A decade from now, when some hockey blogger is idling whimsically in summer and suggests that the online hockey world identify the 10 greatest goals scored in NHL history, there’s a real chance that Alexander Ovechkin has 12 of them.
“That’s insanity,” Pierre McGuire said of Ovi’s latest stunner on the TSN broadcast last night.
Most of the hockey world by now has seen it, but how do you describe it in say cell phone voicemail left for a loved one necessarily logged off and away from TV on say a flight at 40,000 feet? Because surely if you were a witness to it either in Verizon Center or on television last night around 8:00 you couldn’t wait til landing to scream (again) “I don’t believe what I just saw.”
And: “He did it again.”
I’ll try to describe. Our Hart and Heart stud blur-raced across the neutral zone with a poor puck-chasing Hab in his headlights. Said Hab (Roman Hamrlik) failed to catch up with the errant lead pass, and Ovi’s anticipation met the puck’s carom off the near boards. Acting purely on instinct, the GR8 back-handed a fresh carom to himself with just enough pace to elude Hamrlik but soft enough to retrieve it high in the Habs’ zone. In full churn he raced in with the puck on Carey Price, with only Kyle Chipchura left to beat. The kid did his best in such a mismatch, and near the slot was left with only an overt act of stick obstruction as defense. Tripped onto his fanny, sliding into the big goalie, the GR8 re-secured the loose puck and scooped-shot past Price’s pads. On his arse against a great young goalie it’s still a mismatch. Bedlam followed.
But the best part of the heroism, for me, took place back on the bench, during our savior’s recuperation. The camera of course followed him, he recognized his shining moment up on the center ice screens, and he cupped his hand to ear to hear a fresh red ovation.
The Pied Piper of Puck played the moment perfectly. Again. He isn’t just scoring like mad. He isn’t just leading his team. He’s creating a Red Fever for a town so badly in need of it.
I’m just giddy-glad not only to be living in his time but especially in his city. We gave him the key to the city last summer after he returned from Toronto with all that hardware. We need to begin thinking of gifts on a much grander scale.
Wednesday night was, as Bruce Boudreau warned, a trap game for the home team. The start of a prolonged homestand after an important and successful roadtrip. And for much of the night the Caps played as if trapped. Beleaguered, desperate Montreal played a terrific road game, forechecking the hosts into hurried and largely inaccurate passes, putting the body to Mike Green all night long, limiting the Caps’ scoring chances with superb positional play in their own end. For good measure, they took just three minor penalties on the evening.
They deserved two points, and a year ago, against largely the same Capitals’ squad, they would have gotten them. But there is something hinting at a special destiny beginning to settle in on this team. Now they win even when they aren’t supposed to.
And so on a night when 18,000 in Chinatown and thousands more watching on TV in the States and Canada should have been discussing merely Ovi’s latest act of outrageousness and shucks too bad the goal didn’t come in a winning effort, the hockey world also had to acknowledge that Ovi plays on a special team, and one that just might be going someplace special earlier than anyone had imagined.
During the first intermission I was standing in a gaggle of television and radio personalities and producers, all of us still slack-jawed at the tumultuous tally from some 20 minutes earlier. We set about trying to identify precisely where #8 was today, right now, in the pantheon of elite athletes the world over. Extreme-elite, in their prime, acknowledged by all as sport-dominating and cross-cultural presences. I suggested that Tiger Woods was no.1, but our group had grave difficulty slotting in the next few with any consensus. Beckham? (I suggested that he was on the back nine of his career, if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor.) Kobe? (“Is basketball too North American in its appeal,” one media member wondered.)
We were in consensus that Alexander Ovechkin is most definitely in the top 5.
18 Comments
I loved your comment about Ovie having 12 of the top goals out of 10. So true..
I described the goal thusly: “There’s a row of Habs fans in section 114, row Q, that look stunned.” TO be fair, there were several rows of Habs fans in 114 that looked stunned.
Habs fans can also blame those yahoos in 114 for the loss. They started riding Theo waaay too early (after their first goal), then started it up again after the second. Dudes, you don’t ride the goalie when you’re only up by one or tied. Bad karma, man.
(I confess I left after the second period. Seven-thirty game starts mean I don’t get to bed till after midnight if I stay for the whole game, and my alarm goes off at five Almost-Morning.)
Beckham has never been in the top 3 or 4 in his sport ever.
certainly at free kicks, but not in the top of his sport. Marketing, sure, but talent level no.
I get the suggestion though.
Move over Sens, Caps are now my team. I have converted. All praise the Church of Ovie.
Go Caps Go.
I’ll give it to ya, folks, that is a HELL of a goal. Ovechkin never disappoints.
However…while I’m not in the business of raining on parades, lets not forget the big picture. Pucksandbooks correctly points out that Montreal pulled off a solid road game. This happend despite the wheels having come off their bus in recent days (they had lost 8 of their last 9 going into the Phone Booth last night), and despite the ongoing soap opera over Alexei Kovalev’s future with the team. Those things probably aren’t getting a lot of press down in DC, but it is part of the context. This is a demoralized and seriously distracted team that still managed to play one of the best teams in the League to a shootout. Not bad for a night’s work.
I do believe this is the first time in years that I’ve said anything good about the Habs (anyone on here who knows me knows that I’m an Ottawa fan, for my sins). Just saying that, in all fairness, Ovechkin’s goal (as jaw-dropping as it was) didn’t tell the whole story of the game.
Cheers,
TW
I have to say, from CBS’s standpoint (and the NHL) that goal couldn’t have come at a better time. I bet CBS is re-editing their promo for this Sunday’s game.
There are now two “The Goals” and several other highlight reel goals from Ovie that they can show and I think (not sure) that there are a a few highlight plays that display cindy’s abilities.
Friday night’s game should be good, but I’m really looking forward to Sunday’s game.
Hey pucksandboots, where is the love? You attack the ice every chance you get, but when there is a time to say its good you leave it out. That move could not have been executed on crappy ice.
Further to Mulletman’s comments….it is intriguing, though, that in the same week that Ovechkin scores the latest version of “The Goal”, rumours have surfaced to the effect that NBC may drop the NHL after the 08-09 season.
Who knows if this story has any legs–the FAN 590 radio station here in Toronto devoted some time to it on Tuesday, but at this point it is still at the level of rumour.
All the same, its telling, isn’t it? You will never have a more TV-friendly player that Ovechkin, and that still doesn’t seem to translate into sustained interest from a national US broadcaster.
Makes you wonder.
Subzero: While it felt a bit like sub-zero in Verizon Center last night — finally, cold like a hockey rink should be !!! — based on the night-long bounciness of puck on ice, which clearly affected both teams’ passing, you won’t get me singing hosanas about the ice. Or put another way: in the post-game, had we surveyed the vistors and asked them if they’d like to replace their home sheet with ours, I wager unanimity of opposition to the idea.
Ovechkin’s brilliant goal was less about the ice, IMO, than his judgement in reading defelction angles along the boards (twice).
Thunderweenie: the hockey games I fear the most are the “supposed to win ones.” Edmonton, LA at VC in recent weeks, for instance. Last night’s. Beware the beleagured hockey team. This Montreal club isn’t going to keep losing. I see less to fault the Caps for winning in dramatic fashion against a desperate team than I do, in a sense, relative to praising them for raising their game and winning against a Detroit club missing key players.
You know it was an amazing goal when even the Pensblog gives him credit. No calling him AhOle, no photoshops, just AO.
I loved this goal, and yet I’m a habs fan. Of course, it was a bit painful, but you have to admire greatness when you see it.
I like your account of the game. But as somone said earlier, Beckham is nowhere near a top 5 athlete in the world. He’s not even a top 10 soccer player, in my opinion. He’s an icon, for sure, but he doesn’t dominate his sport the way Tiger Woods, Ovie or Kobe Bryant do. (And I think basketball is much less North American in its appeal than baseball or football for instance)
who cares about this over rated monkey he is no a team player and that is why the caps will not ever win the cup he cant be a team player no wonder he looks good heis playing with a high scool team
Larry, what player are you talking about? Better yet, what SPORT are you talking about?
The “high school team” to which you are referring is the team that is currently leading the Southeast division, is 2nd in the East, and 4th overall in the League, correct? Jeezus, where did YOU go to high school?
I’ll refrain from any prognostications on who will win the Cup (my money is on Boston–sorry, OFB friends…), but if you seriously don’t think that Washington is a contender, I suggest you buy yourself a little thing called a TV.
The Larry post has to be a hoax. Even Pennsylvania folk can write better than that. He’s just playing with us.
Pucks, your paragraph about missing the goal due to travel, I don’t have to imagine that, I lived it. I’m in Houston on business, and was out for dinner during the game, so couldn’t even listen to the broadcast on line. My wife called me at the hotel after I got back, and filled me in while I was trying to find a clip of it on any of the blogs.
And today I had constant reminders every where when there was a TV with a sports channel on running highlights. So I got to see it many many time. Just wish I had been able to see it unfold live.
#8 may be playing a good game of hockey, but he’s crude inside, a ruskie. Myself russian i want no truck with his kind
Besides, i don’t think him a credit to my country, unlike another #8, igor larionov. Ovechkin’s a diego maradona on skates. Prove me wrong if u can.
BoBBY Orrs goal against Glenn hall for the Stanley Cup is number 1