Alex Ovechkin He was recently asked about retirement in a Russian-language interview with his friend, blogger Amiran Sardarov.
Ovechkin revealed that if he wasn't enjoying skating, he would have stopped skating already, regardless of how close he was to setting a goal record.
“As long as you're having fun [playing]”There's no point in ending it if it gives you a thrill,” Ovechkin said, as transcribed by sports.ru and translated by Google Translate. “The hardest part is after the holidays, when I play volleyball, go to the gym for fun, [from vacation]”You have to run cross country, lift heavy weights, diet. And you think, 'Why do I need all this? I have everything, I've had enough.' But then after three or four days of suffering like that, it becomes a habit, and you realize that you still love this job. If you didn't, you would have quit by now.”
Ovechkin spoke in a separate Russian-language interview earlier this summer about his deep disdain for training camp and getting back in shape.
“I hate preseason,” Ovechkin says. “I really hate it. I hate just practicing. That's the hardest thing. Imagine that. You come back from vacation, you've got a tan, everything's good, you're happy. And then your coach calls and says, 'Okay, Sash? Practice starts tomorrow.' You go to practice, you rest, you practice again. I hate it. I can't stand it.”
He jokingly added: “I just want to get hockey over with.”
Ovechkin will be entering his 20th NHL season this fall with two years remaining on his contract with the Washington Capitals. He's 41 goals shy of tying Wayne Gretzky for the NHL's all-time goals record, which should be enough motivation to get through some tough times.
However, it seems The Great Eight is more focused and thinking about life after hockey, as he revealed in an interview with Sardarov that he plans to return to Russia once his career is over.
“I have all my friends and relatives in Russia, as well as Nastya's relatives,” Ovechkin said. “For now, I feel more comfortable here than there… [When] Our season is coming to an end and I miss my hometown, my family and my friends so I hope to get back soon.”
He added: “I'm building a new house in the Moscow region. I hope to move in next year. It's an ordinary small house. I won't tell you how many square meters it is. Why do you need to know? I'll invite you to visit. Just leave the camera outside.”
Ovechkin is not interested in becoming Russia's Minister of Sports “at the moment,” according to Wikipedia. It oversees the implementation of government policies and sports regulations in the field of sport and physical fitness in Russia, the provision of state services and federal funding to athletes, and the management of public property.
“I'm not ready to answer whether I'm ready or want to be a minister,” Ovechkin said. “It's tough, I'll never see my family again, I'll have to travel. It would be better if I could come to your show every day.”
With just 164 NHL regular-season games remaining, Ovechkin, like many professional athletes nearing the end of their careers, is envisioning how different his life and identity will be once he steps off the ice.
“It will be hard for me to change,” Ovechkin said. “As long as I've been conscious, I've been waking up, training, playing. And one day it will all end and I will have to find another way. But we will go on and we will look. But what to do?”
“When you're 40 and sitting on the couch drinking and watching TV, YouTube is not an option for you. It's not for me. I need to do something and grow in some way.”
Looking back on his career, Ovechkin said he never expected to achieve so much success and milestones in the NHL.
“I'm so blessed to have my parents, they really gave me a lot of health and strength so that I could become something good,” Ovechkin said. “Nobody expected me to become the person I am now.”
“I definitely never thought I'd be a superstar. I just thought I'd get to the NHL, show what I could do and see what happens after that. And it turned out to be true.”
Ultimately, when his journey is over, he'll be nostalgic about his life with the Capitals and his time in Washington.
“When you leave the U.S., you miss hockey,” Ovechkin said. “My dream as a kid was to go to the NHL. Not to the U.S.; I could have gone to Canada. I would say Washington is my second home. I feel at home. Everybody knows me, everybody loves me, I know everybody, I love everybody, but home is home.”
