The Enforcement of Ovechkinism
How an NHL club intimidated and silenced a reporter for saying the truth
I used to be a sports writer. I loved the job. It was fun, exciting, it allowed me to exercise my talents for creative writing and indulge my passion for sports. I got to travel the world and meet famous people. I was good at it. I was generally considered among the top Russian-language sports writers in the 2000s and 2010s, and even now I get messages from people who say they bought Sport-Express, at the time Russia’s biggest and most respected sports publication (neither is true any more), specifically to read my columns, interviews and analytic articles. Sport-Express knew this well and paid me the biggest salary on its writing staff.
I walked away from this life in 2014, became a school teacher and have never looked back since. 2014, of course, was the year Russia began its war on Ukraine in order to destroy the Ukrainian nation and prevent its integration into the West. 2014 was the year Russia went fully fascist. 2014 was the year I decided I could no longer be associated with Russia in any way whatsoever, let alone work for its media outlets. By way of my letter of resignation I wrote a long Facebook post in December of 2014 saying exactly this. “Some people would sacrifice their principles in order to keep their profession”, said my colleague and friend Evgeni Dzichkovsky when an interviewer asked him about my departure from Russian media. “Others would rather paint fences. Slava has found his fence.”
Russia’s fascism, however, wasn’t alone in forcing me out of journalism. Simultaneously with my decision to walk away from Sport-Express, I had a conflict with the NHL team the Washington Capitals whose media department called me “not a journalist but a smug fan” and threatened to take my credentials. Which they did, in the end, though by that time I had successfully burned all the bridges myself.
Here is how it went.
In 2014, the Capitals’ biggest star and the most high-profile Putin supporter on the planet, Alexander Ovechkin, took part in Kremlin's "Save Children From Fascism" campaign, which painted Ukraine as a Nazi country and Russia's occupation of Crimea and Donbas as a "rescue" mission. It consisted of photographing several celebrities with signs bearing the message. Ovechkin was by far the biggest celebrity who agreed to appear in it (the others were B-movie stars and obscure TV personalities), and his participation came with a twist. Since Ovechkin plied his trade in the US, the idea behind his appearance was to create noise in America.
Knowing that Ovechkin's participation would be immediately controversial, Russian media outlets were told to stand by for any hint of a scandal and to immediately come out with headlines to the tune of "Ovechkin is being cancelled in America for opposing Nazism". Indeed, immediately after the pictures hit IG and were noticed in the US, I was given an assignment to write an article about the American reaction. I flatly refused to portray it the way the powers that were wanted. My article in fact denied any “hounding” took place (though, of course, it should have, but more on that later).
Nevertheless, countless articles headlined "Ovechkin Bullied For Opposing Fascism". Here is but one of them. It's titled "America Against Ovechkin."
Shortly after I wrote my article, I had a call from "Zvezda", a TV channel in Russia run by the Ministry of Defense. They requested to put me on the air "to talk about how Ovechkin is hounded for politics." I pointedly refused to take part in this coordinated propaganda push. Below is the correspondence between “Zvezda” and myself, and my translation of it from Russian.
In other words, Ovechkin willingly took part in a campaign that was aimed both internally (to promote the war in Donbas and recruit volunteers for it) and externally (to provoke American media and fans into a response and present Ovechkin as a victim of the evil West). Ovechkin had no problem with this effort and was an avid participant in it.
As for the real reaction from the American media, Ovechkin’s pro-war activism prompted extremely mild reactions. I was probably the only one who took him to task on this, though at first it was in a rather humorous manner.
Here is one of the tweets I wrote on the subject.
In response to which I got an email from the Capitals PR department boss Kurt Kehl, consisting of one word: "Really?" This is how I answered:
… and how Mr. Kehl replied:
The exchange continued, as I decided to write a longer message to Kehl, trying to explain how misguided his lashing out was.
Kurt’s reply was, well, curt.
I haven't heard from Mr. Kehl or anyone at the Capitals ever since. Since by then I had already quit Sport-Express following the newspaper's sale to Putin's lover Alina Kabayeva, I considered the matter moot anyway. However, when the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) wanted to get me accredited for World Cup tuneup games in DC, I was informed by their media officer that Caps VP of communications Sergei Kocharov (who is indeed Russian, hired specifically to cater to Ovechkin’s needs) personally informed them that I was blacklisted from the arena. The ban, as far as I know, remains in place to this day.
Here is the e-mail exchange with IIHF:
The story, of course, has long ended. I quit Russian media after Crimea and due to no longer being able or wanting to work at Capitals games. I am a school teacher now and love my job. I will never again work for Russian media under any circumstances and I am exquisitely happy to say this.
What I am not happy to say is that I have spent eight years between my resignation and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine trying to tell folks who Ovechkin really is. Nobody listened. Until February of 2022. Of course, by then, it was no longer about a lone, quiet journalistic voice in the wilderness or about an NHL team’s petty vindictiveness and silencing of Ovechkin’s critics. It was about much more horrible, much more important things.
It’s 2024 now. The war is still going. Russia is unrepentant and, in its own mind, triumphant. Ovechkin is still lauded and idolized in North America. The Capitals still stifle any and all criticism of him.
And America’s hockey media? Still cowardly. Still silent. Still compliant.
One can only be thankful that Ukrainians have proven much less pliable to Russia’s influence than folks who call themselves journalists in the United States of America.