Ovechkin Better Get The Same Broadcast Interruption Treatment That Aaron Judge Got When He's Breaking Gretzky's Record
David Becker. Getty Images.As you read in Nate's blog earlier today, Alexander Ovechkin is now just 29 goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky's all-time career goals record in the NHL. There are countless records that Gretzky holds which most fans thought would never be broken. The goals record is one of them. There was a time when there was a conversation about whether or not there was a chance Ovi could come close to breaking it. But now it's only a matter of time, and the conversation is more "when will Ovechkin break the record?".
It's November 18th. 39-year-old Alexander Ovechkin is currently in a tie leading the NHL in goals with 13. Sam Reinhart, Leon Draisaitl, Alex Ovechkin. We're deep enough into the season now where there are no more "hot starts". If you're leading the league in goals close to American Thanksgiving, there's a good chance you're going to be one of the top goal scorers in the league by the end of the regular season. He's on pace now for a 63-goal season. Even if he falls off a little throughout the season, all he needs to do is get to 42 this year to break the record. He can drop 20-goals off of his pace right now and still be the all-time leading goal scorer in the NHL by the end of the year.
I'm sure everyone remembers a couple Septembers ago when ABC/ESPN constantly cutaway from college football coverage to broadcast ever at-bat for Aaron Judge when he was chasing his 62nd home run of the year. And that was just for a franchise and American League single season record. They did it for WEEKS waiting for that dipshit to finally hit another ball over the wall, even with everyone constantly complaining about how much they hated it.
All I'm saying is that if ESPN is serious about having broadcasting rights to the NHL, they need to give Ovechkin the same treatment. The moment he scores 893, they need to start split-screening every Ovechkin shift. We need to see him tie the record at 894, and then break the record with 895.
With the current pace he's scoring at, there's a good chance Ovechkin breaks the record sometime in March. I know that's a pretty big month for college basketball with a lot of big moments on the line you wouldn't want to cutaway from. But if the whole world had to watch Aaron Judge break a single season franchise record, then I just think the whole world deserves to watch Alex Ovechkin become the greatest goal scorer the NHL has ever seen.