NEW YORK, January 20. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump called Russian hockey player Alexander Ovechkin a "great player" during the rally at the Capital One arena in Washington - the home arena of NHL’s Washington Capitals team.
"I would like to thank the owners of this arena. They are great. They are up here someplace in one of those beautiful boxes, and their team is doing very well, and Ovechkin is a great player, right?" the president-elect said.
Ovechkin has been playing for the Washington Capitals, also known as the Caps, since 2005. Earlier this week, he was included to Washington’s symbolic quarter-century team, together with Dmitry Orlov, Sergey Gonchar and Yevgeny Kuznetsov.
Together with the Caps, Ovechkin won the Stanley Cup in 2018. This week, he took his goal count in NHL regular championships to 874. He is second only to Canada’s Wayne Gretzky with 894 goals.