Ex-NHLer Ilya Kovalchuk Reportedly Drives Like An Absolute Lunatic

Former NHLer Ilya Kovalchuk is now in his retirement years after spending the last few seasons of his pro career playing in the KHL, but it seems like we know what the goal-scorer does in his free time these days.

He's not building birdhouses or greeting shoppers at Walmart, instead he's driving like an absolute insane person on the Russian roadways.

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According to a report that has been making the rounds on social media, Kovalchuk is racking up an absolutely absurd number of traffic infractions.

You're eyes do not deceive you: according to this report, Kovalchuk was caught speeding 115 times, ignoring signs 46 times, and running afoul of Russian parking laws 24 times, all in just the last year and a half.

Now, I've got no reason to doubt this report, but it is pretty tough to verify this kind of thing coming out of Russia, but it is pretty wild to sit and think about.

I mean, the first mind-boggling thing is that Kovalchuk is doing this in Russia. We've all seen Russian dash cam videos. Did you realize they even dished out tickets over there? I sure didn't. I mean, this is the country that decided it was a good idea to teach bears how to ride unicycles. How far do you need to push things for police over there to go, "Yeah, that's enough of that; here's a ticket."

Of course, Kovalchuk has made a ton of money in his career so he could afford whatever number of traffic tickets he racks up, but it makes me wonder how many times he may have he have gotten pulled over and the arresting officer was like, "Whoa, holy s--t, it's Ilya Kovalchuk," and he got a pass.

Whatever the deal is, it sure sounds like Kovalchuk has a serious need for speed.