Alexander Ovechkin piece in the WP magazine

I guess there wasn't time to make late changes before the article went to press:

Alex's parents, accustomed to overseeing every aspect of his career and finances in Russia, have had to cede some control to their son, his agents and the Capitals. They are all trying to adjust to a culture in which the greatest athletes are celebrities pressed to be sports promoters.

Apparently they're adjusting quickly, Ovechkin having fired his agent and handed his business affairs back over to his mother.

I got a kick out of this bit too:

In the alley to meet him was Nate Ewell, the Capitals' 32-year-old director of media relations, looking solemn. Inside the bar was a bacchanal. Ewell didn't want this promotion to undermine Alex's wholesome image. "If you want anything to drink," Ewell told him, "I'll hold it."

...

One fan after another rushed forward to pose, grinning, next to the famous hockey player, who took another sip of beer.

"Put your drink down," the fresh-faced Ewell muttered sotto voce. "No pictures with your drink."

Yes, because God forbid a professional athlete of legal drinking age might be tempted to indulge in -- GASP! -- a bottle of beer at his own birthday party. :

 

To be fair, Double J, this site among many had an awful lot of fun with the photos of Nowitzki and Nash seemingly well-lit. So yes, people DO like having fun at the expense of a legal drinker when he's an athlete.

 

You say that like it's a bad thing.

 

Especially a hockey player. The only thing more egregious would be taking away a beer from a slo-pitch player.

 

I've since read April Witt's chat with readers about the article and, as I thought, the firing of Ovechkin's agent came too late to have been included:

Arlington, Va: Thanks for the great article. One thing though: I thought Alex fired his agent and rehired his parents. Is the agent mentioned in your article a new agent, or the one that got fired?

April Witt: Ah, you have hit on one of the few downsides of working for The Washington Post magazine. My story was written weeks ago. It cleared the copy desk and was published about three weeks ago. Alex fired his agents AFTER my story was published, but before it landed on your doorstep. So that's why his old agent is mentioned in the story.

You're right about that, but this particular incident with Ovechkin and the team's media relations director -- who really should have better things to do -- does smack of overkill in the interest of promoting a false viewpoint. Kinda like the image of Bing Crosby as a warm, caring, Christmas-loving family man who would never, ever abuse his children.

 

Here's a Q&A bit that I thought was incredibly amusing....

Flin Flon, Manitoba : Slava - Russia has an extraordinary array of game-breaking talent at forward, but there's a conspicuous dropp in talent on the blueline. Why? And will it change soon?

Slava Malamud: The traditional Russian (actually, I should say "Soviet") style of hockey tends to focuse fast-skating and highly skilled players. This is the way we were able to win all those world championships and Olympics in the past and nobody saw any reason to fix what wasn't broken. Developing crafty forwards was always a top priority.

Hmmmmm, I thought all those world championships and Olympics were the result of the Soviets building a national team of professionals (mainly Red Army officers) who practised and played year-round and then rolled over everyone else's amateurs who had only come together in time for whatever tournament was being contested.

 

If a WP sports beat guy wrote this, there would have been no Caps' PR-guy anecdote.

 

That's only partly true. The North American teams definitely were screwed over for decades by the so-called amateur system, but the Soviets still had to come up against the best that coutries like Czechoslavakia had to offer. And the Czechs were then as they are now pretty damn good.

 

"Countries like Czechoslovakia."

Betcha can't name any others. It's not like the Swedes or the Finns had national programs to compete with the Red Menaces.

 

There weren't any.

Hell, the fucking Swedes invented the trap to play against the Soviets.

Nice legacy.

 

That was a rather enjoyable piece.