Ovechkin is ready, and chances are he will still sometimes dazzle in that runaway-locomotive way of his, as he has since joining the Capitals from Dynamo Moscow in 2005.
Even if you were up with the lark – or, indeed, the dead parrot – on Monday morning with your laptop at the ready, the chances are that you still missed out on tickets for Monty Python's long-awaited comedy reunion, which went on sale at 10am.
"You have to be ready when your chance comes.
In our business you have to have your armoury ready before the chance of a break.
Each time, he may not have jostled his way to the top but he was ready when the chance came.
It was not his job to name his successor, but he could sense that Matheny believed he was ready for the chance.
Mauer carries himself like someone who expects to thrive, someone who has been ready for this chance since at least the junior prom.
The board, he says, has already given "light and hope" to Highlanders; it is ready, given the chance, to do a lot more.
Minutes later, sensation returns and she rises, ready for another chance at forestalling a disease that one day may force her to trade the track for a wheelchair.
But always ready for the chance he might get the call, he had followed his routine of warming up in the third inning, then taking some swings in the cage in the fifth.
But his performance on the very competitive CART circuit is evidence that his skills are now more polished and that perhaps he is ready for another chance to compete again against best drivers in the world.
