the most intelligent, discerning young people who are poised to become the next leaders of a historically repressed country that I am confident has the desire and ambition to overcome it’s problems.

My expulsion from the country only verifies each and every point that I have witnessed over the past four years spent in Astana.

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