By JESSICA SCHIEBER
Alexander Ovechkin is a well-known name in hockey, and for good reason, Ovechkin had recently surpassed Wayne Gretsky for regular season goals scored which was no easy feat. Ovechkin is a Russian left winger and the captain for the Washington Capitals. Why does it matter who Ovechkin is? Ovechkin has announced that this will be his last season and he will be going into retirement.
Ovechkin has been nicknamed “The Great eight,” he is a three-time Hart Trophy winner and a nine-time Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy leader. Ovechkin led Washington to its first Stanley Cup in 2018. He has won three World Championships for Russia and competed in multiple Olympics. In his first season Ovechkin was given the Calder Memorial Trophy as rookie of the year, and he finished third overall in league scoring.
As great of a player as Ovechkin is, I do think it is time for him to retire. Ovechkin is 41 years old and he was drafted first overall in 2004, mind you that was the year I was born, so he has been in the game for a good while. Ovechkin now has two young boys born in 2018 and 2020. Now I cannot speak for the man, because I do not know him personally, but I would think that being 41 years old you would want to be there to watch your children grow.
Hockey is a demanding sport, and being in it for 22 seasons is a long time. There is no doubt that Ovechkin has had his fair share of hits and injuries. The fact is the older you get the weaker your body becomes. As he grows older Ovechkin has to think not just about his time as a hockey player or his family, but he has to consider how his own body is reacting to things now.
It may appear that Ovechkin is still as lively as ever on the ice, but what about off of it? How does Ovechkin handle the stress that he has put on his body after games? The body takes a lot of hits during a hockey game and proper care of it separates players. In my personal opinion stepping away after this season is the best thing that Ovechkin can do.
I am not debating the greatness of Ovechkin; his greatness has already been proven. I am thinking about this as if Ovechkin was a member of my family rather than just a player that I knew. I would have encouraged Ovechkin to step away at this point in his game as well. It just makes the most logical sense to me to put one more good year up and hang up the jersey after this season then trying to force your body to do more than what it is capable of.
Ovechkin was one of the first players that I learned about away from my favorite team. He was and is a legend in his own right. What first drew my attention to him wasn’t his game though, it was a picture of him getting on the team plane with a bag of hot Cheetos and a Subway sandwich. As crazy as it may seem that picture left an impact on me, maybe it was because of my own personal liking of Subway, but whatever it was I found myself following Ovechkin a little bitt closer because of it.
I think that something most sports fans struggle with is seeing the players as people beyond the game. Fans expect the most from players and seeing them as just another person gets hard, like many celebrities. Maybe it was because of that picture that I saw that I saw Ovechkin as more of a person than a player and since then I have thought about how old he was and that he should retire soon.
Retirement isn’t a bad thing, and recognizing that you need to doesn’t make you weak. If anything, I respect Ovechkin more because of his decision to step away.