Alex Ovechkin has been known to rest his body whenever he gets an in-season break, but with no All-Star Game to skip this past year, he chose instead to keep himself fresh by training with a mystery workout partner in Florida.
Retired NHLer Darius Kasparaitis turned out to be that mystery man, and he recently described how the Capitals captain reached out to train with him during the eight-day break set aside for the 4 Nations Face-off. Kasparaitis relayed the details during his guest appearance on the latest episode of the Cam and Strick Podcast.
“When he came here during the 4 Nations tournament and texted me, ‘Can I come and train with you in the gym?’ I was like, ‘Wow, that’s cool,'” he explained. “So, that’s how we met.”
The two posed for a photo while sitting on stationary bikes at a gym in North Miami, where Kasparaitis lives and runs a Florida-based real estate development company.
“We did a couple training sessions. I killed them. He said that was too hard for him,” Kasparaitis continued, seemingly joking. “[We] actually went skating after we did – off ice and on ice – and then Ovi said, ‘Can we stop at the gas station, I need a beer.’ I said, ‘That’s my boy!'”
Kasparaitis was born and raised in Soviet Lithuania and played hockey in the USSR. He earned the title of Honoured Master of Sports of the USSR in 1992 and was inducted into the Russian and Soviet Hockey Hall of Fame in 2016. He played 14 seasons in the NHL, logging 163 points (27g, 136a) with four different teams. Ovechkin and Kasparaitis’ careers overlapped from 2005-07 when the latter was a member of the New York Rangers.
The duo had trained together in Florida before their most recent meetup. They were part of a sizable group of players that skated at Pines Ice Arena in Pembroke Pines, Florida, ahead of the NHL reopening operations to conclude the 2019-20 season after the COVID-19 pandemic paused play a few months prior. Kasparaitis said he is continually impressed with Ovechkin’s longevity in the NHL.
“Physically, he’s a beast. I watch him train right now. He has a little belly now, but that’s okay, as long as he can score,” he joked. “Ovi also have a good sense of humor, he always likes to be challenged. It doesn’t matter if I’m 50 and he’s 40, he always makes fun of me if I cannot do certain things, you know, he trash talks like I used to do.”
The extra training paid off for Ovechkin later in the season, aiding his quest to break Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record on April 6 and leading the Capitals to the top of the NHL’s Eastern Conference. He told reporters upon returning to the DMV in February that the South Florida sessions were necessary after he missed 40 days of the season with a broken fibula.
“I think especially when I get hurt, I don’t skate much during that break, and it was hard to me, coming back on the ice,” he said then. “I don’t want to lose that touch, lose that skating ability, so it was nice and thankful for him.”
