What it's like to face shots from Alex Ovechkin

ARLINGTON, Va. — I could have begged for mercy.

“Hard shots or not hard shots?” Washington Capitals sniper Alex Ovechkin asked.

The project, pitched my way by an editor months earlier, was about to go down: A beer league goalie (me) vs. Ovechkin (the greatest scorer of his generation whose shots can exceed 100 mph and makes the world’s best goalies look silly on a regular basis).

“Go easy for a couple,” I replied since I hadn’t faced a shot in a few days during a pickup game at a nearby rink. “Then, go as hard as you want.”

Ovechkin began playing organized ice hockey at 8, and by 16, he was already playing in Russia’s highest professional league. I was a junior at San Jose State when I first played hockey. I was hooked, and I quickly ran up my credit cards buying equipment as I found a beginner league to play in.

The beer leagues in the Bay Area, Southern California and Northern Virginia didn’t prep me for facing this guy. Ovechkin, being nice at first, flung his first couple shots at me. I stayed at the top of the crease like you’re supposed to, trying not to give him much net to shoot at.

“So, now harder, or no?” Ovechkin asked.

One of my friends in the stands at Kettler Capitals Iceplex yelled, “Yeah, harder!”

Great.

There were two things I did after Capitals public relations vice president Sergey Kocharov gave us the green light for the project: I acquired a padded shirt to protect my collarbones — I wanted extra support in case I couldn't react quick enough. And I crammed, taking two goalie lessons, after having all of one in my life beforehand.

But so far, so good. I was making more stops than I expected. The pucks were hitting my gear, and I felt no pain. Ovechkin, seeing that I was being aggressive as I inched toward him, flipped one over my head. This was where my years as a baseball player came in handy.

“Yeah, that’s too high. It won’t go in,” I thought to myself.

I was right. It missed and I dodged Ovechkin humiliating me, at least for one moment.

I could tell his shots didn’t have the same vigor as fans are used to seeing during games, but Capitals goalie coach Mitch Korn assured me that’s normal.

“He shoots hard, but on a day-to-day basis, I think he’s respectful (in practices),” Korn said. “He understands that his shot can kill you, and if he’s going kill anybody, it won’t be a teammate."

Ovechkin told us afterward he was going at “60% intensity,” about how hard he shoots in practice.

Goalies, even beer league goalies like myself, have a crazy streak in them. Who else wants to stop a 3-inch vulcanized rubber disc being shot at them dozens of times a game?

I’ll be the first to admit I can be surly on the ice, so when Korn reviewed the footage, I had to chuckle when he noted the No. 27 on my jersey.

“Ron Hextall?” he asked, referencing the former Philadelphia Flyers goalie who was one of the most volatile (and violent) goalies in NHL history.

In fact, when we did this shoot, I was serving a three-game suspension for fighting at my local rink. The No. 27, I explained to Korn, was actually a tribute to my favorite baseball player, the late Los Angeles Dodgers utility player Mike Sharperson.

Ovechkin was done firing slap shots and now it was time for his trademark one-timers from the circle to my right. This is Ovechkin’s favorite spot to shoot and where he’s scored a good portion of his 539 career goals in his 12 seasons in the NHL.

I took my position at the top of the crease as Ovechkin was fed pucks. He may have taken it easy on me during the slap shots, but he was ripping them now as I slid to my right each time in hopes of stopping him.

“A lot of his shots are from one-timers off of a pass,” Korn said. “That forces a goalie to move from one spot to the other. You have to be mobile.”

Shockingly, I stopped a few — one with my face.

Ovechkin apologized, but this was my badge of honor. I smelled rubber immediately after the puck ricocheted off my mask so I knew he got me good, but I didn’t know until afterward that he had put a dent in the cage. I had a souvenir.

See the moment in 360-degrees in the video below. (Mobile users: to get the optimum 360-degree experience, or to view in a VR headset, download the USA TODAY app and find the video in the “VR” section, or view the video below in your phone’s YouTube app.)

The one-timers gassed me. Beyond being a USA TODAY Sports reporter, I also run a personal training business. Ten days prior to facing Ovechkin, I completed 53 miles at the World’s Toughest Mudder, a 24-hour obstacle race held outside Las Vegas. I’m in above-average shape.

But I felt like I had just done a few dozen burpees, and we weren't done. Now, it was time for breakaways.

Sadly, I didn’t have much left and this is where it became clear that most of my goalie “instruction” came from watching Dominik Hasek, the 2014 Hall of Fame inductee whose unconventional style of strategic flailing appealed to me.

I stopped one of Ovechkin's breakaways. I'm convinced it was because Ovechkin had no idea why I was laying across the crease as he skated in. It still counts. I knew my usual weapon in beer league on these kind of chances, a desperation poke check where I dart my stick out, couldn’t be used. Imagine if Ovechkin tripped on my stick and got hurt. I envisioned hundreds of people rocking the red at my house with pitchforks and torches.

Overall, he made me look silly on the breakaways.

As we finished up, I thanked Ovechkin for the opportunity and asked for an assessment of my play.

He paused for a moment, as if to be searching for a delicate way to deliver bad news.

“Not that good, obviously,” Ovechkin replied. “But it’s OK.”