Stunning admission from Alex Ovechkin weeks into his offseason

Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin knows he is just 41 goals shy of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time NHL goals record of 894 and has less and less time to break the record. However, if you think he is spending all summer in the gym, and getting fit for training camp in September, think again.

On in an interview on the Russian show This is hockey, brother! (which was then transcribed by sports.ru and translated by RMNB), Ovechkin talked about how much he hates training, especially off the ice, and how he dislikes dealing with the pre-season in the NHL:

“I hate preseason,” Ovechkin said. “I really hate it. I don’t like to just train. This is the hardest thing. Imagine, you arrived after your vacation, you have a tan, everything is fine, you’re happy. And your coach calls you and says, ‘Well, Sash? Tomorrow we begin training.’ You go to training, then rest, then another training session. I hate it, I can’t stand it.”

He went on to joke with the line: “I just want to be done with hockey.”

Ovechkin is spending the offseason in Moscow, before a scheduled trip to Turkey. Then, time will come to start training again, with longtime trainer Pavel Burlachenko before returning to DC in the fall. The Capitals’ superstar revealed how his training is planned to change this time around, switching up his routine as he gets older.

“Well, of course, before the season you will need to get in shape,” Ovechkin added. “It’s clear that you’re gaining extra pounds – you’re not moving, you’re resting. Of course, you will need to get into normal physical condition and maybe even lose weight. Well, I seem to look fine now.”

While I’m totally with Ovi on this one, training sucks, it is no secret that the start of the 2023-24 season was rough. Ovechkin scored just eight goals in his first 43 games, but finally came back a new man after the All-Star Break in February, adding 23 more tallies.

Ovechkin, who has two years left on a five-year deal he signed with the Caps in the summer of 2021, will now enter his 20th season in the NHL. He believes he will retire at the end of that deal.

Especially if he thinks about the off-ice training that will come that following summer!