Date of Birth
17 September 1985, Moscow, Russia
Birth Name
Alexander Mikhailovich Ovechkin
Nickname
Ovie
Alexander the Great
Height
6' 2" (1.88 m)
With his highlight reel goals and on-ice enthusiasm, Alexander Ovechkin has become one of the most exciting and popular players in the NHL.
Alexander Ovechkin was born in Moscow in 1985. Both of his parents were also star athletes in Russia. His mom played basketball for the former Soviet Union and won Olympic gold medals in 1976 and 1980, while his dad was a professional soccer player.
The first sign of Ovechkin's future came when he was two years oldwhile in a Soviet toy store, he grabbed a toy hockey stick and refused to let go. His parents treasure the picture to this day. Whenever he saw a hockey game on TV, he "dropped all his toys" and ran to the TV, protesting strongly if his parents tried to change the channel.His parents say they knew he would be an athlete when he chose to run up the steps to their 10th floor apartment instead of taking the elevator. They also encouraged him to be athletic, sending him out to play at nearby soccer fields and basketball courts.
Sergei, Ovechkin's older brother, had initially introduced him to hockey, and Alex enrolled in hockey school at the age of 8. Soon after he began, however, he had to postpone his hockey career because his parents were unable to take him to the rink. But one of Ovechkin's coaches saw his talent and insisted to his parents that he should continue playing hockey. Sergei later died in a car accident when Alex was only 10. A childhood friend claims this is one of the reasons Ovechkin is so passionate on the ice.
Because he studied at the Border Guard Service of Russia he did not have to go through compulsory military service.
Alexander started playing ice hockey when he was eight and caught the eye of his coaches, who took note of his quickness on the ice and creative stick handling. He joined Moscow Dynamo of the Russian Super League when he was just 16 and played three seasons with the team before being selected first overall by the Washington Capitals in the first round of the 2004 NHL Entry Draft. Besides being a star in the Russian Super League, Alexander Ovechkin was also a star on the international stage, where he competed in three World Junior Championships and two World Championships.
In just one season in the NHL, Alexander Ovechkin has become an NHL superstar. He scored two goals in his first game with the Capitals and finished the season with 52 goals and 106 points, more than any other rookie, including the much-hyped Sidney Crosby. Ovechkin also scored the year's most amazing goal - an end to end rush against the Phoenix Coyotes that had fans and players shaking their head in disbelief. (To watch a videoof the goal, click here.) What's even more impressive is that Ovechkin has done all this while playing on a team of pretty average players. Besides being a superstar on the ice in the NHL, Ovechkin is also a star in the world of video games, as he's featured on the cover of the EA Sports game, NHL 2007.
Ovechkin was the first overall selection in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft. Due to the 200405 NHL lockout, he began play in the 200506 NHL season, in which he won the Calder Memorial Trophy for Rookie of the Year. During the 200708 season, he led the NHL with 65 goals and 112 points to capture the Rocket Richard and Art Ross Trophies. That season he also won the Lester B. Pearson Award as the top player voted by the NHL Players' Association and theHart Memorial Trophy as the league's MVP. In 2009, he again won the Hart, Pearson, and Richard awards. He is the only player to win all four awards since the Rocket Richard Trophy's inception in 1999.
In January 2008, he signed a thirteen-year contract extension worth $124 million with the Capitals, the most lucrative contract in NHL history.
The following off-season, Ovechkin was selected first overall in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft by the Washington Capitals. He had been projected as the first overall pick for nearly two years[3] and had earned comparisons to Mario Lemieux.[4] He was so highly regarded that the Florida Panthers attempted to draft him in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft in the 9th round, even though his birthday was two days after the cut-off (September 15, 1985). Rick Dudley, the general manager of the Panthers, claimed the pick was legitimate, claiming that Ovechkin was old enough with leap years taken into consideration.
Due to the 200405 NHL lockout, Ovechkin remained with Dynamo for one more season. He recorded 27 points in 34 games in 200405, while missing nearly two months of play because of a shoulder injury sustained in the gold medal game against Canada in the 2005 World Junior Championships.
With the threat of the lockout cancelling another NHL season, Ovechkin signed a contract with rival Russian team Avangard Omsk. In order to maintain his eligibility for the NHL in the event that the lockout ended, the contract contained an out clause with a July 20, 2005 deadline. Although a new NHL collective bargaining agreement (CBA) had not yet been reached between players and owners, Ovechkin decided to opt out and signed with the Capitals on August 5, 2005. The deal was a three-year, entry-level contract worth the rookie maximum of $984,200 per season with performance-based bonuses to inflate his annual salary to as much as $3.9 million.
The day after he received his first Hart Memorial Trophy as league MVP, he was given the key to the city by Washington mayor Adrian M. Fenty for being the first Washington MVP winner in a major sport since Joe Theismann of the Washington Redskins in 1983.
On June 11, 2008, Ovechkin also launched his own line of designer Streetwear with CCM.
Ovechkin was reportedly involved in a feud with Pittsburgh Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin, who was drafted second behind Ovechkin in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft. Though the two were reported to be good friends when they roomed together during the 2006 winter Olympics in Turin, this friendship quickly cooled. There is no definitive information on what caused the feud, but the most popular theory is that it began in August 2007, when Ovechkin supposedly punched Malkin's Russian agent, Gennady Ushakov, at a Moscow nightclub. Ovechkin has denied that version of events, while Malkin confirmed it, although he was not certain whether this was the precipitating event to the feud. The most notorious event took place on January 21, 2008 in Pittsburgh, when Ovechkin took a run at Malkin, which would have seemingly resulted in a devastating hit had Malkin not ducked out of the way just in time. The two would also not make eye contact at the 2008 NHL Awards Ceremony. Despite these incidents, Ovechkin has repeatedly denied "having it out" for Malkin. Though the feud raised many concerns as to its effect on the league, and the Russian national team at the upcoming Vancouver Olympics, it apparently dissipated as mysteriously as it started. On January 24, 2009, at the SuperSkills Competition, Malkin assisted Ovechkin in his stunt during the Breakaway Challenge. Malkin handed Ovechkin his props for the stunt as well as handing him his stick and pouring some sports drink down Ovechkin's throat. Though there is no final word on the nature and status of the feud, considering their past interactions, this incident appears to show that the feud has effectively ended. It has been reported that Ilya Kovalchuk, who was then the Atlanta Thrashers' captain and is also teammate of Ovechkin and Malkin on the Russian national team, brokered the peace between the two.
On January 24, 2009, Ovechkin won the Breakaway Competition at the SuperSkills Competition for the 2nd consecutive year in Montreal after emerging in the final few seconds wearing a hat bestowed with a Canadian flag and white sunglasses. On January 25, 2009, Ovechkin scored 1 goal and notched 2 assists, as well as scoring the game-ending shootout goal in the 2009 NHL All-Star Game as the Eastern Conference won 12-11.
He also makes a brief cameo appearance in Vlad Topalov's music video for "Perfect Criminal". He appears at 3:50 minutes into the video, playing "the last man on Earth."
Late in the 200809 NHL season, Ovechkin garnered some criticism over his exuberant after-goal celebrations. In the February 28, 2009, segment of Hockey Night in Canada's Coach's Corner, Canadian hockey analyst Don Cherry likened Ovechkin's celebrations of jumping into the boards and his team-mates to that of soccer players, concluding that this was not the Canadian way and advising Canadian kids to ignore Ovechkin's example. Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau came to Ovechkin's defense, stating Cherry "doesn't know Alex like we know Alex", and Ovechkin himself stated that he "doesn't care" about Cherry. The next notable incident happened on March 19, 2009, in a game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. After scoring his 50th goal of the season, Ovechkin put his stick on the ice, pretending to warm his hands over it because it was "hot". The incident sparked an immediate response from Tampa Bay coach Rick Tocchet who said that "[Ovechkin] went down a notch in my books". Boudreau had also stated that he would discuss the incident with Ovechkin, and teammate Mike Green, despite being the first to celebrate with Ovechkin afterwards, commented that he did not wish to join in the pre-meditated celebration. Ovechkin himself laughed it off, noting particularly that "Don Cherry was going to be [ticked]."
He is the cover athlete of 2K Sports hockey simulation video game NHL 2K10.
On July 6, 2009, Ovechkin was named an ambassador for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.
In late 2009, he was named GQ's 48th most powerful person in D.C.
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