I've seen a handful of posters here, and a ton of posts elsewhere, claiming that Ovechkin's family being in Russia is the rationale behind why he didn't make any bolder statements against Putin in the press conference. Any Caps fans buying into that are willfully deceiving themselves. It doesn't matter if Ovie's wife, children, and parents were in Russia or sitting right next to him in DC, he would have made the "Putin is my President" statements and refused to rebuke Putin regardless. Ovechkin has a
long and repeated history of outspoken support for Vladimir Putin. Well beyond what other Russian athletes have done. He's had multiple public appearances and photo ops with Putin. He's campaigned for Putin both in person and online. Not only is his Instagram profile still featuring Putin, but his multiple #PutinTeam posts from 2017 are still up, his picture of himself voting for Putin in the 2018 Russian election is still up, as is his
2014 post spouting Putin's propoganda about the
illegal annexation of Crimea. The 2008 Georgian war didn't change Ovie's support for Putin. The The 2014 annexation of Crimea caused Ovie to double down on his support for Putin. He's flocked to pro-Putin issues inside of US politics. Why do people think he's not a supporter of Putin now?
His support goes well beyond what other Russian athletes are doing. And I'm not just talking about outspoken Putin critics, like Artemi Panarin. But Ovie's "no war" statement was caged around by talk of Putin being his president and a bunch of other p***yfooting.
Nikita Zadorov and
Andrey Rublev needed no such qualifications on their statements.
Ovechkin is our team's captain. He owns a piece of our hearts. He brought a major Championship to DC, something that hadn't been done in 25 years. He's the greatest goal scorer of our generation, and perhaps all time. But his geopolitical opinions are garbage. All of those things can coexist at once. Just because he's a great hockey player, and one of our favorites, doesn't mean we can't acknowledge that he's in the wrong on this issue. He doesn't need our "protection." Others calling him out on this doesn't make our fandom of him wrong. Plenty of our favorite athletes are assholes outside of the rink or off the field. We shouldn't be surprised that this also applies to Capitals players.
Do I think Ovechkin should be suspended or his captaincy stripped? Of course not. But the Capitals are going to have to find a way to get out in front of this issue in a more concrete way, and show support for Ukraine as an organization.