Cooking with Alex and Geno

 By Joe Starkey, TRIBUNE-REVIEW, Mar. 29, 2009 "Larionov stars for Penguins":

Now, she is back in the game, having recently moved to Pittsburgh to attend The Art Institute, where she majors in fashion retail management. She joined the Penguins in December, working with Pens TV, which is accessible on the team's Web site.



Alyonka says her greatest desire is to make her father proud. Igor Larionov grew up in the harsh world of Soviet Red Army hockey, where he rebelled against the system and eventually bolted for North America.

In his third NHL stop, he became part of the Detroit Red Wings' famous "Russian Five," with Sergei Fedorov, Slava Kozlov, Vladimir Konstantinov and Slava Fetisov.

Alyonka remembers making Joe Louis Arena a second home with the children of those players and others, such as Steve Yzerman and Brendan Shanahan.

"They are all like second family to me," she said.

Ovechkin, too, is a life-long friend, which is why Alyonka laughed when rumors of a romance began after the two were photographed on the red carpet together at last year's NHL Awards Ceremony.

They're just friends.

"I've known him since I was a kid," Alyonka said. "He asked me to go to the Awards with a large group of friends. I didn't think people would make such a big deal of that. I also took pictures with (Red Wings forward Pavel) Datsyuk, and no one said anything about me and Datsyuk. I've known him my whole life, too."

I asked about the apparent feud between Ovechkin and Malkin, whom Alyonka did not know until this past winter.

"They're fine, I think," she said. "I don't know what this whole feud is."

That's when we started talking about possible future segments of "Cooking with Geno." One could see her and Malkin make cheeseburgers for the team.

"That would be funny — two Russians serving American food to a bunch of hungry hockey players," she said.

Then, she thought of a better idea.

"Actually, what we should do is a huge (cooking) segment with Geno and Alex. That would be funny!"

Malkin's up for that, as well.

"Why not?" he said after a 4-3 victory over the New York Rangers on Saturday.

This has to happen. Maybe from this year's Awards Ceremony in Las Vegas, the one in which either Malkin and Ovechkin likely will be named league MVP?

"I'm down for that," Alyonka said. "I'll give Alex a call and see if he wants to do it."

Here's YouTube video if you haven't seen it yet:

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