Former RoughRider skates on Olympic ice

The kid spoke no English when he got off the airplane in Cedar Rapids five years ago. All Sergei Kolosov had to help him communicate was a small Russian-English dictionary.

Cedar Rapids RoughRiders head coach and general manager Mark Carlson remembers taking him to meet with RoughRiders housing coordinator JoAnn Perez. The trio held a conference call with a Russian interpreter to make sure Kolosov's immediate needs could be taken care of.

Just look at their Sergei now.

“This is a great thing for the Cedar Rapids community,” Carlson said. “Sergei didn't speak one single word of English, but he came to our community and we helped him. We got him acclimated to the North American way of life. It's a great story.”

A great story with an Olympic chapter. Kolosov is on the Belarus men's hockey team that plays its first game in the Winter Olympics today against Finland. The Detroit Red Wings minor leaguer is the first former Roughrider to be an Olympian.

“The RoughRiders and everyone in our community can be very, very proud of Sergei being in the Olympics,” Carlson said.

Especially the coach and his family. The Red Wings drafted Kolosov, a defenseman, in 2004, and asked Carlson a year later if they could send him to Cedar Rapids to play and learn. After an initial stay with a local family didn't work out, Carlson and his wife, Tammy, had Kolosov move in with them and sons Dustin and Brayton.

“It was more a scenario where it was a great

family he was with, but it just wasn't working,” Carlson said. “This is supposed to be said in a good way, but Sergei was definitely high maintenance. So we just said ‘We'll take the responsibility.'

“It ended well.”

Kolosov, 23, played the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons with the RoughRiders, then a season professionally in Belarus before signing with Detroit. He is in his second season with the Grand Rapids Griffins, the Red wings' top minor league affiliate.

“He just has to work on his overall game, getting it all together every night,” Grand Rapids Coach Curt Fraser told the Grand Rapids Press. “When he does that, when he finds that step, he's going to be one good defenseman.”

Kolosov originally was on a provisional Olympic roster for Belarus but found out about three weeks ago he was going to Vancouver.

“I was very surprised,” he told The Gazette recently.

Belarus doesn't have the firepower of a Canada, Russia or even the United States and will be a long shot to get a medal. But the experience has Kolosov excited.

NBC's coverage of the opening ceremonies included a close-up shot of him waving a small Belarus flag as he walked into B.C. Place with his country's Olympic athletes.

“For every hockey player, it's a really good experience, especially for me,” Kolosov told the Grand Rapids Press. “I'm a young kid, so I'm really excited to go in there and show what I got.”