NHL Star Alex Ovechkin Is Engaged To Tennis Ace Maria Kirilenko

Alex Ovechkin getting ready for the hardest shot competition in 2018.
(Image credit: Sportsnet)

A solid percentage of the locked out NHL players might consider the past few months completely wasted, but Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin definitely isn’t among that downtrodden lot. The forward spent his free time hanging out with girlfriend/ tennis ace Maria Kirilenko, and judging by what he asked her earlier this week, the time was well spent indeed.

Earlier today, Ovechkin tweeted a lovely photograph of himself and Kirilenko along with an enthusiastic message letting fans know they’re now engaged. 

The twenty-five-year-old Kirilenko is currently ranked number fourteen in the world, while Ovechkin is, of course, arguably the greatest hockey player in the National Hockey League. They have been dating for more than a year. Over the summer, they attended the wedding of hockey player Maxim Afinogenov and tennis player Elena Dementieva. Considering how well that ice and court combination went, maybe it served as inspiration.

People with weird jobs often do well when they’re paired together. For example: actors and actresses tend to make good combinations because they understand the crazy schedules that are a part of the occupations. Hopefully, the same kind of thing will work here with two athletes. They should have a healthy appreciation for how hard each need to train, and they should be able to take a solid amount of vacation time to work on their relationship.

Pop Blend’s sincerest congratulations go out to Maria and Alex. Here’s to hoping their wedding turns out to be everything they’ve ever dreamed of.

Mack Rawden
Editor In Chief

Mack Rawden is the Editor-In-Chief of CinemaBlend. He first started working at the publication as a writer back in 2007 and has held various jobs at the site in the time since including Managing Editor, Pop Culture Editor and Staff Writer. He now splits his time between working on CinemaBlend’s user experience, helping to plan the site’s editorial direction and writing passionate articles about niche entertainment topics he’s into. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English (go Hoosiers!) and has been interviewed and quoted in a variety of publications including Digiday. Enthusiastic about Clue, case-of-the-week mysteries, a great wrestling promo and cookies at Disney World. Less enthusiastic about the pricing structure of cable, loud noises and Tuesdays.