We’re 69 days away from the Capitals season opener October 5 against the Ottawa Senators so I thought now would be the perfect time to catch you up on something I missed during the playoffs.
Three-time NHL MVP Alex Ovechkin is one of the greatest goal-scorers of all-time. At 31 years of age, Ovechkin has already passed the 500 goal and 1,000 point thresholds that essentially guarantee enshrinement in the Hockey Hall of Fame. That success has in turn made Ovechkin’s game-used sticks and equipment very valuable to collectors.
According to Sports Illustrated’s Alex Prewitt, Ovechkin once had gear stolen out of his number eight equipment bag at an airport. The Caps had an ingenious solution to fix the problem.
team no longer travels with a no. 8 equipment bag b/c someone once stole some gear at the airport.
so instead they use no. 69. https://t.co/EELaoR15dm
— Alex Prewitt (@alex_prewitt) April 22, 2017
Nice. Ovechkin’s bag is now number sixty-nine.
Throughout the history of the NHL, only two players have ever worn the number. The Capitals’ Mel Angelstad was the very first to do so, wearing the number in two NHL games during the 2003-04 season.
“The reason I wore 69 was simple,” Angelstad said to me in an interview. “The worse you are in camp, the higher the number you wear, unless you’re on the team and have an assigned number. So this should illustrate just how lofty my skills were.”
When I told Angelstad about the Capitals’ solution to hiding Ovechkin’s gear, he laughed.
“That’s my old bag!” Angelstad, who currently is a firefighter/paramedic in Alberta, Canada, said. “Oh well I helped get him there with my horrible play!”
The only other player to wear number sixty-nine in the NHL was the Sharks’ Andrew Desjardins from 2010-2012.
“Bettman said no more could wear the number from what I understand,” Angelstad said. “I think it’s just my destiny! I got two games in the show and I end up in the record books for eternity as the first player to wear sixty-nine in a regular season game.”
Capitals center Nicklas Backstrom also wore number sixty-nine with Dynamo Moscow during the NHL lockout in 2012.
Ovechkin’s nice bag wasn’t the only random Ovechkin fact Prewitt dug up. Prewitt revealed that Gatorade isn’t always in Ovi’s Gatorade bottle.
usually there's a gatorade bottle on the bench for him that's filled with cola.
— Alex Prewitt (@alex_prewitt) April 22, 2017
In an SI Feature, Prewitt also revealed a special message Ovechkin left for his teammates on his measuring stick.
In the entryway, assistant trainer Ben Reisz arranged sticks in numerical order—there were 113 on the rack, plus a 114th, used exclusively as a guideline for star winger Alex Ovechkin’s sticks and labeled “MEASURE STICK DON’T TOUCH MOTHER——-!”
Headline photo: Simon Bruty/SI
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