In a recent interview with his friend and blogger Amiran Sardarov, NHL star Alex Ovechkin discussed his thoughts on retirement and his future beyond hockey. Ovechkin, who is entering his twentieth NHL season this fall, revealed that his passion for the game is what keeps him playing, despite the challenges of preseason training.
“As long as I enjoy [playing], as long as I get a thrill out of it, there’s no point in finishing,” Ovechkin said. He admitted that the hardest part of the season is the period following vacation when intense training begins. “After three to four days of suffering like that, you get into a routine and realize that you still love this business. If I didn’t love it, I would have finished already.”
Ovechkin, who has 41 goals left to tie Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record, acknowledged his disdain for preseason training camps, noting how difficult it is to transition from vacation mode back into the rigorous demands of professional hockey. “I hate preseason,” Ovechkin said. “Imagine, you arrived after your vacation, you have a tan, everything is fine, you’re happy. And your coach calls you and says, ‘Well, Sash? Tomorrow we begin training.’”
Looking ahead to his life after hockey, Ovechkin shared his plans to move back to Russia, citing a deep connection to his home country and the presence of his family and friends there. “In Russia, all my friends, relatives, Nastya’s relatives are here too,” Ovechkin said. “I feel more comfortable in Russia at the moment than there. … [When] our season is ending, and we want to fly home right away because we miss home, our family, our friends.”
Ovechkin is currently building a new house in the Moscow region and hopes to move next year. Although he has no immediate interest in becoming Russia’s Minister of Sports, he remains focused on staying active and finding new ways to develop once his hockey career ends. “It will be hard for me to change,” Ovechkin admitted. “At 40, sitting on the couch, drinking and watching TV, YouTube is not an option. It’s not for me. I need to do something and develop somehow.”
Reflecting on his career, Ovechkin expressed gratitude for his parents’ support and his unexpected success in the NHL. “I am very happy for my parents, because they really gave a lot of health and strength so that I could become something good,” he said. “No one thought that I would become who I am now. I definitely didn’t think I would become a superstar.”
As his career winds down, Ovechkin anticipates missing his life with the Capitals and his time in Washington, D.C. “When I leave America, I will miss hockey,” he said. “My childhood dream was to go to the NHL, not to America. I can easily say that Washington is my second home, I feel comfortable there. Everyone knows me there, everyone loves me, I know and love everyone there. But home is home.”
