The GOAT Files: Alexander Ovechkin

There are two kinds of greatness in sport. The type you admire. And the type you feel. Wayne Gretzky was the former: a surgical genius with no hair out of place, floating through the game like a polite ghost. Alexander Ovechkin? He’s the other kind. The kind that shows up sweaty, snarling, slightly overcooked, and asks where the beer is. You don’t watch Ovechkin play hockey. You watch him invade it.

He entered the NHL like a punchline you couldn’t defend against. The hair? Chaotic. The grin? Weaponised. The shot? Ludicrous. You’d think a guy scoring 50 goals from the exact same spot on the ice for nearly 20 years would get predictable. But it never did. That’s the Ovi paradox. He told you exactly what he was going to do – then did it anyway. With force. With fire. With a kind of joyful brutality that made goaltenders reconsider their life choices.

And through all of it – the records, the rocket shots, the ridiculous celebrations – he never stopped being him. No attempt at polish. No pretend humility. He skated like a man late for a flight, hit like a semi, and celebrated like the game had just been invented. Every. Single. Time.

There’s a moment – burned into hockey lore – where a 20-year-old Ovechkin scores The Goal. He’s falling. Twisting. On his back. Stick upside down. Puck somehow in the net. It’s impossible. It’s stupid. It’s perfect. What no one tells you is that this was just the start of the madness. Because if Gretzky made hockey look elegant, Ovechkin made it look like rock and roll: messy, loud, brilliant, and alive.

And then came the failure.

For nearly a decade, he was labelled The Guy Who Can’t Win. The Capitals imploded every spring. Ovechkin’s teams played beautiful, doomed hockey. The league shrugged. Of course Crosby was the one lifting Cups. He was neat. Canadian. Marketable. Ovechkin was the chaos goblin with the bad tan and a better shot. For years, the narrative refused to change. Maybe he was just a regular-season freak. Maybe greatness came with asterisks.

Then came 2018.

Ovechkin didn’t just win the Stanley Cup. He unleashed it. A decade of frustration exploded in fountains, parades, Instagram stories, and beer showers. It wasn’t a victory lap – it was a spiritual exorcism. He swam with the Cup. He drank from it. He may have proposed to it. That summer, even fans who hated him were forced to admit: this wasn’t just overdue. It was epic. Like watching Thor finally lift the hammer.

But it wasn’t all goals and glory. Ovechkin’s story has shadows, too. His deep ties to Russia – and Vladimir Putin – have followed him like a second jersey. When the world shifted, and war broke out, Ovi was caught between allegiances. Asked to speak out, he hedged. Pleaded for “no more war.” It wasn’t enough. It was never going to be. But it also wasn’t simple. His family is there. His roots are there. His silence – whether political or pragmatic – became its own kind of controversy. One the history books won’t ignore.

On the ice, he had his flaws, too. Lazy backchecks. Dirty hits. A few suspensions. Coaches tried to tame him. Good luck with that. He was benched. Criticised. Accused of selfishness. And every time, he responded the same way: he scored. You could hate the style. You couldn’t argue with the substance.

Because here’s the thing: Ovechkin broke hockey. Quietly, at first. Then loudly. In an era of analytics, he played like a throwback. In a league desperate for personalities, he was one. He didn’t evolve to fit the NHL. The NHL evolved to survive him. A Russian-born, gap-toothed, power-forward sniper who never changed his spot, his shot, or his smile – and still conquered everything in front of him.

He is, statistically, the greatest goal-scorer of his generation. And has finally broken Gretzky’s record. The one that was supposed to be unreachable. Untouchable. Eternal. It’s not. Not anymore.

And that might be the most remarkable part. For all the thunder, for all the spectacle, his greatness is rooted in something heartbreakingly human. Every glove kiss? For Sergei. Every goal? A continuation of something that ended too soon. Ovechkin never played for legacy. He played for love. And that’s why people who don’t even like hockey love him anyway.

One day soon, they’ll build a statue outside Capital One Arena. It won’t be him skating. Or shooting. It’ll be him screaming – wide-eyed, arms outstretched, half-mad with joy. Because that’s what he gave us. Not just numbers. Not just trophies. But a reminder that sport should feel like this: bold, flawed, explosive, unforgettable.

If Gretzky was the Great One, Ovechkin is the Last One. The final rockstar in a sport of polished machines. The Russian wrecking ball who broke records, drank from fountains, and never faked a single thing.

And the record?
It’s waiting.
So is the world.