Alex Ovechkin - Research Paper Example

Like most hockey players, Ovechkin found his love for the game at a very young age.  He was two years old when he first picked up a hockey stick in Moscow department store. Whenever he saw a game on television he would drop what he was doing and not allow his parents to change the channel. He soon became obsessed with hockey and rarely missed a televised game. He was yearning to soak up every ounce of knowledge he could. His parents say they knew he would be an athlete when Alexander chose to run up the steps to their apartment rather than take the elevator.

He began playing hockey at the age of 7, having been introduced to it formally by his older brother Sergei. In 1992, he started playing for Dynamo youth team. Unfortunately, most of the other players on his team had already been playing hockey for some time. Alex was especially concerned when the coach asked the team members to skate backward figure eights. He was not familiar with how to skate backward at all. But, his coach still noticed his enormous talent. During this time, Alex’s favorite team was Moscow Dynamo.

His hero was Alexander Maltsev, the club ’s greatest star. Maltsev retired a year before Alex was born, but through stories and TV highlights, the boy decided that Matsev was his man. At one point, his parents were no longer able to get Alex to hockey so Sergei stepped in and made sure that he could get his little brother wherever he needed to go.  He was one of the first to notice the talent in Alex, and he wanted to be sure he was able to use it. Unfortunately, years later an event would happen that would change Ovechkin’s life forever.

  His older brother Sergei, in his early 20?s at the time, was tragically killed in a car accident.  To this day Ovechkin still credits his brother for introducing him to and pushing him to continue playing hockey.  Many say his passion for the game comes from this tragic event and to this day, when he scores, Alex will often kiss his glove and point to the sky in a salute to his brother. As Alex moved up the ranks of Moscow Dynamo’s competitive youth hockey program, he began to draw attention with his powerful skating and quick, accurate wrist shot.

He was a hard worker and though very offensive-minded, he was a devoted team player. Alex could raise spirits with a goal, a pep talk or a good back-check. He had that extra dimension as a person and was a player who was clearly the product of a terrific sports family. Before becoming a professional, Ovechkin was already making a name for himself in the Dynamo Moscow system when at 11 years old he broke Pavel Bure’s record of 53 goals by scoring 56 of his own. He began his professional hockey career at the age of 16 for Russian hockey power Dynamo Moscow during the 2001-02 season.

  By the time he was 18, he won the Russian Superleague award for the best left-wing in the league for the 2003-04 season and was the youngest player ever to lead Dynamo Moscow in scoring. This was his breakthrough. He netted 23 points in 53 games and was voted the Superleague’s top left wing. At first glance, his stats did not seem to warrant superstar talk, but this perspective soon changed. Comparisons to Ilya Kovalchuk, the Russian star drafted first overall by the Atlanta Thrashers in 2001, were inevitable.

The two were indeed similar players, although Alex was a bit more of an end-to-end performer. Kovalchuk, by contrast, was never known for his