The US president has hailed the Russian hockey star after he broke Wayne Gretzky’s all-time NHL goals total on Sunday
US President Donald Trump has praised Russian ice hockey star Alexander Ovechkin, calling him a “great player” and “gentleman” after he broke the National Hockey League’s all-time scoring record.
The 39-year-old Washington Capitals forward achieved the milestone during Sunday’s game against the New York Islanders, surpassing the long-standing record of 894 goals held by Canadian legend Wayne Gretzky.
“Great hockey player, a great gentleman just broke the record of Wayne Gretzky. The great one is Wayne Gretzky, but we have another great one, huh? Just broke the record, it was great,” Trump said on Tuesday.
Widely considered the greatest hockey player of all time, Gretzky scored 894 goals over 1,487 games. Ovechkin matched that mark in his 1,486th game and surpassed it with his 895th goal in his next game.
The record-breaking moment came at 12:34 of the second period against the Islanders, when Ovechkin took a feed from Tom Wilson and fired a shot past fellow Russian Ilya Sorokin – Ovechkin’s first ever goal against the goaltender. Play stopped to honor the milestone, with Ovechkin receiving congratulations from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and Gretzky himself.
Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Ovechkin on Monday for his “outstanding achievement.”
“You have surpassed legendary players in the number of goals scored in regular-season NHL games,” Putin said.
Beating Gretzky’s seemingly unbreakable record “has become not just a personal triumph, but a true celebration for fans in Russia and around the world,” the president added.
Ovechkin is a three-time world champion with the Russian national team and won the 2018 Stanley Cup with the Washington Capitals, the team he has spent his entire NHL career with.
The Russian embassy in the US said earlier this week that “literally all of America” had rallied behind Ovechkin’s pursuit of Gretzky’s record. As a result, the embassy noted a soaring interest in organizing a match between Russian and North American teams.
During a phone call on March 18, Putin and Trump discussed hockey and the possibility of organizing games between American and Russian players from the NHL and KHL.
With Russia sidelined from many international competitions due to Ukraine-related sanctions, the NHL remains a rare platform where Russian players continue to showcase the strength of the nation’s hockey tradition.
