The Ovechkin Project: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Hockeys Most Dangerous Player

by Damien Cox, Gare Joyce

Overview

The behind-the-scenes story of Alexander Ovechkin's phenomenal rise from Russian athletic prodigy to NHL superstar

Having signed the most lucrative contract in NHL history with the Washington Capitals, Alexander Ovechkin, at 24, is an undisputed hockey legend. In the mold more of a rock star than hockey player, Ovechkin courts the limelight, is never shy with his opinions, and, in a sport that thrives on the collective culture of the team-Ovechkin is an iconoclast who flouts convention, while loving the game. In The Ovechkin Project, veteran hockey writers Damien Cox and Gare Joyce trace his elite sports pedigree, his role representing Russia in the World Juniors, and how since entering the NHL, he's taken his team from worst to first in their division, and the hockey world by storm.

• Gives fans an inside look at such off-limits stories, as the impact of the death of Ovechkin's older brother, his bitter split with his agent, and his ongoing feud with Evgeni Malkin
• Offers the perspectives of teammates, his coach and general manager, other players in the NHL, and the general manager of the Capitals

A candid look at one of the most charismatic figures in hockey today, The Ovechkin Project offers an inside, little-known look at Ovechkin himself, the makings of his spectacular on-ice talent, and the Great 8's meteoric rise to the world stage of professional sports.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780470679142
Publisher:	Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated
Publication date:	11/09/2010
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

DAMIEN COX is a writer/broadcaster based in Toronto. He is an award-winning columnist with the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper. Over the past 25 years, few journalists have covered the biggest stories in hockey around the world to the extent he has, from the NHL to the Olympics to women’s hockey. He has been a fixture on TSN, Canada’s all-sports television network, and the FAN 590, the country’s largest all-sports radio network, since the mid-1990s. In addition to his columns, he is the author of The Spin, a daily sports blog published on TheStar.com. He is the co-author of two other hockey books published by Wiley, ’67: The Maple Leafs, their Sensational Victory and the End of an Empire and Brodeur: Beyond the Crease, a collaboration with record-setting goaltender Martin Brodeur. A proud native of Hamilton, Cox lives in Toronto with his wife, Vicki, and four children, Meghann, Delaney, Dawson and Leagh.

GARE JOYCE has written about sports since the early ’80s and for ESPN The Magazine and espn.com since 2003. He has had breakfast with Sidney Crosby before the phenom had a driver’s license, lunch with King Clancy at the Hot Stove Lounge and an uncomfortable dinner at McDonald’s where he spilled his milkshake in the lap of a seven-foot NBA center. Between meals, he has written four books, The Only Ticket off the Island: Baseball in the Dominican Republic, When the Lights Went Out: How One Brawl Ended Hockey’s Cold War and Changed the Game, Future Greats and Heartbreaks: A Year Undercover in the Secret World of NHL Scouts, and a best-selling biography of Crosby. His work has been short-listed for The Best American Sports Writing series seven times and he has won four Canadian national magazine awards. He is a lifelong Torontonian, a doting father to Ellen and Laura and a deeply committed partner to the writer Susan Bourette.

Table of Contents

Prologue.

Chapter 1 Vancouver
"It's a Dangerous Game and He's the Most Dangerous Guy."

Chapter 2 Dynamo
"If You Won’t Become a Player, I Don’t Know Who Will."

Chapter 3 Selkirk, Stonewall, Piestany, Halifax, Moscow
"Like a Wild Stallion."

Chapter 4 Washington
"How Could Something Which on Paper Looked So Right Be So Wrong?"

Chapter 5 Helsinki, Moscow, Pittsburgh, Washington, Toronto
"Is Pittsburgh Beside the Ocean?"

Chapter 6 Washington
"It Was on from the First Time He Stepped on the Ice."

Chapter 7 Madison Avenue, Washington, the Champs-Élysées
"You Basically just Signed the Babe Ruth of Hockey."

Chapter 8 Vancouver
"Like Gorillas out of a Cage."

Chapter 9 Buffalo
"This Is a Crazy Business."

Chapter 10 Chicago
"I Respect Everybody, but on the Ice It Can't Be Everything"

Chapter 11 Washington, Montreal
"It's Not Going to Happen. It's Not Going to Happen."

Epilogue Las Vegas
"He Is Not Alone Over There."

Acknowledgments.

INDEX.