If you’re a hockey fan, there’s a good chance you watch ESPN. If you’re a hockey fan of a certain age, you probably remember the “This is SportsCenter” commercials run by the network.
The skit-like adverts for the flagship program, which debuted in 1995, typically featured a mixed cast of ESPN personalities and high-profile athletes partaking in office-set hijinks.
Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin starred in what was supposedly “the most expensive” edition produced by the network back in 2011, according to ESPN anchor Steve Levy.
“They wound up building the set on our basketball court so it looks like it’s a copy room, right? With the copy machine and files and stuff like that,” Levy said on the NHL Unscripted podcast. “But because of the goof of having [Ovechkin] go through the roof, the ceiling there, they couldn’t do it in a real building, they had to make a set outside and rig the contraption there and because of the contraption and building a set outside on the basketball court, I was told it was the most expensive ‘This is SportsCenter’ promo ever made because of all those things.”
For those who may not vividly remember, the commercial opens in what is supposed to be the “ESPN offices” on December 4 at 11:28pm.
Ovechkin is seen rummaging through file cabinets in the dark before Levy then enters and flicks the light switch on. Levy asks, “Hey Ovi, what are you doing in the dark, man?”
Ovi, then 26, replies, “Nothing, just late night filings.”
Levy questions him playfully, “Really? Late night filing. What are you a Russian spy or something?”
The two laugh, with Ovi joking, “Yeah, right,” before Levy exits stage left. Ovi’s face then turns deadly serious and looks up where Russian teammate and then-Capitals goalie Semyon Varlamov removes a ceiling panel.
“That was close,” Varly says in Russian.
“Too close,” Ovi replies, before clipping himself into a rope his countryman tossed down. Files in hand, he’s pulled upwards into the ceiling Mission: Impossible-style to complete the gag.
Levy revealed that Ovechkin wasn’t originally supposed partake in that on-camera caper.
“The other really cool thing – and this will not surprise anyone – we had a stunt double for Ovi,” he said. “We had a real stunt double, full [uniform], pads, same height, weight, width, color hair at the time, all that stuff, standing right there and Ovi refused to let him in. Ovi said, ‘I do my own stunts,’ he’s Tom Cruise.”
Levy’s right. No Capitals fan, or hockey fan for that matter, is surprised that the player who has recorded the third-most hits in NHL history and counting (215 recorded in 2011-12 alone) would shy away from the physical parts of acting.
That’s not the last fun Easter egg Levy uncovered, however. Like any confident actor, Ovechkin altered one of his lines. Well, just by a single letter.
“People still come up randomly and the only line is, ‘late night filings,’ because that’s Ovi, he adds the ‘s’ for some reason,” Levy recounted fondly. “You know, it was a classic, it was fun to be in.”
ESPN uploaded the now-vintage advert to their “NHL on ESPN” YouTube page where it has accrued over 15,000 views over the last three years.
Levy admitted that the commercial has “gotten controversial” over time and only shown sporadically now because of “what’s going on in the real world.” He also revealed that the commercials were so fun and notable, other ESPN personalities went to great lengths to appear in them.
“Other anchors would jump over themselves to get in the building when they knew they were filming,” Levy said. “Guys would come back from vacations early and don’t care it was their day off. They don’t care. They’re coming to work because they wanted to be in these things. It was such a big deal.”
