Alex Ovechkin almost stopped playing hockey.
His mother, Tatyana, was a basketball player, his father, Mikhail, was a soccer player and they were traveling with their teams, leaving no one to take young Alex to practice. Coach Vyacheslav Kirillov begged Tatyana to get him back in the sport until she gave in.
Good thing, too. When Ovechkin was 12 and playing in a competitive Moscow youth league. he realized he needed three goals to break a record set by Pavel Bure. He scored six times the next game.
A few years later, other parents thought putting Ovechkin on the first line with Dynamo was favoritism because his parents worked for the club, so Tatyana asked the coach to demote him. He made the fourth line the team's best.
Raised in the final years of the Soviet sports system by parents who were already accomplished athletes, Ovechkin was given every chance to succeed and, along the way, showed he didn't need special treatment. He evolved into a superstar on the ice and the top NHL draft pick by the Washington Capitals in 2004.
Over the past 20 years, he became a Stanley Cup champion who celebrated by swimming in fountains — he has long been known as a fun-loving person — and teammates watched him develop into a husband, father and a generous person paying for dinners on the road and growing reflective on his career and accomplishments. Next on that list will be breaking Wayne Gretzky's career goals record.
“He was a very, very bright young man in terms of his goal-setting for his life," said Hockey Hall of Famer Igor Larionov, who met Ovechkin as a teenager. "He was determined. He was one of the fastest players on the ice, and he had a purpose. Every time he stepped on the ice, he was going to be the best."
Back in the USSR
Born Sept. 17, 1985, and coming of age just as the Soviet Union was giving way to a new Russia, Ovechkin was drawn to the game through his father. If Mikhail's gifts had a bigger impact, his son might have been more like goaltender Vladislav Tretiak than a power forward and pure scorer.
"He would go on some trips and bring me some goalie helmets," Ovechkin once recalled. "I didn’t know what it was, except it was something about hockey, and when I was a little kid everything was about hockey, hockey, hockey.”
Ovechkin embraced hockey and showed he was good at it. When marketing executive Steven Warshaw went to Moscow in the 1990s to work for the Pittsburgh Penguins after they invested in a team there, he heard all about the next generation of Russian stars.
“They give them everything they can -- the best coaching, the best everything,” Warshaw said. “He was definitely given a jump start as all great athletes are, especially when you have the lineage.”
Ovechkin was 14 when Larionov, by that time already a three-time Cup champion, sat with him in the locker room and shared some advice about doing extra summer training and committing to training in the gym.
“He knew at home from the parents, from mom and dad, to be successful you have to be determined to do extra things off ice, on ice and follow the right steps,” Larionov said. "It’s synergy between genetics from his parents, his approach to the game, his drive, his fire, his power that made him a great player.”
Coming to America
At 17, Ovechkin scored a tournament-best six goals in seven games to help Russia repeat as world junior champions and was again the leading scorer the following year as he emerged as the top prospect in the NHL draft, just ahead of countryman Evgeni Malkin.
The lockout that wiped out the 2004-05 season delayed Ovechkin's North American arrival, but on his first shift Ovechkin hit an opponent so hard he dislodged the partition holding the plexiglass together. He also scored career goal No. 1, then goal No. 2 on the way to getting 52 of them and becoming rookie of the year.
“He was actually making giant, massive steps toward stardom and started scoring goals, got his confidence,” Larionov said. "The Washington Capitals got the right players around him to kind of fit him and use his biggest strength, power, speed and shot.”
Ovechkin led the NHL in goals and points in 2008-09, helping the Capitals make the playoffs in his third season and first of three as NHL MVP.
Ovechkin still visits Russia, usually annually, and he has been criticized for his relationship with Vladimir Putin after expressing support for the Russian president in November 2017 ahead of an election. At the time, he told The AP and Washington Post, “I just support my country” and said, “It’s not about political stuff.”
Forever young
Ovechkin was surrounded by young talent in his early years in Washington. Center Nicklas Backstrom, defenseman Mike Green and winger Alexander Semin joined and made hockey in the nation's capital must-see entertainment. They were also having plenty of fun off the ice.
“He should’ve been out having his fun and having a new car every other week,” retired teammate Mike Knuble said. “You’re kind of like, ‘Oh, what car’s he driving this week?’ And just having a good, old time doing whatever he wanted to do and just playing hockey and bagging individual awards.”
In a sport that defines players for winning championships, Knuble worried that Ovechkin would be known only for the individual accomplishments because the playoff success wasn't coming. The Capitals went through a series of changes from the front office to the coaching staff and the roster, culminating with Ovechkin leading them to the Stanley Cup in 2018 as playoff MVP.
“He just didn't want to let it go,” Backstrom said of the Cup.
Even though Ovechkin was 32, he and the Capitals celebrated like few teams in recent history. They famously swam in the Georgetown fountains — a plaque now marks the spot — and the entire run showed the best of Ovechkin.
“A big heart like a big kid,” longtime teammate John Carlson said. “He loves coming to the rink and he loves scoring goals and playing like we did when we were kids.”
The more things change
Ovechkin changed off the ice, too. He and Nastya Shubskaya married in 2016, and the couple had even more reason to celebrate the summer of 2018 when she gave birth their first son, Sergei, that August. Ilya, was born in the spring of 2020, and the boys have been right there with their dad for many of his big moments since.
When Ovechkin scored his 801st and 802nd goals just before Christmas 2022, to pass Gordie Howe for second on the all-time list, he walked into the locker room hand-in-hand with Sergei and Ilya and put them on his lap to take photos.
“First of all, you have to think about your family, kids first, Nast, me,” Ovechkin said. “It changed 100%.”
At 2023 All-Star Weekend in South Florida, possibly Ovechkin's last appearance at one of those, Sergei joined him on the ice in a matching “Ovi Jr.” jersey with, of course, his dad's signature No. 8.
“He will remember that for all his life,” Ovechkin said.
Knuble has enjoyed seeing Ovi the dad take this in maybe even more than the goal-scorer. Tom Wilson, a teammate since 2013, now a father and likely to succeed Ovechkin as captain, has witnessed the growth firsthand — joining them for family vacations and seeing him as a family man, playing “Dance Dance Revolution” with his nephews and nieces.
“There’s never a dull moment,” Wilson said.
Even at home, where Ovechkin enjoys spending time with his wife, kids and their 9-year-old black lab, Blake.
“You don’t think about hockey,” he said. "You don’t think about the training or practice. You just enjoy your life, enjoy your time with the kids, with family, with friends and you can basically do whatever you want.”
The more they stay the same
Backstrom met Ovechkin nearly two decades ago before either was 21. The fun times, the Cup win and hundreds of goals between them have come and gone.
"He’s always been the same," Backstrom said. “He hasn’t changed a lot since the first time I met him: the same kind of outgoing person.”
Former teammate Nate Schmidt called Ovechkin “unapologetically himself.” Marcus Johansson, who played his first seven NHL seasons with Washington and had another stint with the Capitals, said Ovechkin is inviting, has “got a big heart and he takes care of the people around him.”
That's what current center Dylan Strome tells friends and folks back home when they ask what Ovechkin is like.
“Very, very, very generous with his time, his money — going out of his way for people,” Strome said. “He always wants to be with the guys, whether it’s watch sports or just talk or whatever or have a couple beers, he’s always in for that.”
Carlson believes the 39-year-old Ovechkin has stayed young as the age gap between veterans and young teammates in the locker room grows, while at the same time appreciating each moment a little more. Wilson has seen Ovechkin sign dozens of pucks, sticks and jerseys for other teams after a game without the slightest hesitation.
“You can’t even really describe him in words,” Wilson said. “He’s just a guy that’s bigger than life, bigger than hockey. A personality that whenever he does hang them up, the game will miss him a lot.”
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AP Sports Writer James Ellingworth and APTN Moscow contributed.
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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/NHL
Stephen Whyno, The Associated Press
