The 40-year-old star athlete whose longevity secrets start with beer

His first NHL game came when he was 20, fresh from Moscow with stubble on his face. His 1,500th came Saturday night at 40, long since he turned more than just gray around the edges. There is much to marvel about Alex Ovechkin’s career, still chugging along in its 21st season, with every goal breaking his own NHL record. What might be most remarkable: He has never once compromised how he goes about it. That’s with every board-rattling check on the ice and every beer chugged off it.

“My dad always told me,” Ovechkin said last week, “it doesn’t matter who you are. You have to stay the same person.”

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In so many ways, Ovechkin’s world – with a wife and two kids, with a Stanley Cup, with more NHL goals than anyone else in history – would seem different after 1,500 games than it was after one. In so many ways, it is the same. At 40, he has not become a vegetarian. He’s not doing yoga. He’s not in a hyperbaric chamber. He was Ovi then, on the night of his debut with the Washington Capitals in 2005. He is Ovi now, after that milestone game Saturday night against Ottawa at Capital One Arena.

“He’s done what he wants to do the whole time,” said Brian MacLellan, the Capitals president of hockey operations now, the general manager for much of Ovechkin’s career, an assistant GM before that. “He has this mentality of ‘This is the way I live.’ It’s more of an invincibility, in his mind.”

By this point for Ovechkin, milestones can feel mundane. He needs one more goal to be the first player to reach 900? Yawn. Stretch. What next?

Don’t let yet another ceremony detract from how incomprehensible this all is. This isn’t about the 1,500 games, because 23 other players have reached that milestone. It’s a nice, round number, sure. What’s important is how he got there.

Start on the ice, and grapple with this statistical juxtaposition: Yes, Ovechkin is first in goals with 899, five ahead of Wayne Gretzky, whom he passed in April. And, yes, hits weren’t officially recorded as an NHL statistic until 2007-08. But the list of players with the most career hits reads like this:

1. Cal Clutterbuck, 4,029

2. Matt Martin, 3,936

3. Alex Ovechkin, 3,763

4. Luke Schenn, 3,679

5. Dustin Brown, 3,632

6. Milan Lucic, 3,275

7. Ryan Reaves, 3,095

So the greatest goal scorer in history plays one of the most physical styles in the sport – from Game 1 to Game 1,500. As a rule, the NHL’s heaviest hitters aren’t elite goal scorers. The top six on the list around Ovechkin combined for 890 goals. None has played more than Brown’s 1,296 games or scored more than Brown’s 325 goals. It’s just not a normal path to longevity. Indeed, it should shorten a career.

“Players that play physical, there’s a lifespan,” said MacLellan, who played 606 NHL games over 10 seasons. “Your body can only take so much.”

That’s the thing: Ovechkin’s body hasn’t been taking so much punishment. It has dished so much out.

“He’s a machine,” longtime teammate Tom Wilson said.

Anyone who has watched his career knows all of this. We can see – we can even feel – the joy with which Ovechkin plays the sport. That’s in scoring a goal. That’s in finishing a check. That’s in celebrating a teammate. That’s in playing the same way for 1,500 games.

What might not have been as clear: how he handles himself off the ice. Even the mention of that brings wry smiles from teammates who know.

“He’s a core piece in here in terms of on the ice and X’s and O’s,” said defenseman John Carlson, who has 1,097 games to his credit. “… But he’s also right there at the forefront of the extracurriculars, too. That says a lot about the character, and I believe that bleeds into everyone else.”

At 40, this is easy to joke about. Say, 10 or 15 years ago, Ovechkin’s habits might have drawn concern.

“I think we had a group that, in my mind, didn’t take [preparation] seriously enough,” MacLellan said.

So the Capitals brought in Brooks Orpik. They brought in T.J. Oshie. They brought in Justin Williams. The team culture slowly changed. Ovechkin didn’t – much.

“He’s going to do what he wants to do,” MacLellan said. “In his mind, he’s got it figured out. So why would you disrupt that?”

Turns out you wouldn’t. And you shouldn’t. What has developed is remarkable durability and sustained production. Since he turned 36, Ovechkin has scored 169 goals – one more than Johnny Bucyk between his age-36 and -40 seasons, which had been the most at that age in history. And Ovechkin has 73 more games this season at 40.

This while not exactly turning into a teetotaler.

“There might be something to his lifestyle,” Wilson said. “They don’t make him like him anymore, that’s for sure. … He’s a bigger-than-life guy, and he’s got his ways. I’m not going to be the one to rat him out on that. But the guy is just a machine, and he won’t change for anybody.”

Now, truth be told, 25-year-old Ovechkin and 40-year-old Ovechkin aren’t exactly the same.

“You have to take care of yourself 100 percent different than 20 years ago,” Ovechkin said. “In the summer, you have to do a little extra workout for conditioning-wise, health-wise.”

But, Ovi, you still cherish a postgame beer, right?

“Yeah, yeah,” Ovechkin said. “Why not? You have to live your life.”

He has lived his life. He is living his life. Alex Ovechkin has 1,500 NHL games in his rearview and who knows how many more ahead? What we do know: how he will play them. In a manner unlike anyone before or since.

Cheers!

The 40-year-old star athlete whose longevity secrets start with beer

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