Russian superstar Alexander Ovechkin is on the verge of achieving something that seemed impossible just a few years ago; the man known as the “Great 8” appears set to break Wayne Gretzky’s all-time National Hockey League (NHL) regular-season record of 894 goals scored.
Whenever goal number 895 goes in, as is expected to happen in the remaining few games of the US-Canadian NHL campaign, Ovechkin will be celebrated as a hero ― not just by fans of his Washington Capitals, but by ice hockey fans all over North America and beyond. Presumably, there will be no shortage of congratulations, including from NHL top brass, and the man whose record he is set to break, Wayne Gretzky.
However, some are irritated or even disturbed by all this cheering. For Ovechkin is a left winger ― but only on the ice. More than three years after Vladimir Putin launched his war of aggression on neighboring Ukraine, Ovechkin’s Instagram profile picture remains a photo of him smiling beside the Russian president.
The NHL ‘metaphorically shrugs its shoulders’
It’s something that baffles some, like retired Canadian hockey journalist and international broadcaster Paul Romanuk.
“Just imagine for one moment if an NHL player like (Canadian superstar) Sidney Crosby’s social-media profile picture was him with his arm around Harvey Weinstein or Jeffrey Epstein – can you imagine the outrage? The league would order him to take it down immediately. The pushback on social media would be off the scales,” Romanuk told DW in a recent Zoom call.
“And yet you can have this great hockey player side-by-side with a dictator waging a war on an innocent country like Ukraine ― and the NHL metaphorically shrugs its shoulders.”
The profile photo is by no means a one-off, with Ovechkin taking credit for having launched the “PutinTeam” in 2017 to support the president in his 2018 reelection campaign.
Ovechkin’s public support of Putin has indeed put the NHL in a difficult position, and for the most part the league has been closed-lipped on the issue, apart from a statement released shortly after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
NHL condemns invasion, concerned about players
“The National Hockey League condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and urges a peaceful resolution as quickly as possible. Effective immediately, we are suspending our relationships with our business partners in Russia and we are pausing our Russian language social and digital media sites,” the league said.
At the same time, it expressed concern about the “well-being of the players from Russia, who play in the NHL on behalf of their NHL Clubs, and not on behalf of Russia.”
The man himself has also remained tight-lipped about the invasion. DW attempted to reach out to him through the Washington Capitals for comment but received no answer. Ovechkin has only commented on it once, a day after Putin launched the invasion, on February 24,2022.
Asked by a reporter covering the Washington Capitals if he still supported Putin despite the invasion, Ovechkin replied: “Well, he’s my president.”
He did call for peace but declined to criticize Moscow’s military action.
“Please, no more war. It doesn’t matter who’s in the war — Russia, Ukraine, different countries,” he said.
In its statement, the NHL also expressed concern for its Russian players and their families, which it said had been placed in “an extremely difficult position.”
According to a 2022 New York Times article, it was concern about his family back in Russia, that made Ovechkin decide against changing his Instagram profile pic. This has been rejected by critics who argue that there has been no evidence of Putin’s regime retaliating against the families of athletes critical of the war.
Hockey Hall of Famer an outspoken critic
Since then, Ovechkin has gone on playing and putting up points, including a lot of goals for the Capitals. But the “elephant” in the room, as Romanuk calls it, has scarcely been mentioned in the North American media ― something that also sticks in the craw of Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender Dominik Hasek.
“Russia is committing the most terrible crimes, including genocide against Ukrainian children,” Hasek, a former Czech national team goalie, told DW in a written statement.
“And since every citizen is an advertisement for the actions of his country, this Russian citizen Ovechkin is currently a huge advertisement for the aggressive Russian war and other Russian crimes.”
Popular with the fans
Many fans, though, seem to be willing to give Ovechkin the benefit of the doubt. When DW asked a random group of North America-based fans for their thoughts, support for the hockey player, who is undoubtedly one of the all-time greats, was unanimous.
Most said that in a particularly troubled world they just wanted to enjoy watching their favorite sport, unencumbered by politics. One noted that in the United States, the war in Ukraine seemed an awfully long way away. Another pointed to the fact that beyond Ovechkin’s Insta profile photo, as far as he knew, the player hadn’t actively publicly supported Putin’s war.
“As long as the NHL chooses to celebrate The Great 8 for his accomplishments, so should we. Putin is responsible for Putin, not Ovechkin,” he said.
The player vs. his political views
Hasek, for one, certainly won’t be celebrating whenever Ovechkin does break the record.
“If I applauded the record in any way, I would be contributing to this advertisement for a war that is responsible for a huge number of human lives [lost],” Hasek said.
Romanuk can’t say enough about Ovechkin’s skills and career.
“The hockey fan in me has great admiration for his accomplishments as a player. I do believe he is the greatest pure goal scorer in the history of the game,” he said.
But like Hasek, the former broadcaster, who called hundreds of NHL and international hockey games over his career, won’t be raising a glass whenever Ovechkin gets that record-breaking goal.
“The short answer is no. I have no respect for the person and his political views and who he chooses to align himself with. I’ll be shaking my head and (thinking) I still don’t understand why the NHL has stood by and given a collective shrug of the shoulders to the Ukrainian people and the elephant in the room, which is Alexander Ovechkin’s support of Vladimir Putin.”
Jonathan Crane contributed to this article.
Edited by: Matt Pearson
