The Washington Capitals opened training camp on Monday and posted a photo of Alexander Ovechkin sharing a laugh with Tom Wilson on the ice, captioned “how we’re all looking at the big man today.” It went up the same day footage of Ovechkin appearing in a campaign video for Russia’s ruling party was circulating worldwide, and the timing did not go unnoticed.
Ovechkin features in a United Russia campaign clip ahead of State Duma elections that run from September 18 to 20, standing behind RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan while Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks. He also took part in a related photo shoot alongside Russian soldiers and figures who have been sanctioned over their links to the war in Ukraine.
Alexander Ovechkin slammed
Against that backdrop, the Capitals’ post drew a wave of replies that had nothing to do with hockey.
“The same look Ovi gives to war criminal Putin. Unbelievably tone deaf tweets,” one person wrote.
“Hello Capitals, are you okay with your captain Alex Ovechkin endorsing Kremlin’s United Russia party – the party which fully supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?” another asked.
Political scientist and longtime Capitals fan Norman Ornstein replied to the post directly.
“That’s not how all of us are looking at him today. We’re looking at him with utter contempt,” Ornstein wrote.
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The Capitals did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Ovechkin’s appearance in the video, according to Russian Machine Never Breaks.
Ovechkin is entering his 22nd NHL season, coming off the campaign in which he passed Wayne Gretzky as the league’s all-time leading goal scorer. He sits 16 goals short of Gretzky’s record for combined regular-season and playoff goals.
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