As we count down these last eight games of the 2024-25 regular season – the 50th season of Capitals hockey – and as we continue to celebrate the end of Alex Ovechkin’s chase of Wayne Gretzky’s goal mark last weekend, we’re going to share a personal memory of these last 20 years with the Gr8 Eight every game day until season’s end.
Today, we're looking back seven summers to 2018, the summer of celebration after the Caps won their first Stanley Cup in Las Vegas on the night of June 7, 2018. As the first Russian captain to win the Cup, Ovechkin was eager and proud to bring it back home, and he was excited to share it and hoist it for the first time with his father, Mikhail. The celebratory weekend also coincided with he and wife Nastya's first wedding anniversary, and the couple were splendid hosts over his 36 hours or so with Lord Stanley's Cup.
Exactly a month after the Capitals won it in Vegas on the night of June 7, 2018, Caps captain Alex Ovechkin had his weekend with the Stanley Cup on the first weekend of July, 2018 in Moscow. Teammate John Carlson had it just before Ovechkin; Carlson was the first of Washington’s players to have his day with the coveted chalice.
Phil Pritchard of the Hockey Hall of Fame – the venerable and estimable keeper of the Cup – has taken the Stanley Cup to many different places in more than three decades worth of summers traveling with professional sports’ most recognizable trophy, and he’s seen a lot over that span. According to Phil, the two things that stood out among all the others relating to the Caps’ summer with the Cup were 1) the copious amount of kegstands performed, and 2) the in-house media coverage undertaken by the team to document the celebratory summer following the first Cup championship in the franchise’s history.
That’s where your faithful narrator comes in. Along with a member of Washington’s media relations staff and a member of the team’s digital staff who typically travel with the team during the season, we set out for Moscow on July 4, 2018. We were joined by an entire crew of camera people, producers and other staff that don’t typically travel with the team during the NHL season. All together, we rolled deeper than anything Phil had witnessed previously.
On one of the biggest weekends of his life, Ovechkin and wife Nastya were excellent hosts. After a 10-hour flight and a few hours of sleep, we joined them and some other friends and wives – including then-Caps defenseman Dmitry Orlov and his wife – for dinner later that same Friday night; we dined at a yacht restaurant on the Moscow River.
Accompanied by the Hall of Fame’s Mario Della Savia and Howie Borrow – Phil was off for this trip, but we would see much more of him as the summer wore on – the Cup arrived directly from the airport and with a police escort midway through the next day, a sunny Saturday, July 7.
The first stop after the Cup’s arrival was the World Cup’s FIFA Fan Zone. Here, Ovechkin brought the Cup for fans to be able to lineup for short photo opportunities – a professional photographer was on hand to snap the shots – and handshakes with the Gr8 Eight.
With Ovechkin positioned next to the gleaming Cup, the procession started right away. One or two or a few at a time, fans moved through an orderly and swift line. There was no posing for selfies or asking for autographs, and virtually everyone adhered to these guidelines. They stepped up to the front, visibly beaming with pride at the chance to have a photo taken with the first Russian captain ever to bring the Cup home.
This went on for hours before we departed with the Cup – and another police escort – for our next destination, the Novogorsk Dynamo Training Center and Hockey School, where a teenaged Ovechkin played and trained in the years before Washington made him the first overall choice in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft. Even with the police escort, this ride took the better part of an hour, and hundreds were on hand awaiting Ovechkin’s arrival.
For Ovechkin, one of the biggest moments of the weekend was handing the Cup to his father for the first time, and no one who was there will forget that emotional and electric moment of the proud father and son sharing the spoils of championship that was more than a decade in the making.
Throughout Ovechkin’s early years in Washington, his father Mikhail was a frequent presence at the arena and at the team’s Arlington practice facility. The senior Ovechkin didn’t speak much English, but he always warmly greeted those of us who he recognized as being in his son’s orbit during the hockey season, and he beamed brightly like a rightfully proud papa whenever his superstar son did something dazzling on the ice.
Papa Ovechkin was so proud of his son and his achievements. Once, on the Mentors’ Trip, the Caps were crossing the border into Canada, the senior Ovechkin was pulled aside by Canadian customs officials because his paperwork was incomplete. A couple of Caps staffers remained with him as the issue was sorted out, and after an hour or so, everything was resolved to the satisfaction of the powers that be.
At that point, a grateful Mr. Ovechkin pulled out an autographed hockey card of his son and offered it to the customs official as a thank you for expediting his entry into the country. He was told that wasn’t necessary, but he insisted on handing the card to the official.
In his later years, Mr. Ovechkin’s health didn’t permit him to travel to the US as frequently, so the younger Ovechkin was eager to bring the Cup back to Moscow to share with his father.
Immediately upon arrival at the Dynamo training center, Ovechkin hugged the woman behind the front reception desk; she worked there since his youthful days at the center. Ovechkin’s parents were also waiting here to greet him, and it was Mikhail Ovechkin’s first opportunity to see, hold and raise the Cup, providing an instant and epic photo opportunity for the media.
Inside and upstairs at the training center is a hall of fame of sorts for the many hockey greats who have gone through the Dynamo program. Framed NHL jerseys from its many noteworthy graduates adorn the wall, along with encased displays of old equipment and team photos from over the years. Ovechkin is featured prominently as you’d expect, with a white Caps jersey from back in the blue, black and bronze color scheme days and several other photos and artifacts, including a life-sized cutout.
The Dynamo “hall of fame” also houses a Nicklas Backstrom display, as the Caps’ center played there briefly during the 2012-13 NHL lockout.
Ovechkin held a press conference in Russian at the training center, and then he went into the tiny locker room where he laced up his skates as a boy and put the blades on one more time for a quick twirl with the Cup along with some close family and friends.
Then it was back to the hotel, and after a shower and a change of clothes, we assembled again for the evening’s final destination: Royal Arbat Karaoke Club, Moscow.
Ovechkin and Nastya hosted a splendid night of dining, singing, dancing, and carousing, and when the clock struck midnight, they celebrated their first wedding anniversary. Along with Orlov and Evgeny Kuznetsov, former teammate Sergei Fedorov was also on hand to celebrate.
Shortly before we departed for the night, Ovechkin could be seen holding the Cup with both arms in his lap as if it were a child; a fitting scene with his own first-born child Sergei due to arrive before summer’s end.
After a long and joyous evening, the Cup caretakers and the Monumental crew made their way back to the hotel.
A pair of metal detectors sit immediately inside of the lobby of the hotel, and upon our return the Cup was loaded up on the belt, still inside its hulking case. The security guard was skeptical when we told him of the contents, but a quick peek inside showed us to be telling the truth – it was indeed the Stanley Cup – and elicited a rare hint of smile from the normally stone-faced guard.
The next morning, a Sunday, many of us woke up with no way to hold our heads that didn’t hurt, as the late, great Kris Kristoffersen wrote many years ago.
Sunday afternoon, Ovechkin and his parents brought the Cup to the humble and tiny apartment where Alex lived as a very young boy. He posed for a couple of photos on his single bed with it, and he showed Mario his boyhood hockey card collection and other artifacts from decades ago.
Later in the afternoon, Ovechkin brought it to the people as only he can, taking it right into the teeth of the Sunday afternoon tourist crowd in Red Square, carrying it waist high and walking at a steady clip as a crowd of onlookers quickly gathered steam and size in his wake. He carried it right out into the middle of the Square, urged the crowd to back up some to give him some room, and then hoisted it high for all to see, with St. Basil’s Cathedral in the background to provide a brilliant photo opportunity for the many phones that suddenly shot up all around him.
After this majestic tour, Ovechkin carried it right back out in the same fashion as the rest of us did our best to stay close to him and to stay on our feet among the quickly growing hordes of humanity. He climbed into a waiting police car and was soon whisked away to the Cup’s final destination during his time with it, a dinner with family and close friends at Modus restaurant in Moscow.
Here, each of his parents gave short speeches as did other family members, and Alex and Nastya both spoke as well. The guests included Russian hockey legend and Hockey Hall of Famer Slava Fetisov and Ovechkin’s former Washington teammate Alexander Semin. Once dinner was finished, it was time for more karaoke and dancing, and many more photos with the Cup with Ovechkin and various permutations of the assembled guests.
Several thousand dollars worth of caviar was ladled into the bowl of the Cup, and guests took turns spooning some of the delicacy onto their plates and tasting it in widely varying amounts. Soon afterwards, a massive, multi-tiered carrot cake was revealed from behind a partition, with a twirling likeness of Ovechkin – roughly a foot tall – holding the Cup aloft as one of the middle tiers. Ovechkin and Nastya cut the cake together – on their first anniversary – and shared it with their guests ahead of even more singing and dancing, more photos with the Cup, and a handful of onstage keg stands.
As midnight drew nearer, so too did Ovechkin’s day and a half with the Cup. When the time came for Mario and Howie to bring the chalice back to the hotel ahead of a Monday flight to Prague – Michal Kempny’s day with the Cup was on deck – Ovechkin hoisted it and he and Orlov and Kuznetsov gave it one last bewhiskered, simultaneous kiss as they held it aloft.
Ovechkin then dutifully carried the Cup out into the cool Moscow night, putting his lips to it one final time as he set it carefully and lovingly into its form-fitted carrying case.
“See you next year,” he said. “Sleep well.”
