He laughed. They were delayed. He insisted. They stayed. He fired them again and again. Finally, Ovechkin’s old sporting enemies relented, and the group in white, black and yellow moved down the tunnel and out of sight.
Advertisement
Ovechkin, the NHL’s all-time leading scorer, could hang up his skates this summer. Maybe he isn’t either. No one, not even the 40-year-old star, knows for sure. But with his hair graying, his body failing and his contract expiring, the end is fast approaching for an all-time great.
And so, just in case, Washington hockey fans eschewed the glories of a perfect April day and descended on Capital One Arena to say goodbye on Sunday. Throughout the Capitals’ final regular-season home game, the Red Sea chanted “ONE MORE YEAR” and “OVI, OVI” and roared hoarse every time they touched the puck.
On each seat were towels with photographs of Ovechkin spanning two decades and the phrase “Gr8ness.” Multiple highlight reels were shown, including one covering Ovechkin’s historic relationship with future Hall of Famer Sidney Crosby. Capitals center Dylan Strome was purposely ejected from the opening faceoff so Ovechkin and Crosby could face off.
Everyone under the roof was taking the afternoon as a well-deserved goodbye.
Advertisement
That is, everyone, except Ovechkin.
“I haven’t decided yet,” he said dryly of his impending decision, when asked why he rejected Pittsburgh’s handshake line.
Ovechkin is right. He has won so much and more. But that approach meant their potential final home game existed in a strange interlude. Opponents, teammates, fans and coaches wanted to celebrate the achievements of a sports legend. They showered him with love and praise. Ovechkin, however, did not want to be part of the party. They were not tied on Sunday to enjoy worship. In his opinion, he is still just another player, looking for two points, trying to keep Washington’s slim playoff hopes alive.
The fans, the media, the adoring public, the outsiders, we want our sports narratives to be in neat and tidy boxes. We want farewell tours. Cheers final Hollywood. Moving farewells. Happy heroes and booable villains. Clean, easy and digestible narratives. We want to know in advance how we are going to feel.
Advertisement
But the real world is often more complicated.
In Ovechkin’s case, that means everyone involved — those close to him and those suffering from nosebleeds — have been forced to thread a delicate needle, honoring him without disrespecting him.
“It’s important to do all these things,” Caps head coach Spencer Carbery said after his team’s 3-0 victory. “Because if it’s the end, we should have been able to say goodbye and appreciate it. But he also sees it as, ‘I haven’t decided yet.’
“Honestly, that has been really challenging.”
Age be damned, Ovechkin still moves through life with youthful glee. It has maintained the enthusiastic and playful spirit with which it entered our sporting consciousness more than two decades ago. Before Sunday’s game, he spent at least half an hour playing soccer with his teammates in the bowels of the stadium. At one point, he resorted to a game of rock, paper, scissors to maintain his place in the circle.
Advertisement
But although he is still young, Ovechkin is no longer young. Your body, beaten and destroyed by 21 years of crunching blows, cutting sticks, deflected discs, hard falls, late nights and long flights, must hurt, vibrate and rage. It has to be that way, no matter how much I grit my teeth.
Early in his career, Ovechkin, when asked how he felt after taking a puck to the ankle, proclaimed, “The Russian machine never breaks.”
That statement turned out to be prophetic. It became a rallying cry, a mantra, a mission statement, a website, a championship. Ovechkin never broke down and missed fewer than 60 games due to injury throughout his 21-year career. But Father Time, that cruel, cruel beast, spares no man. And because of that, it has become impossible to ignore that the machine called Alexander Ovechkin is running slower than before.
Because while the future Hall of Famer remains a productive scorer (he leads Washington with 32 goals this season), the rest of his game has declined along with his athleticism. Ovechkin was always a magnificently powerful skater, a Ferrari with world-class handling and acceleration. Just 45 seconds into his first NHL game, he shoved a Columbus Blue Jacket into the boards with such force that a metal beam holding the glass in place clattered to the ice.
Advertisement
Now it plods along, calculatingly opportunistically, expending energy only when absolutely necessary. Ovechkin spends most of his time lurking in the offensive zone, like a cunning crocodile, until a worthwhile opportunity arises. He will take one or two hits, but generally he is negative in front of his own goal; He is the only NHL player who rarely starts possessions in the defensive zone. That puts Ovechkin somewhere between limited liability and liability. As uncomfortable as it may be to admit, next year’s Capitals, loaded with young, dynamic talent and hungry for the cap space that Ovechkin’s contract absorbs, could be a better team without him.
But although Ovechkin is no longer what he was, he is still something and, in a way, something more. A return in 2026-27 would mean a full-fledged farewell tour. Gifts in every city. Sold out stadiums. Photo opportunities. A season that revolves around commemoration. All of this is a huge source of income for the capitals. But Ovechkin may not want or care about that. His record-breaking goal chase last spring probably scratched that itch.
Advertisement
Wayne Gretzky, the Great, officially announced his retirement two days before the final game of the 1998-99 season. That allowed for a day of all-out celebration, coincidentally also on a Sunday afternoon against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Gretzky cried. So did sport. And then, as all games do with their heroes, enemies, nobodies, and icons, he moved on. Hockey continued, moving at full speed.
He will soon do the same with Ovechkin, although his farewell will not be like that of a storybook.
There was a time, early in his career, when this man needed hockey and hockey needed him. That has changed. Ovechkin is now a calmer character, a married man and father of two children. Long ago, with the help of the Russian, hockey emerged from a post-lockout lurch and passed the torch to the next generation: the McDavids, the Hugheses and the Celebrinis.
Ovechkin and the sport will survive, and even thrive, without each other. They already have been.
Ovechkin only has to return home.