{"id":477407,"date":"2026-02-19T07:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T07:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/477407\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T07:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T07:39:07","slug":"alex-ovechkin-is-not-watching-the-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/477407\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Ovechkin is not watching the Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Ovechkin<\/a> returned to Washington Capitals practice on Tuesday afternoon and spoke to reporters for the first time on Wednesday after a week-plus break away from the rink.<\/p>\n

Ovechkin, along with his wife, Nastya, and his two children, Sergei and Ilya, vacationed in Dubai along with some of his extended family and friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cBreak was great,\u201d the 40-year-old Ovechkin said after Tuesday\u2019s skate. \u201cKind of a long flight, but worth it. Some times with family, friends. Don\u2019t think about hockey, don\u2019t think about the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was one other thing Ovechkin didn\u2019t think about. When asked if he had been watching the Olympics at all, Ovechkin replied \u201cno\u201d and ended the press conference. <\/p>\n

Russia was not allowed to participate in the 12-nation best-on-best hockey tournament \u2014 or the Olympics as a whole \u2014 due to its invasion of Ukraine. Russia hasn\u2019t played on hockey\u2019s national stage since February 2022, and the ban will continue through the 2026-27 season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, I understand,\u201d Artemi Panarin<\/a> told the New York Post<\/a>. \u201cBut also it\u2019s pretty sad for athletes who play that sport all [their] life and then have dreams about that. For our side, it\u2019s pretty sad, but we can\u2019t control that. I hope people figure it out. Especially when speaking with other guys who are going to play in the Olympics, they wish Russia is going to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ovechkin, whose dream was to win both a Stanley Cup and an Olympic gold medal before his career ended, has not participated in the Olympics in over a decade, when the Winter Games were held in Sochi, Russia. The Capitals captain competed in only three Olympic Games during his career \u2014 in 2006, 2010, and 2014 \u2014 and has never medaled.<\/p>\n

Not only is Ovechkin not tuning in for this year\u2019s tournament, but he didn\u2019t as well for the 4 Nations Face Off. The NHL banned Russia from competing for the same reasons<\/a>: due to its war in Ukraine. <\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t be watching the Four Nations Tournament,\u201d Ovechkin said<\/a>. \u201cWhat\u2019s the point of watching something where the Russian team isn\u2019t participating?\u201d<\/p>\n

Three Capitals players remain in the Olympic tournament, including Tom Wilson and Logan Thompson on Canada and Martin Fehervary on Slovakia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Ovechkin returned to Washington Capitals practice on Tuesday afternoon and spoke to reporters for the first time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-477407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}