Body Camera Footage From Nichushkin Incident Released

Full credit to 9News and Steve Staeger on this one, as they recovered the body camera footage from the April incident at the team hotel involving Colorado Avalanche forward Valeri Nichushkin.

You can click the link to view the nearly 15 minute video yourself, but several parts appear to be redacted. According to Staeger, those parts are redacted by the Seattle Police Department, “citing a provision of Washington’s open records law that protects medical and mental health information.”

Avalanche team physician Bradley Changstrom can be seen talking to the police, but his initial words are redacted from the video. He then says, “That’s a separate issue.” He goes on to say, “He had a girl in his room,” followed by more redacted audio.

The body cam starts with the woman in an ambulance, and she can be heard yelling “this person took my I.D.” However, she does not name the person she’s speaking of. Colorado Hockey Now will not be releasing the name of the woman, per company policy.

Nichushkin is not present in the video, and was not at the team hotel when the officers arrived.

To date, the Avalanche have not commented on the incident, other then to say Nichushkin left the team for “personal reasons.” They reiterated that to 9News on Thursday.

Earlier this month, general manager Chris MacFarland said that he “can’t comment on Val’s situation at this time,” and went on to say, “he was a very important part of our team in the past, and that’s our hope, that he’s going to be a very important part of our team in the future.”

This video doesn’t really clear up much in terms of what happened with Nichushkin, or his whereabouts, and that’s unlikely to change any time soon. A giant cloud of mystery still surrounds the entire situation, and all the redacted portions just add more mystery to it all.

Nichushkin just completed year one of an 8 year, $49 million contract.