Russia-born Capitals star hasn’t had much time to watch Olympic hockey but will be rooting for Olympic Athletes of Russia in game against Americans.
CHICAGO – Alex Ovechkin will be rooting for the Olympic Athletes from Russia Saturday when they face the United States in the Olympic men’s hockey tournament. He only wishes he were playing in the game – and the Games.
“Of course, I want to play,” he tells USA TODAY Sports. “It’s the biggest event. You can see how emotional it is when you play in it. It’s an incredible feeling.”
But the NHL is sitting its players out this quadrennial and so Saturday, Ovechkin will be playing the Chicago Blackhawks instead of the Americans. He has seen little of Olympic hockey this week while on an extended road trip with his Washington Capitals.
“I watch only highlights,” he says, “because there’s a time difference.”
That’s true for many of his teammates, too. Some of the Caps caught the tail end of the USA’s win against Slovakia in the wee hours of Friday as they flew on their charter to Chicago after Thursday night’s 5-2 win against the Minnesota Wild.
Normally, the men’s Olympic hockey tournament would mean the NHL shuts down while all eyes are on the world’s best players representing their countries instead of their franchises. But as the league plays its regular February schedule, many Caps find themselves following the early Olympic action in only cursory fashion, even as the U. S. prepares to play the Russians in a game that always carries echoes of the most celebrated game between the old rivals.
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That came in 1980, when the U. S. beat the Soviet Union in a game better known as the Miracle on Ice. Caps defenseman Brooks Orpik was born a few months later and his parents named him for the coach of that miracle team, Herb Brooks.
“They went with Brooks instead of Herb,” Orpik says. “No complaints on that from me.”
Orpik has seen little of the men’s tournament. He says he has had more chance to watch the women’s tournament, partly because that one started earlier when he had more time to watch.
Capitals goalie Braden Holtby hasn’t watched any Olympic hockey, men’s or women’s. Then again, he says, he doesn’t watch many NHL games on TV, either. But he’s disappointed that the International Olympic Committee and the NHL didn’t come to an agreement to allow NHL players to play in the Games.
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“At the same time, you understand it’s a business,” Holtby says. “Other people run the league. We just play in it.”
Capitals winger Tom Wilson hasn’t seen much Olympic hockey, either.
“Personally, I love watching all the other sports,” he says. “I love the snowboarding. I love the atmosphere of the Olympics.”
Caps winger T. J. Oshie, then with the St. Louis Blues, was the star when the United States beat Ovechkin’s Russian team in Sochi in 2014. He scored four goals on six shots in the shootout that decided the game.
“That was crazy game,” Ovechkin says.
Do he and Oshie ever talk about that crazy game?
“No,” Ovechkin says with a grin. “We lost and I don’t like to talk about it.”
Oshie says he’d have liked a chance to play in the Olympics again. But at 31 he says he can’t even be sure he’d have made the U. S. team.
“You know what, in the last four years the U. S. has produced so many good, young pro hockey players,” he says. “I would hope that I would just make the team, honestly. I didn’t have my best year and there’s some real talent. But I think we would have had a really good shot at it if the NHL was allowed to go.
“For me, personally, it’s unfortunate. It was one of the best moments of my career and to be shut out and not have the opportunity to go do that again, for a guy my age it’s a missed opportunity. But I’ll cherish the last one and cheer on the boys this time.”
Ovechkin will be cheering his boys, too.
“Of course, I’m cheering for my friends and my country,” he says. “So I wish them well and I hope they are winning.”
