There are so many cases when parents throw all their efforts at their child, try to give him an education and monitor his health, guide him with wise advice - but the unreasonable child grows up to be mediocre.
As many examples as you like, you say. But it happens exactly the opposite: a child was destined from birth to become a star, and he lived up to the hopes of his father and mother, the whole world talks about him, he is an ideal family man, a caring father of his children. Let evil tongues gossip about hockey player Ilya Kovalchuk as much as they want: the athlete is currently successful, rich, self-confident and is not going to say “stop” to his sports career.
Some official biography information
- Kovalchuk, Ilya Valerievich – full last name/first name/patronymic;
- Where was he born - Kalinin (USSR), now Tver (Russia); year and birthday – 1983, April 15;
- Close relatives: father - Kovalchuk Valery Nikolaevich (died in 2005); mother – Kovalchuk Lyubov Nikolaevna, sister – Arina Valerievna;
- Marital status: married, wife – Nicole Kovalchuk (maiden name Ambrazaitis); children - two daughters (Karolina, Eva) and two sons (Artem, Philip);
- Height, weight, zodiac signs: 191 cm and about 100 kg; Aries, according to the eastern horoscope - Pig;
- Higher education; RGUFK (formerly Moscow Institute of Physical Education);
- State awards: Honored Master of Sports of Russia; Order of Friendship; cross of St. Michael of Tver; medal "For Services to the Fatherland"; honorary citizen of Tver;
- Occupation: hockey player; sports nickname - “Captain Hook” (for the non-standard shaped stick).
Childhood and the beginning of a sports career
His biography definitely cannot begin with the words: “Who would have guessed that...” Surely Ilya’s father, Valery Nikolaevich, looking at his newborn son in a crib, already mentally imagined him scoring goals into his opponents’ goal. The boy, born in the Russian city of Tver in the family of a dentist and sports coach, was identified from birth by the sports Muse as a hockey star.
In the photo Ilya Kovalchuk with his family: parents and sister Arina.
From the age of four, dad took Ilya to the gym and taught him to train hard. The foundations were laid for the son to live up to the name given at birth: Ilya grew up strong and strong, like his namesake, the epic hero. Trampoline, football, basketball, acrobatics, swimming - a little of everything, but in the end hockey was chosen. When Ilya was only five years old, his father assigned him to the command of a close friend, Viktor Nikolaevich Zhukov. An honored coach of the country, Zhukov was a real “ace” in the matter of educating young hockey stars: for many years he led the junior Tverich team.
Even after going under the guidance of a venerable coach, Ilya did not remain without his father’s attention for a minute. Not a single lesson took place without the participation of Valery Nikolaevich, or more to say: they continued outside the gym. The famous “brush” throw, with which Kovalchuk the son will become known throughout the world, is his father’s merit. For many weeks, months, Ilya monotonously, under the gaze of his dad, threw the puck from the plywood into the goal painted on the wall.
When his son was in the fifth grade, his father decided that a simple school was no longer enough for serious training, and Ilya was transferred to a city boarding school with a sports focus. On weekends there was no rest: father and son went to Moscow for hockey matches. At the age of 15, Ilya moves to a new level of training: he is transferred from a boarding school to the Moscow Olympic Reserve School.
Even before the young man entered the Moscow sports school, he had already “marked his mark” at Russian youth hockey competitions. After one of the tournaments, when he scored 33 goals in total, he was invited to Dynamo Moscow, this was in 1993. A year later - a trip overseas in the children's Spartak team; In Minnesota, Ilya scores 22 goals during the tournament period and receives the title of “top scorer.”
Having already shown excellent athletic abilities, the young man at the age of 16 makes a sharp leap upward: bypassing the “junior” step, he is immediately invited to join the adult squad of Moscow Spartak. The Major League of Hockey is adding its youngest player to its ranks! At the world “Challenge Cup” in 2000, held in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada, Ilya Kovalchuk became “the best player of the championship.”
2001: Spartak, for which Kovalchuk has been playing for the second season, advances to the Major League. The famous Atlanta Trashers club invites a talented young man to join them. Based on the results of the club's annual draft, Ilya is assigned the first number. Goodbye childhood, now the game will be played like an adult!
News
Ilya Kovalchuk's career began when he was selected first overall in the 2001 NHL Entry Draft. It ended Thursday when he announced he was retiring from the NHL and returning to Russia with his family.
Kovalchuk became one of hockey's most dynamic players during his 11 seasons in the NHL, first with the Atlanta Thrashers and then with the New Jersey Devils. He scored exactly one point per match (816 points in 816 matches) and scored 417 goals. This is more than any other hockey player during this time.
Here are his main achievements:
2001-02:
In 65 games for the Thrashers (the team was in its second season in the NHL), this rookie scored 29 goals and made 22 assists (51 points). A late-season shoulder injury cost him the Calder Trophy, which went to teammate Dany Heatley (26 goals, 67 points, 82 games).
2003-04:
After Kovalchuk scored 38 goals and 67 points the previous season, Ilya finished the season in first place in scoring in the NHL (41 goals), tied with Rick Nash (Columbus), Jerome Iginla (Calgary Flames). . Kovalchuk was selected to the second All-Star team. He also participated in his first All-Star Game.
2005-06:
After his lockout in Russia, Kovalchuk returned and set a personal best of 52 goals and 98 points. He led the NHL with 27 power-play goals.
2006-07:
His statistics worsened (42 goals, 76 points), but Kovalchuk reached the playoffs for the first time - Atlanta won the Southeast Division. There he scored one goal and made one assist, but the Thrashers lost to the Rangers in the first round in four games.
2007-08:
The Thrashers did not make the playoffs, but Kovalchuk rose above the 50-goal mark for the second time (52 is a repeat of his personal best). He played in the All-Star Game on his home court in Atlanta.
2009-10:
43 goals and 91 points kept Atlanta out of the playoffs the previous season, and this season also ended early for the team. But on February 4, 2010, the Thrashers traded Kovalchuk to New Jersey. In 27 regular season games for his new team, the striker scored 10 goals and scored 27 points. In the playoffs, he became the Devils' leading scorer, scoring 6 points in five games against Philadelphia in the first round of the playoffs, which New Jersey lost.
Summer 2010:
Kovalchuk became an unrestricted free agent and signed a new contract with the Devils for 15 years, worth $100 million. Actually, he first signed a 17-year contract for 102 million, but the NHL did not register this agreement and this decision was supported by the arbitrator. As a result, the League confirmed the revised contract, according to which the amount of 6.67 million was taken into account annually when calculating the salary cap.
2011-12:
Kovalchuk recovered from a not very successful season (31 goals, 60 points, no playoffs) and helped the Devils make it to the playoffs. In the regular season, he became the team's top scorer (37 goals, 86 points). In the playoffs, no one could surpass Kovalchuk (8 goals, 19 points), the Devils reached the Stanley Cup final, but lost to Los Angeles in 6 games. For the first time, he was named to the first All-Star team.
2012-13:
Kovalchuk played in Russia until the NHL and the players' union agreed on a new labor agreement. He returned to New Jersey, scored 11 goals, scored 31 points in 37 games and missed 11 games with a shoulder injury. He sent his last puck into the Pittsburgh net on April 25th. The Devils won that match. 11 weeks later, on July 11, he announced his retirement from the NHL.
Rapid “star” career
In 2002, Kovalchuk goes to Salt Lake City for the Olympics as part of his country’s national team, and of course the fact that our team won bronze there is his considerable merit. Upon returning from the Olympics, he receives the high title of Honored Master of Sports. He continues to play for the national team, while studying at the physical education academy, and is the most productive player in the Atlanta Trashers. Even an injury in 2002 does not stop him: he is among the top five players in the league. Kovalchuk is no longer just an excellent hockey player, but a player with an impressive financial fortune - his annual income “exceeded” a million dollars!
The beginning of a career in the NHL. Atlanta.
The year 2004 was significant for Ilya Kovalchuk by receiving the Maurice Richard Trophy - he was awarded the title of best sniper in the national league. Ilya is now not just a star - he is on a par with such legends of world hockey as Crosby, Stamkos and “our” Ovechkin. Over the next few years, the hockey player occupied a leading position in the lists of the best scoring forwards in the NHL.
A little digression about the number that Kovalchuk wore on his uniform when he played for the Atlanta Trashers. He chose the number “17” for a reason: the father of the hockey genius was an ardent fan of Valery Kharlamov and dreamed that his son’s success would approach the results of the “legend” of the ice. In the Russian national team, this number was assigned to Valery forever, but Ilya found a way out and took “71” for himself.
The Canadian World Championship in 2008 was significant for Kovalchuk not only because he received gold there. It was he who broke through to the opponents' goal in the final match in a fierce struggle and scored the decisive goal for the Canadians. In the multi-part film “Champions” (filmed in 2014), actor Chadov plays the role of Ilya Kovalchuk and perfectly conveys the drama of that situation.
2010: Kovalchuk signs a ten-year contract with the legendary “devils” – “New Jersey Devils”. The contract raises the hockey player’s already solid fortune to heights unimaginable for that time: the agreement specifies an amount of one hundred million dollars! Alas, for only three seasons Ilya delighted fans with his brilliant play as a member of the Devils; he decides to interrupt cooperation with this club and moves to the Continental Hockey League, specifically to St. Petersburg SKA. The unexpected decision caused a real flurry of gossip and rumors: supposedly one hundred million for a “star-studded” personality was not enough, and SKA offered him more when signing a 4-year contract. Maybe everything is much simpler, and Ilya got tired of running on American and Canadian ice and was drawn to his homeland?
The 2018 Korean Olympic Games showed that the year of birth for Kovalchuk is an empty phrase: in his thirties, he easily gives a head start to young hockey players. These games, by the way, became the fifth Olympics in which he took part. The victory in “overtime” against the Germans, the first “gold” for the Russians after a 26-year break - Ilya certainly contributed to this triumph. The wife, older children, the athlete’s mother - everyone watched with bated breath the progress of the fight along with millions of fans. Only one fact overshadowed the victory - that Kovalchuk’s father did not live to see it...
Kovalchuk refuses to wear number 17 out of respect for the legendary Kharlamov
The material is presented in translation by InoSMI.
34-year-old Russian Ilya Kovalchuk is one of the main stars at the Olympic Games. In his fifth Olympics, the hockey legend dreams of emulating his father's idol.
Olympic athletes from Russia have still not won a single gold medal in Pyeongchang - and now more and more fans are hoping that the hockey team will bring the highest medal to the country, which is deprived of the right to compete under its own flag at the Olympic Games.
Ilya Kovalchuk is the real leader of the Russian team. The veteran, who scored 816 goals (417 of them himself, 399 of them assisted) in 816 NHL games for the Atlanta Thrashers and New Jersey Devils from 2001-2013, always plays for his club team with the number 17 on the back.
But when he plays for the national team, he rearranges the numbers, and thus wears number 71.
A tribute to the hockey legend of the times of the Soviet Union - Valery Kharlamov.
He left early
Kharlamov died in a car accident in 1981, he was only 33 years old. He managed to become a real legend on the ice.
At 11 World Championships, thanks to Kharlamov, the USSR team won eight gold, two silver and one bronze medals, and the Olympic tournaments in which he took part led to gold in both Sapporo in 1972 and Innsbruck in 1976.
In Lake Placid in 1980, everything ended in silver after the Soviet team suffered a sensational defeat by a team of college students from the United States in the final match, later called the “Miracle on Ice”.
Ilya Kovalchuk was born almost two years after the death of Valery Kharlamov, but he decided to play under the same number as Kharlamov - 17 as a tribute to his father, who was a big fan of Kharlamov.
"We respect our veterans"
After a car accident that took the life of Valery Kharlamov, his number on a hockey uniform was not given to anyone either in the CSKA hockey team from Moscow or in the national team.
“Kharlamov is one of the greatest players of all time. We respect our veterans, and the fact that his number is so carefully kept in the national team is just great. But when I play for the club team, I use his number, because my dad was his real fan,” said Ilya Kovalchuk in an interview with a Dagbladet correspondent.
“Since Kharlamov died before I was born, I, unfortunately, never saw him play with my own eyes, but my dad showed me many recordings of his play, in particular, the Olympic tournaments in 1972 and 1976, when they won gold. It was a real pleasure to see how good he was,” says Kovalchuk.
He himself was not allowed to represent Russia at his fifth Olympic tournament. All Russians at the Olympics compete under the Olympic flag because Russia as a state was suspended from the Games as a result of the doping scandal that erupted in connection with the Sochi Olympics four years ago.
“Everything is different, but the situation is what it is, we cannot influence it. We try not to think about it, we just play our matches. The most important matches start now, that’s why we came here to play them,” 34-year-old Kovalchuk tells a Dagbladet correspondent.
Four failed Olympic attempts
Unlike Kharlamov, who won two of his four Olympic tournaments, Kovalchuk does not have an Olympic gold medal.
The current Games are the fifth and probably the last for the 34-year-old hockey player.
“Whenever you come to the Olympic Games, you really want to win. But the same can be said about all 12 teams participating in the tournament. This time it won't be easy either, but we have a strong team and we can beat everyone. We believe in this, and this is our strength,” says Kovalchuk.
After a shocking defeat in the match with Slovakia - their first at the Olympics - Kovalchuk and company defeated Slovenia with a score of 8:2 and the USA with a score of 4:0 in the next two matches. Kovalchuk, who scored four goals in three matches, is the main scorer of this hockey tournament.
Olympic athletes from Russia have not yet won a single gold medal at the Olympic Games. They have three silver medals and eight bronze, which means that they are in 20th place in the medal standings.
“I have already said that these games are different, and there is nothing we can do about it. We should only think about our next match,” says Ilya Kovalchuk.
Hockey made the Russian a very wealthy man: after eight profitable seasons with the Atlanta Thrashers in the NHL, he signed a 15-year contract with the New Jersey Devils in 2010, worth $100 million. When he broke his contract in 2013 to return home to Russia and play in the KHL, there was $77 million left on the contract.
But the contract with which SKA St. Petersburg lured Kovalchuk home is said to cover most of the millions he left behind in the United States.
Roy Wahlstrøm
inosmi.ru
@Teleskopby on Telegram
Personal life of the famous hockey player
Let the media slander as much as they want about the fact that hockey player Kovalchuk is primarily chasing money and fame, that only the amount of remuneration determines which club he will play for. Let them post photos of his luxury cars and luxurious home online - what’s wrong with talent getting what he deserves? But in terms of his personal life, Ilya is ideal: he has a beautiful wife and four lovely children.
In the photo Ilya Kovalchuk with his wife Nicole.
Officially, Ilya Kovalchuk and Nicole Ambrazaitis formalized their relationship in 2007, but met much earlier - seven years before the wedding. First, the hockey player noticed the beautiful soloist of “Mirage” on TV, then a chance meeting with friends. And now they are together - on the front pages of fashion magazines, they do not hide their love and happiness. Everyone asks why they don’t get married, but is a stamp in a passport the main condition for a lasting union of two hearts?
and children... Instagram ilyakovalchukofficial.
Five years after being in a civil marriage, the couple pleased fans of the hockey player who followed the life with their first child - daughter Caroline. In 2009, their son Philip was born, and a year later Artem. The fourth child in the Kovalchuk family appeared in 2014, daughter Eva. Nicole has not performed on stage for a long time: she raises children, looks after the household, and provides her husband with a strong “rear” at home.
Personal life
The personal life of a sports star, unlike on the ice rink, is quiet and stable. The already famous hockey player in Russia Kovalchuk noticed his future wife while watching a video of the group “Mirage” on TV. The spectacular blonde, lead singer Nicole Ambrazaitis, immediately attracted attention, and the man decided that he would definitely meet her. Ilya and Nicole spent their first date in a cafe. The girl liked the athlete immediately. She appreciated his self-confidence combined with good upbringing and modesty.
Wedding of Ilya Kovalchuk and Nicole Ambrazaitis
After 5 years of marriage, the couple had a daughter, Carolina, and when she was 2.5 years old, Ilya and Nicole got married. The wedding ceremony took place on August 17, 2007. The wedding celebration was held first in Moscow, and then repeated in Tver, where Kovalchuk had many friends. A year later, the lovers got married. The sacrament took place in the Novodevichy Convent.
Ilya Kovalchuk with children Karolina, Philip and Artem
In 2009, there was an addition to the hockey player’s family: a son, Philip, was born, and a year later, Artem. When Kovalchuk signed a contract with the New Jersey Devils in 2010, the family moved to America to be closer to her husband and father. For the sake of her husband’s career, Nicole abandoned plans to become a singer and devoted herself entirely to raising children. In January 2014, daughter Eva was born.
The forward believes that then, in 2001, he was incredibly lucky, which he wrote about on Instagram, congratulating his beloved on her wedding anniversary. Photos of a happy family are regularly published there.
Interesting facts about him
- Kovalchuk is not only a handsome man with a powerful figure. He is a heterochromic person, in other words, one who has eyes of different colors.
- He is not uncomfortable with the fact that, as a believer, he played for a team with the word “devils” in its name. He and Nicole are not only officially married: they are also married in the temple.
- Ilya loves giving interviews, posing for fashion magazines in front of his expensive cars, and showing off exclusive watches (he collects them). But if they ask about religion, he abruptly cuts off the correspondents: “Yes, I am a believer, but this is personal, please leave these questions.”
- The athlete treats fans calmly; he has never been seen in “leftist” casual relationships: “A man should always think with his head, and not in one place. I’m a family man, that says it all.”
- The men's monthly "Gentlemen's Quarterly" in one of its issues included Ilya Kovalchuk in the list of the most stylish men in the world. When asked what he meant by stylish, the hockey player replied: “Be a man, be responsible for your actions - then you will be stylish.”
- Kovalchuk speaks negatively about the fact that the media are looking for “fried” information about famous athletes and publish facts discrediting them: “Well, he violated the regime today, well, they ran up and removed him in an unpleasant situation, so what? You have to write about the game, but how a person spends his time between matches is his own business.”
- Latest news about the hockey player: Ilya is not going to let go of his “wrong” stick and intends to aim for the Stanley Cup. He also plans to join the Triple Gold Club.
Ilya Kovalchuk left Avangard and may continue his career in the NHL
Just yesterday Ilya Kovalchuk
from the stage in Omsk he showed Avangard fans the long-awaited Gagarin Cup, and today the “hawks” officially announced that the “golden” captain was leaving the team.
Alexey Volkov
general manager of Avangard
“When we agreed on Ilya’s transfer to Avangard, we immediately entered into a gentleman’s agreement. Kovalchuk is still hungry for victories, he dreams of winning the Stanley Cup, so we are only positive about his desire to try his hand at the NHL again.”
The news for me, frankly speaking, is unexpected. I was sure that Kovalchuk simply had nowhere and no need to leave now, and the “+1” option in the contract with Avangard would be extended automatically. And it turned out that Ilya became the first hockey player from the championship squad to officially leave the Omsk club.
Alexey Volkov
talks about Kovalchuk’s desire to return to the NHL, and we all know how much Ilya dreams of winning the Stanley Cup. This is understandable, but it seems that in this story everything is not so transparent.
The main question is: why such a rush? Not everyone in Omsk has yet realized that their team has finally become the KHL champion, but Kovalchuk is no longer in Avangard. Such efficiency could be explained if Ilya went to the NHL right now - to fit into the composition of any team at the end of the overseas regular season. But the deadline in America has long passed, and no one can sign Kovalchuk, even in theory.
Moreover, Kovalchuk does not yet have any agreements or proposals for the next season. That is, apart from his own desire, there are no prerequisites for the return of the three-time Gagarin Cup winner to the NHL. And it’s far from a fact that they will appear, because Covey’s latest overseas seasons are unlikely to impress anyone. He has long since sagged in speed, mobility and agility, and even in the KHL playoffs he performed more in the locker room than on the ice. But in the NHL, in every serious team (and Ilya, for obvious reasons, will not consider others), even without Kovalchuk there will be guardians of the spirit.
Will Kovalchuk still compete for the Stanley Cup? What will happen next to the Avangard captain?
I don’t understand what prevented Ilya from remaining on paper as an Avangard player and at the same time looking for options in the NHL. After all, there was a gentleman’s agreement with the club, which could have been activated either in July or in August. And Kovalchuk would then have had an alternate airfield, which he would have landed on without any problems, if he had not yet found decent options in America. Didn't get a contract with Boston/Tampa/Vegas/Colorado/another NHL headliner capable of winning the Stanley Cup? Okay, I'll stay at Avangard. And Omsk would not have lost anything. Kovalchuk stayed - great. Kovalchuk left - it’s a pity, thank you for everything, but we were ready for this, and his salary did not take up so much space under the ceiling as to interfere with other maneuvers in the market.
But Kovalchuk left on April 30, without even attending a party in Balashikha as captain of the “golden” Avangard. Why? Two versions come to mind.
First: Kovalchuk, for some reason, no longer sees himself in Avangard. In the summer he will really look for options in the NHL, and if he doesn’t find them, then somewhere in August/September he will sign a contract in the KHL, but not with the “hawks”. Or he will take a break, which, given his age, will eventually develop into the end of his career. Then this will be a partial repetition of the story of Vyacheslav Voinov, who a year ago left Avangard for the NHL, but has since remained unemployed.
Second: Avangard, for some reason, no longer sees Kovalchuk in its lineup. And that’s why he publishes the decision on Ilya so quickly in order to prevent all rumors and speculation.
“Hartley tortured everyone for...torturing!” What was going on in the champion locker room of Avangard
I do not at all mean any conflicts between the club and the player. In no case! I'm just guessing that both of these versions can be survivable. Perhaps Kovalchuk realized that he could not stand the whole season under the leadership of his extremely demanding and rather tough friend Hartley, because Ilya was no longer a boy.
Or Avangard decided that Kovalchuk was good only on impulse, in the moment, and this moment passed, and in a long season the already unstable Ilya will not be of much use.
Don't know. But I’m almost sure that such a quick separation is a clear hint that we won’t see Kovalchuk at Avangard in any case anymore.
