Trump commended Ovechkin, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the Stanley Cup playoffs, in remarks during the Capitals’ celebratory White House visit in March after they won the franchise’s first Stanley Cup the previous spring.
“You were led to victory by a very special athlete, a great player, captain, team captain, Alex Ovechkin,” Trump said then. “Alexander the Great, they call him, has spent his entire 13-year NHL career with the Washington Capitals, and his hard work and his loyalty paid off last season. He outscored every player in the league. Wow, that’s not bad, right? With 64 goals — it’s like Babe Ruth — he had more than every player in the league. … 64 goals, 114 points, and was named the playoff MVP, and that was easy. Nobody did more to deserve the Conn Smythe Trophy and, Alex, congratulations.”
While some members of the team skipped the visit for political reasons, Ovechkin told Trump in the Oval Office that it was a “huge honor for us to be here and meet you personally.”
Ovechkin has mostly avoided talking politics during his time with the Capitals, but he is a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He founded an online political campaign for Putin, “Putin Team,” in 2017.
“Be a part of this team — to me it’s a privilege, it’s like the feeling of when you put on the jersey of the Russian team, knowing that the whole country is rooting for you,” he wrote on Instagram, accompanied by a photo of him and Putin embracing, when announcing the movement.
He also posted a photo casting a ballot in Russia’s 2018 election, ostensibly for Putin because Ovechkin tagged the post “#PutinTeam.”
During Trump’s meeting with Putin in Helsinki in July 2018, Trump presented Putin with an Ovechkin jersey and a hockey puck.
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