He may not be a Stanley Cup winner yet like Sid the Kid, but Washington Capitals left winger Alexander Ovechkin — three-time All-Star and winner of the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy (for leading the league in goals) in 2007-08 and 2008-09 — is on the cover of 2K Sports’ NHL 2K10. Regarding the announcement, “Ovie” had this to say:
It’s an incredible honor, and I look forward to working with 2K Sports to make NHL 2K10 the most fun and amazing hockey video game experience ever. I can’t wait to put some of my moves in there.
Ovechkin presents a bit of a sore spot for me, since his Caps came back to beat my Rangers in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals this year after being down three games to one. But he’s definitely a lot of fun to watch — check out this amazing, now-classic goal of his from 2006, for example — and he’s already racked up an astonishing number of accolades in what seems to be destined to become a Hall-of-Fame career. In fact, he’s a finalist for this year’s Hart Memorial Trophy (MVP) and Lester B. Pearson Award (most outstanding player as determined by NHLPA), both of which he won last year; the 2009 NHL Awards will be given out tonight.
As for the game, it’s being developed by Visual Concepts for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 2, and it’ll be out this fall. But frankly, VC has got a tough task ahead of them if they want to try and take a chunk out of the people buying NHL 10. Check out the four covers in the gallery below! Isn’t that a pretty crazy celebratory pose from Ovechkin?
[Update: Ovechkin did end up repeating as the winner of the Hart Trophy and the Pearson Award tonight!]
