New Delhi, Aug. 2 -- WASHINGTON - Four times a game, Alex Ovechkin raises his hand at the Washington Capitals bench and waits. The equipment staff arrives with fresh gloves. He pulls on the new pair, steps back onto the ice. The old ones - the ones he wore for one shift, maybe two - go back to the bench to dry.

He has done this for twenty-two NHL seasons. He has 929 goals.

In an interview with FONBET released this week, Ovechkin described the routine with the specificity of someone who has thought about this problem for a very long time. After one shift, he said, his gloves are already different. Moisture from the ice, from sweat, from the physical work of playing - it changes the material, and the changed material changes his grip, and...