Off The Field

FAIRY TALES DO COME TRUE
By Frederic C. Gesten

Do you believe in fairy tales? I have a good one. This one has a beautiful princess, a handsome waif who steals her heart, and a happy ending. What’s even better is that it is a true story.

In January, Moscow is cold and dark at 5:30 a.m. Eight-year-old Valerie and his older brother Pavel Bure faced this brutal cold every morning. They struggled to get out of bed before the sun rose, gathered their schoolwork and put on their hockey gear (much of it home made) to be on the ice by 6:30 a.m. for practice. Every day it was the same practice, school, practice and home.

Days became years. The seasons would change but the routine would not. What drove these young boys? “I was dreaming while watching the better players in Moscow, imitating them and hoping to become what they were; playing for the Russian National Team and maybe winning an Olympic Gold medal” says Valerie Bure.

Val had another reason to dream. “We were trained by my dad, who was a professional athlete and knew what it would take to go to another level,” says Val. Vladimir Bure had been a medal winning swimmer for the Russians. He was on the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Olympic teams.

Val’s dream took him and his family from the cold Moscow winters to sun drenched Los Angeles to the NHL for ten seasons. He also went to the Olympics twice playing on the Russian National Team. Mission accomplished.

More than 6,000 miles away and worlds a part, a friend of the Cameron family suggested that their kids might want to act. Five-year-old Candace and her brother, Kirk started going on auditions. First, Kirk got a part on the television show Growing Pains and then Candace was cast as one of the three little girls on Full House.

“One of the things we (Candace and Val) share in common was the fact that we started working young, developing a strong work ethic and have family values as well,” says Candace Cameron, Val Bure’s wife. Cameron spent her childhood shuttling between sets, school and home. Pity her hard working mother who had
to chaperone two separate actors as well as raise two other children.

Simple twist of fate, at six Cameron was ambivalent to acting; today, twenty some years later when asked about her future she says, “I hope to continue acting, I love to do it. I do not have to or need to but I love it.”

On Full House David Coulier played Candace’s dad’s best friend; in real life, he played Cupid when in 1994 he introduced her to her future husband Val at a charity hockey game. After a two-year courtship, they were married. Candace and Val moved to Florida in September 2001 when Val was picked up by the Florida Panthers. They enjoyed the community so much that after Val retired they chose Florida to be their home, while keeping an apartment in Los Angeles. Last year, after Candace had an opportunity to return to acting, they moved back to L.A, but still keep a place South Florida.

How do two people with such vastly different backgrounds find common ground? Val grew up in a country where he might have to wait half-a-day in a grocery line to buy a tomato. Candace grew up in sunny southern California in a home with three incomes. “We grew up in completely different cultures; but, the way we were raised, the family values we share is why we get along so well,” says Val.

It isn’t what you have; it is what you learn. Val and Candace found the spirituality they shared was all they needed. Thirteen years of marriage and three children (Natasha 11, Lev 9 and Mak 7) later they are happy
and madly in love.