From Ringling Bros. to the Pastujov Brothers, a Family's 'Unbelievable' Journey
1/20/2020 10:00:00 AM | Ice Hockey, Features
By Steve Kornacki
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Their parents left the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus shortly after Nick Pastujov was born Jan. 21, 1998, and 19 months before brother Michael Pastujov came along.
Gueorgui (George) Pastujov met Janis Tardy while he was a translator and talent scout for "The Greatest Show on Earth" and she was the dance captain. They were married in 1994 and lived in a 6-by-6-foot compartment on a mile-long circus train that took them from town to town. Though, they got a much larger cabin once George became general manager of the show.
Ringling Bros., which had its last performance in 2017 after a 147-year run, was headquartered in Sarasota, Florida, and its performers and employees spent winters there. The Pastujovs lived in nearby Bradenton, along the Gulf of Mexico coast and just over the Sunshine Skyway from St. Petersburg.
They enjoyed it there, and when the boys came, George got a front-office job in risk management with Bealls department stores and Janis taught dance (the boys took her classes and performed at recitals) while becoming an elementary school teacher. She now teaches English as a second language and substitute teaches. Janis was from New Jersey, and George grew up playing soccer and ice hockey on ponds and in rinks in what was then called the USSR.
"We had two seasons in Russia -- hockey and soccer," said George. "There is no real spring. There is no real autumn. There is either snow or sun (seasons) where I grew up on the outskirts of Moscow. But hockey was always my thing, and I always gravitated to hockey. Being on the ice was like paradise."
Janis and George Pastujov during their time with Ringling Bros.
Their father planted the seed for an Evergreen-region sport in a palm tree state, and through a fact-is-stranger-than-fiction tale, both boys came to play hockey at the University of Michigan, where they have combined to score 38 goals in their careers. Nick was a seventh-round draft pick of the New York Islanders, and Michael has attended a Detroit Red Wings Development Camp.
"They built a rink in Ellenton when I was 3 years old," said Nick of the location just east of Bradenton. "My dad took me there and taught me how to skate and everything, taught Mike how to skate, and a couple months later we started playing hockey, and it got a little more intense each year."
Michael recalled, "Dad taught us pretty much everything. The coaches down there weren't very experienced, and he was our head coach up through the squirt and bantam (leagues). And he'd hold clinics to teach other kids. We'd watch video together. It was cool, though, because when we go back now we still see how people admire and look up to him."
And, ironically, their hockey success came as a result of joining elite touring teams, traveling the nation and world as teenagers in pursuit of top competition. It was not entirely unlike what their parents did in the circus, except for the fact that they usually flew to tournaments or drove with one or both parents.
Michael said, "We were fortunate. And whenever we went to towns, they would take us to where they performed and discuss what they liked and didn't like about it. Last summer, we went to Universal Studios (in Orlando) and there was a clown act there. They knew the clowns. It was weird."
Janis added, "Hockey has been a great family thing for us, too. It became our lifestyle and we've met amazing people on our journey -- other hockey families who are just as dedicated. There are some boys they've played with and against since they were 10 or 11. I mean, it's a huge journey."
Traveling is part of their family heritage.
When asked about the best part of being with the famous circus, Janis did not hesitate: "The traveling and the people. My God, I have friends all over the world. We'd go to China, Italy, Russia -- all over the place.
"And even living on the train had its perks. George and I were talking about it a while ago, and the traveling was definitely what we liked best."
George added, "I came with the belief that this was the land of opportunity, the land of freedom. And being able to travel around the country and learn the country solidified everything for me. That was great, and it confirmed I did the right thing."
Nick and Michael, whose youngest brother, Sasha, was born in 2003, fell in love with hockey and could not get enough of it. They would get 6 a.m. skating time at the Ellenton rink with their father before school and come home to either shoot pucks against one another into a portable net on the driveway or fire away with tennis ball slap shots in the front yard.
"Our grass was always ruined," said Michael. "Kids in the neighborhood who'd never seen hockey would come over and start playing. We'd teach them how to play. But it's started to catch on with the Tampa Bay Lightning having success. Me and Nick would compete against each other to see who could score most."
Nick said, "We'd play against each other in the driveway, and we got competitive and got better quicker. We started playing for a Triple-A team, the Florida Flyers, and it was real good competition. We'd go to Alabama, up to Detroit for tournaments, traveling a lot."
Michael added, "We really started to take off when we started playing for the Florida Everblades (south on Interstate-75 in Estero). We had players on that team from other states who have gone on to the NHL and other colleges. We'd win a tournament in Detroit and people would see we played good hockey."
Nick began the Northern migration by coming to the Detroit suburbs to play for the HoneyBaked Hockey Club when he was 13.
"We knew it was the high-level hockey we didn't have in Florida," said Nick, who billeted with a local family he had become friends with on the Everblades.
Michael joined him the following year. Both flourished and made the U.S. National Team Development Program that played and trained in Plymouth, Michigan, just down the road from Ann Arbor. Both have won gold and bronze medals in international tourneys.
"That was a huge thing for us," said Michael. "I saw my brother go there first and saw what an honor it was to play for that team."
They would return to Florida in the summers and attend Ringling Bros. shows with their parents every year.
"They really enjoyed it and had a lot of fun," said Nick. "When the circus came to town, we'd go backstage to meet all their old friends and see how they used to live with all the animals and meet the trainers. Everything was pretty tight in the circus, and they got pretty close.
"My dad was a talent scout for them. It's not very much fun watching 'America's Got Talent' with him because he'd say, 'Yeah, there's 20 acts just like this in the Philippines that do it better than that.'
"When I was born, Mom got off (the circus tour) and Dad still worked a little bit while trying to find a job in Florida to settle down. My dad is still down in Florida, but a couple years ago my mom moved to Northville to be up here with Mike and Sasha."
George is able to get back about every other weekend and still sees many of their games.
Nick, a senior, had 11 goals and 24 points last season. He has six goals and 12 points this year.
"We've been focusing a lot on defense this year," said Nick, "and I think that's been really good. We're one of the best teams in the country defensively (No. 7 nationally with just 2.04 goals against per game), and teams have a really hard time scoring on us. We get a lot of confidence through their frustrations, and you can see how Notre Dame changed the way they played because they weren't generating anything on offense."
Michael, a junior, had nine goals and 19 points in 2018-19. He has two goals and eight points so far this season.
They play on the same offensive line, and their most memorable experience came in the 2018 Frozen Four in St. Paul, Minnesota. Michael scored the game-tying goal at 14:38 of the third period in a semifinal game against Notre Dame with assists from Nick and Jack Becker.
"It was just a good play," said Michael. "We were playing really well that game, and there was a scramble in front where they made a mistake, and luckily I could capitalize on it."
Nick added, "The Frozen Four is the most fun I've had playing hockey. The team was so tight, and we were having so much fun. Our confidence was so high."
The Wolverines lost, 4-3, when the Fighting Irish scored a heart-breaking goal with six seconds left in regulation.
"It was sad how it ended," said Michael. "If that game goes to overtime, we win. But it was a fun trip."
While their father got their hockey careers rolling, his sons have continued to develop at Michigan.
"My biggest thing here has been off-the-ice development with (strength and conditioning director) Joe (Maher)," said Nick. "Every summer, I got dialed in and got bigger (now 6-foot, 202 pounds), faster, stronger. I didn't have a ton of confidence as a freshman, and now I feel stronger and more dominant."
Michael (6-foot, 190 pounds) said, "College is a very physical game, and we work out hard every morning in the spring. I had so many injuries and surgeries when I was young, and just getting strong and being able to stay healthy has been big."
The unranked Wolverines (10-11-3) had a pattern of starting slow and finishing fast until last season's falling short of the NCAA Tournament field. Nick believes his final season will see a return to that stretch-drive improvement, and they are off to a good start in that department.
Michigan swept two games at No. 14-ranked Notre Dame on Jan. 10-11 before getting a win and a tie at No. 6 Penn State last weekend. The Wolverines got two points in the Big Ten standings in Saturday's (Jan. 18) tie by virtue of a Garrett Van Wyhe goal with 12 seconds remaining in the second overtime. They collected 11 of a possible 12 points against two ranked teams, enjoying a 16-5 scoring edge in those four games.
"It's more like two years ago than last year," said Nick. "The confidence in ourselves is a lot higher. We come out of (losses) like, 'We deserved to win that one.' It was just little things here and there, and we're really confident in each other. We were waiting for that weekend (at Notre Dame) to happen."
Michael said, "We just have to keep closing out games. We'd been losing too many one-goal games."
Nick Pastujov
The Pastujovs have come far from those days of tearing up the St. Augustine grass in the front yard with the blades of their sticks and being a sports oddity in their neighborhood.
"It was cool then because it was different," said Michael. "Nobody really knew about hockey and would ask us about it. If you say you're a hockey player here, people don't blink twice. But there, it's different. It's cool when we go home to our old rink and the people there remember us and say they follow us."
Janis said, "They built that rink near us when Michael was 3, and everything just fell into place for the boys after that. They all worked hard at it and they love it."
George added, "Looking back at it all, it's just absolutely crazy. I grew up in Russia, and there is no baseball or football there. So, when Nick started to grow up, I thought, 'What sports am I going to teach him? There was no hockey around. Then, when Nick was 3, they built that rink 10 or 15 minutes from our house, and that's where I took him.
"It's crazy, the bond between me and the boys that came. I showed them a game I played as a kid and that was it. And I'm very proud of them. I never dreamed it would go as far as the boys went, and the journey continues."
When they visited New York's Madison Square Garden and Detroit's Joe Louis Arena -- now in the process of being demolished -- it provided full-circle moments from their circus days.
"It's like you are entering a surreal world," said George. "You visualize certain things and when they happen you are like, 'OK, check mark.' Now we are in uncharted territory. And now, when you get to the NHL arenas where Janis and I played with Ringling Brothers, you watch the boys play and you think, 'What the heck? How is this even possible?'
"You think about all those twists in life. Who could've thought about this? It's unbelievable."
Janis said, "It was very nostalgic going to Joe Louis Arena. We'd always gone in the back door to perform, and now we were going in as spectators to watch a game in the Great Lakes Invitational, and that was pretty fun.
"And to watch them play in Madison Square Garden -- where I'd appeared in the circus -- with some of my family, having grown up close by in New Jersey, was a real special moment."
George came from Moscow to Miami because he had friends there who happened to be in the Ringling Bros. show. They told George an interpreter was needed for an upcoming show at the Tampa State Fairgrounds and asked him to try his hand at that. The rest is history.
"That weekend in Tampa turned into 12 years in the circus," he said.
Uniondale, New York, is a common thread in their circus and hockey lives. Nick will begin play after this season for the Islanders, who have played there in the Nassau Coliseum for decades. Though, the Isles now also play some home games in Brooklyn. It's also where Janis' circus career began, and the famed show performed there for the final time on May 21, 2017.
"Uniondale was where I joined the show," said Janis. "I auditioned in the city and learned the show in Uniondale. I was on the show before George, and he joined initially to translate for the large numbers of Russians and Mongolians in the show. I find it very sad now that Ringling Brothers no longer exists.
"But the dedication required in the circus and in hockey are pretty similar."
Ringling Bros.
Pastujov Bros.
It's been quite a show whether it's been under the big top or on ice for the Pastujovs.
