Echonomia Post
W hen Russian launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, reporters asked Washington Capitals captain Alexander Ovechkin for his thoughts. It was no secret, even then, that Ovechkin was close to Vladimir Putin. Years before, Ovechkin boosted the Russian president in a social media campaign and featured Putin in his own Instagram profile photo.
“He is my president,” Ovechkin said of Putin shortly after the invasion. “But [like] I said, I’m not in politics, I’m an athlete.” That’s over. He’s in politics now.
“The thing about the video: I’m Russian,” Ovechkin told reporters Thursday. The video in question is one he taped for United Russia, a group supporting Putin, ahead of parliamentary elections. Ovechkin appears in the video alongside Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the state-controlled media outlet RT, and others.
“I’m for peace and love, and I hope, in the world, it doesn’t matter who you are,” Ovechkin told reporters. “I hope everybody understands everybody wants peace, and everybody hope everything’s going to be OK in the world.” A day before, the Capitals released a statement that lauded Ovechkin and treated his video participation in the same mundane, neutral tone. “Alex Ovechkin is a Russian citizen who lives in Moscow with his family during the offseason and will live there following his retirement.
This summer, while in Russia, he was asked by his country to participate in a video campaign,” the team said. “As the longest-tenured athlete in Washington, DC and a pillar of the community, his focus and ours is on the season ahead and the continued impact he makes on the ice and in our city.” It’s undeniable that Ovechkin has had an impact on DC during his long NHL career, never playing anywhere else, bringing the Capitals their first and only Stanley Cup and becoming the sport’s greatest goalscorer. But now that Ovechkin is also into politics – by choice – it’s fair to start asking what the impact of those politics is, too, even if he doesn’t want to talk about it.
In an awkward bit of timing, in an indictment unsealed Tuesday , US federal prosecutors accused five men of being part of a network planning to assassinate Russian dissidents and others on US soil, including one who reportedly lived in Washington. Just one concrete example of the Putin government in action – its continued impact, if you like – right in Ovechkin’s adopted home town. Elsewhere, on X, former NHL goaltender Dominik Hasek – a Czech icon who has been an outspoken Putin critic for years – tore into the Capitals’ statement on Ovechkin for turning a blind eye to the impact of that politics in Europe.
“This statement ignores the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Ukrainians and Russians killed or maimed – casualties for which Ovechkin bears a significant share of responsibility through his public stance,” Hasek wrote. Alexander Ovechkin skates for Russia against the United States during their quarter-final at the 2019 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Bratislava, Slovakia. Photograph: Martin Rose/Getty Images A “significant” share may be stretching it, but Hasek’s broader point is that there ought to be a reckoning here, that the people involved should take ownership.
For Ovechkin, that would probably mean repeating the message that he supported as publicly in the US as he does in Russia, instead of distancing himself from it the moment it becomes uncomfortable and offering “peace and love”. For the Capitals, taking a moral stand could mean anything from making a donation to a Ukrainian charity to stripping Ovechkin of his captaincy, to barring him from playing. But that would mean the organization would have to have the guts to address it as more than an uncomfortable topic to be endured just long enough to look like anyone cared, which is also what happened Thursday in the media scrum.
After answering a couple of questions about the United Russia video, Ovechkin pivoted. “All right,” he said, “let’s do hockey questions.” “Happy birthday,” one reporter said almost immediately, ushering back the illusion of normalcy. “Did you get a cake?” Ovechkin replied he is on a diet.
Everyone laughed. No one in the scrum made him answer for anything. When an ESPN reporter pressed him later with questions on the video and the invasion, Ovechkin said he is “not in politics” and “can’t say who’s right and who’s wrong” before abruptly ending the interview.
Fans are now left to figure out an unwindable ethical quandary that was never theirs to solve. If you keep watching or keep wearing your Ovechkin jersey, you’re liable to be accused of tacitly supporting a repressive regime; if you choose to boycott, you’re accused of “politicizing” sports. The fans are left holding the bag, searching for accountability, while those responsible for it walk away behind a mealy mouthed word cloud.
It doesn’t have to be that way. If Ovechkin, the Capitals and, by extension, the NHL , want the fans to hold them all accountable, so be it. Fans can keep asking the questions most of the media room wouldn’t – they make this all mean something.
Just because Ovechkin can’t muster an opinion (outside Russia, anyway), it doesn’t mean fans can’t. We don’t have to pretend to be neutral.
Source: The Guardian
