Russian professional hockey player Alexi Ovechkin’s name came up in my newsfeed recently as he will shortly surpass Wayne Gretzky’s career total of 894 goals. ‘Ovie’ as he is called colloquially has been playing professional hockey in the National Hockey League with the Washington Capitals since 2004 and won the Stanley Cup with the same team in 2018. There have been many Russian hockey players in the NHL but Ovechkin is known as a stalwart supporter of Russian president Vladimir Putin. It’s surprising that many people continue to forget Ovechkin’s associations with Putin, and more importantly the role sport has played in Russia’s attempts to whitewash war crimes in Ukraine and to promote the Russian military that commits aggression and war crimes.
Russian sport has always had a close relationship with the government. Many Russian athletes are part of the military, who are then paid to train full time. The players of the iconic USSR-Canada hockey series were almost all members of the Russian army. Many famous Russian athletes will then leverage the military-athlete pipeline into a political career - Vladislav Tretiak, Alina Kabayeva, Svetlana Khorkina and Irina Rodnina to name a few. But the Soviet Union used the same system of ‘athletes as national heros’ to distract attention from the Gulag and the suppression of human rights. In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine right after the Winter Olympics. Since then, Russia has murdered hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians; abducted and deported tens of thousands of Ukrainian children and destroyed peaceful Ukrainian cities and towns. The Russian President, with whom Ovechkin proudly posts a picture in his Instagram profile, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
Do not take Ovechkin’s “Aw shucks I’m just here to score goals” demeanor seriously. Ovechkin has a personal relationship with Putin that goes beyond just simply knowing who the other is. In 2017 Ovechkin campaigned for Putin in sham “elections” after the Russian invasion and occupation of Crimea. Putin called Ovechkin on his wedding day to congratulate him and has featured the President’s gifts on his social media. Ovechkin was the face of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games where a massive state-run doping scandal resulted in 13 medals being stripped from Russian athletes. Sports is a form of distraction in Russia, and we are being led down the same path.
The NHL would rather you focus on Ovechkin’s upcoming milestone, than, say, the bombing of Ukrainian children’s hospitals and maternity wards. Behind Ovechkin’s talent is hidden the ugly truth that the positions he takes (or doesn’t take) are an extension of Putin’s goals: sportswashing. The NHL and Ovechkin are siding with a prolific war criminal, and thousands of Ukrainian civilians fleeing Russia’s genocide against Ukraine have settled right here in Ottawa in search of safety from the invasion. Many of their children attend our local schools. Why are we pretending otherwise?
The best thing we can do in the coming weeks at the NHL tries to hype up this upcoming milestone is to simply ignore it. Do not tweet, like or even click on articles about Ovechkin. Do not watch any upcoming Capitals games, This is Canada after all and we have plenty of other things to talk about. If you must go or if you find yourself at a bar where Capital games are playing, wave the blue and yellow or Ukrainian trident (tryzub) proudly. On whatever fateful day Ovechkin descends into the history books, I will personally be joining the Ottawa Russian Embassy protesters who demonstrate daily in front of the Russian Embassy on Charlotte St where they make me proud to be the Councillor in a ward where we will always stand with Ukraine.
Hockey is a great sport and we love the game, but two things can be true at the same time: Invading sovereign countries is bad, and Ovechkin, can be a gifted hockey player whose legacy is poisoned by his disgraceful support for the Russian leadership that is trying to destroy Ukraine. I hope you will join me in remembering these important details. The NHL may want us to forget this fact. But neither I, nor millions of Ukrainians in Canada, Ukraine and around the word, ever will.
Stéphanie Plante Councillor- Ward 12 Rideau-Vanier