It was a chilly January night time at Moscow’s famed Luzhniki Palace of Sports activities, simply 21 years in the past however in a very completely different world.
George W. Bush was within the White Home. He had simply regarded into the eyes of Russia’s new President, Vladimir Putin. Afterward, Mr. Bush infamously mentioned he’d seen into Mr. Putin’s soul and determined this was somebody he might belief.
On the ice that night time, an 18-year-old child carrying the blue-and-white jersey of Moscow Dynamo grabbed a free puck within the impartial zone and accelerated throughout the blue line because the opposing defencemen scrambled backward. After a collection of fakes, he fired a snapshot from the excessive slot previous the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv goaltender, breaking what had been a scoreless tie, then dove and jubilantly slid on his knees again towards his teammates. It proved to be the game-winning aim.
Reporter Mark MacKinnon interviews Alexander Ovechkin, then 18 years previous and taking part in for Moscow Dynamo, on the Luzhniki Palace of Sports activities in Moscow in January, 2004.Man Nicholson/Provided
After the sport, the child carrying No. 32 for Moscow Dynamo – who would later turn into well-known carrying No. 8 for the Washington Capitals – chatted politely with a Canadian reporter concerning the buzz that he was more likely to be chosen first total in that summer season’s NHL draft.
Sporting a black tuque and a black Nike jacket, his cheeks purple with zits, Alexander Ovechkin was such a fixture at Luzhniki – he’d come up by means of Dynamo’s youth hockey program – that even safety workers on the rink referred to as out to him by his nickname, “Sasha.”
He has since gone on to NHL superstardom, scoring his 895th profession aim on Sunday to set the brand new all-time report, surpassing Wayne Gretzky.
Ovechkin and Wayne Gretzky have been in Vancouver collectively for the NHL draft in 2006, when the latter was Phoenix’s head coach. Twenty years later, Ovechkin can be inside attain of the Nice One’s all-time report.Jeff Vinnick/Getty Photos
If the world had remained the way in which it was in 2004, the sport when the Nice Eight handed the Nice One would have been a second to have a good time the unifying energy of sport. The shy child from Moscow, who was born within the Soviet Union however grew up in an unbiased, democratizing Russia, eclipsing the shy child from Brantford, Ont. The reminiscences of all these heated Canada-vs-USSR video games – Bobby Clarke’s 1972 slash to Valeri Kharlamov’s ankle, the 1987 line brawl on the world junior championship – would have pale a bit extra as we cheered the passing of the torch.
However history has gone otherwise, tainting first Mr. Ovechkin after which Mr. Gretzky because it moved.
Mr. Putin, who was briefly seen as somebody who might reform and strengthen Russia’s younger democracy, as a substitute crushed his home opposition, making ready the bottom for a collection of wars, together with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In the meantime, Mr. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq set the USA by itself more and more offended path that has culminated with the re-election of Donald Trump, a President who speaks admiringly of Mr. Putin and muses about annexing Canada the way in which Russia has illegally seized components of Ukraine.
The Ovechkin I met in January, 2004, was obliging and humble, not not like how Mr. Gretzky got here throughout when he first aw-shucksed himself into the hearts of Canadians just a few a long time earlier.
“I don’t wish to give it some thought proper now – I simply wish to assist Dynamo make it to the playoffs,” Mr. Ovechkin mentioned through a translator once I requested him if he cared which staff ended up drafting him. “When it’s draft time, I’ll give it some thought.”
He was shy and soft-spoken, the other of his already flamboyant on-ice persona – and nothing just like the fun-loving face of the NHL he would turn into.
Mr. Ovechkin appeared to know little concerning the exterior world, and nothing about any of Pittsburgh, Chicago, Columbus or Washington, the 4 groups that have been front-runners to select No. 1 that summer season. (The Capitals had the third-best odds of selecting first within the 2004 draft, however leapfrogged Pittsburgh and Chicago within the lottery.)
He instructed me that he had no favorite NHL staff. Mr. Ovechkin’s hockey heroes, he made clear, have been the celebrities of the Russian and Soviet hockey programs, not the NHL pantheon headed by Mr. Gretzky. He named Alexander Maltsev, a slick Moscow Dynamo ahead who received two Olympic gold medals for the USSR, as his icon.
That patriotism, maybe, offered a touch of what was to return.
Ovechkin counts Alexander Maltsev, left, amongst his heroes. He performed for the Soviets within the 1972 Summit Sequence, the place Dennis Hull, center, Phil Esposito, proper, have been on Staff Canada.Grigory Dukor/Reuters
Ovechkin’s Instagram profile incorporates a picture of him with Putin.
Mr. Ovechkin’s legacy, within the eyes of many, shall be tainted by the truth that he seems to have an in depth private relationship with Mr. Putin, who’s an avid hockey participant and fan. Infamously, Mr. Ovechkin’s profile image on Instagram is a photograph of him standing within the Grand Kremlin Palace beside the Russian chief.
That alternative of avatar has triggered Mr. Ovechkin countless grief for the reason that begin of the invasion of Ukraine, but it surely nonetheless stays the primary picture you see if you go to his web page.
It’s not a one-off, both. Mr. Ovechkin, who captained Russia’s 2014 world championship staff, triggered ripples by instantly presenting Mr. Putin with the trophy – simply two months after the Russian chief had seized and illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Three years later, Mr. Putin referred to as Mr. Ovechkin to congratulate him on his marriage ceremony.
Whereas Mr. Ovechkin’s defenders say he has no alternative however to be publicly deferential to the dictator for his household’s sake, that rings hole to the tens of hundreds of Ukrainians, Georgians, Chechens, Syrians – and Russians – who’ve died preventing in Mr. Putin’s wars.
On the day after the invasion of Ukraine started – as missiles have been raining down on Kyiv and different cities, and Russian troops and tanks have been pouring over the border – Mr. Ovechkin concurrently claimed he was not concerned in politics, whereas additionally making his politics completely clear.
“Effectively, he’s my President,” he mentioned, when requested whether or not he nonetheless supported Mr. Putin. “Like, I’m Russian, proper?”
Mr. Gretzky’s personal awkward politics, in the meantime, have managed to mar Canada’s five-decade love affair with him.
The legend that each Canadian hockey fan is aware of – the child who began out firing a tennis ball at his grandmother’s legs whereas she performed goaltender in her chair, who stayed out late each night time on his yard rink and have become the best scorer the NHL had ever seen – now has a tawdry epilogue. Mr. Gretzky went from captaining the nationwide staff on the 1987 Canada Cup to changing into the main focus of nationwide ire after the now-dual nationwide wore a blue enterprise go well with, reasonably than Staff Canada gear, whereas serving as honorary captain for the ultimate sport of this yr’s patriotically charged 4 Nations Face-Off.
Mr. Gretzky’s friendship with Mr. Trump – who has floated the concept of Mr. Gretzky serving as “governor” of Canada after it turns into the 51st state – has price him his saintly standing even in Edmonton, the place he set a lot of his data. Final month, town’s statue of Mr. Gretzky hoisting the Stanley Cup was smeared with feces.
Mr. Gretzky was in New York to congratulate Mr. Ovechkin after his record-breaking aim, simply as Gordie Howe and Phil Esposito used to comply with him round when he was breaking the data they’d set. Not like these iconic moments, in easier occasions, there have been possible some watching who jeered Mr. Ovechkin, Mr. Gretzky or each.
If a Canadian staff had been concerned in Sunday’s video games, nationwide anthems may additionally have been booed, reflecting the darkish geopolitical period through which the child from Moscow surpassed the child from Brantford as the highest goal-scorer in NHL historical past.
It might have been, ought to have been, an important second. If solely all that different stuff hadn’t occurred, too.
Geoff Burke-Imagn Photos through Reuters
