Alex the great 8

Alex Ovechkin almost stopped playing hockey.

His mother Tatyana was a basketball player, his father Mikhail was a soccer player, and they were traveling with their teams, leaving no one to take young Alex to practice. Coach Vyacheslav Kirillov begged Tatyana to get him back into the sport until she gave in.

Good thing, too. Raised in the final years of the Soviet sports system by parents who were already accomplished athletes, Ovechkin was given every chance to succeed, and he has evolved into a superstar on the ice.

The top NHL draft pick by the Washington Capitals in 2004, over 20 years Ovechkin became a Stanley Cup champion and teammates watched him develop into a husband, father and a generous person, paying for dinners on the road and growing reflective on his career and accomplishments. Next on that list will be breaking Wayne Gretzky's career goals record.

"He was a very, very bright young man in terms of his goal-setting for his life," said Hockey Hall of Famer Igor Larionov, who met Ovechkin as a teenager. "He was determined. He was one of the fastest players on the ice, and he had a purpose. Every time he stepped on the ice, he was going to be the best."

Born Sept 17, 1985, and coming of age just as the Soviet Union was giving way to a new Russia, Ovechkin was drawn to the game through his father.

"He would go on some trips and bring me some goalie helmets," Ovechkin once recalled. "I didn't know what it was, except it was something about hockey, and when I was a little kid, everything was about hockey, hockey, hockey."