Ovechkin Makes GQ, not the Other Way Around

"No Stanley Cup? No Problem! I'm still number one!"

 

You can catch a pretty slick piece on Washington Capitals superstar Alex Ovechkin in this month (November 2010)'s issue of GQ here... you know, the one with the stars of the television show Glee on the cover. Truth be told, it's somewhat fitting considering the word almost perfectly describes the gap-toothed look on the sniper's face 90% of the time. Of course, the other 10% of the time it's one of disappointment following a particularly disheartening playoff defeat. Perhaps that's what makes Ovechkin so admirable... the fact that he doesn't take himself too seriously, but he does the game. It's a contradiction that suits him well, obviously.

 

As far as the actual piece goes, pretty sweet all around. It did cite this one fact that even I was surprised to hear:

 

"So hot was Ovechkin that the Florida Panthers tried to draft him two days before his eighteenth birthday, making a rather creative case that he had lived through four leap years and was thus, if you really think about it, of age."

The Capitals clearly ended up drafting him in 2004, but it is somewhat of a welcome distraction to wonder just how different the situation would be in Florida if they had Ovechkin there instead of current Atlanta Thrasher Anthony Stewart (the Panthers' second first-round choice a year earlier, after Nathan Horton).

Writer Michael Idov, who was contributing his first piece for GQ, gets top marks for successfully portraying the Ovechkin hockey fans have either grown to love or hate with a passion... there's seldom much room in between. Still, it's clear he's not a born sports writer:

"His goal for his first NHL game was, of course, just that: to hit a goal. He hit two, four minutes apart, and checked a guy so hard he broke the glass partition," he writes, clearly unfamiliar with the correct lingo.

A year earlier, Ovechkin made the magazine's "The 50 Most Powerful People in D.C." list, so it's clear that the magazine is somewhat familiar with his work, even if Idov isn't with hockey. That glaring mistake is the only real one I could find to his credit.

In any case, below are the three YouTube videos cited in the article: "Ovechkin Smokes Chelios", "Ovechkin Takes Out Sidney Crosby", and "Alexander Ovechkin Makes Chuck Norris Cry". For legal reasons, I should probably point out that there is no Chuck Norris in the actual video, but, then again, in spite of potential legal ramifications, Idov did say that "Ovechkin is the best hockey player in the world". For my money, it's Sidney Crosby.