What happened in Vegas: All night with the Capitals and the Stanley Cup
Here's how the Washington Capitals reacted when they saw their family members right after winning the Stanley Cup.
LAS VEGAS —
Four minutes to 2 a.m., down a few buttons on his pink button-down and
high on a cocktail of athletic glory, Stella Artois, life itself and
God-knows-what-other-liquids, Alex Ovechkin danced on the Hakkasan stage
as confetti rained and lasers flashed, a few feet from both his friend
Tiesto and the Stanley Cup, singing along to a pulsing, EDM version of
The Outfield’s “Your Love.”
Well, what would you do in his shoes?
First,
the Washington Capitals won the NHL championship Thursday night. And
then, as their red-rocking fans were passing out in a fit of euphoria
back East, they took full advantage of the location in which they
claimed the franchise’s first Stanley Cup. They hit the club, prize in
hand, and they partied.
Some say the sun doesn’t rise in Vegas. The Caps, led by their captain, were up to the challenge of finding out.
Ovechkin
first touched the Cup at 8:19 p.m. local time. Following it from there
until daylight threatened — from the ice to the booze-soaked locker room
to a subdued family dinner to a thumping nightclub hosted by one of the
world’s most famous DJs and back out to the fluorescent desert — meant
witnessing an entire work day’s worth of unadulterated joy, a party 44
years in the making.
“This
is crazy,” said former Capitals forward and team broadcaster Alan May,
looking over the dance floor at the Hakkasan night club, beer in hand.
“What a way to do it after all these years.”
Alex Price @AlexAtJazz
Ovie celebrating at @HakkasanLV last night. So epic. Go Caps! #ALLCAPS
@dcsportsbog @EITMonline
The celebration started when Ovechkin first hoisted
the Cup. It really got going about 45 minutes after midnight, when
Capitals players loaded onto two buses at the Mandarin Oriental hotel,
many of them with beers in hand, and trekked down Las Vegas Boulevard to
the MGM. One bus — the one without the Cup — pulled into the Hakkasan
VIP valet, as instructed. The other bus, the one Ovechkin had carried
the Cup onto, drove to the main valet. It caused commotion and blocked
entrances.
But Ovechkin had revealed a new
capacity for surmounting adversity all spring, and this obstacle didn’t
faze him, either. He simply carried the Cup through the lobby and the
MGM casino, into Hakkasan and directly to the stage.
Ovechkin danced with the Stanley Cup deep into the morning. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Ovechkin
danced, Cup in hands at times. Others hoisted the Cup and posed for
pictures. A conveyor belt of metal vats packed with ice and beer bottles
traveled to the stage. Other drinks followed. A magnum of Champagne
with sparklers affixed to the neck. An outlandishly large bottle of Grey
Goose.
Jakub
Vrana, the 22-year-old rookie who scored the clinching game’s first
goal, danced in a throwback Capitals jersey with Brooks Oprik’s name and
No. 44, first on the stage and then with a throng of fans. At 2:35
a.m., Ovechkin wove through the crowd, hand in hand with his pregnant
wife, drawing shouts of “That’s Ovi!” He exited early, but the party
raged ahead. Just before 3 a.m., forward Tom Wilson poured beer from the
Stanley Cup into Tiesto’s mouth.
Tiesto’s
shift ended, but the music thumped with another DJ. “If you’re
[expletive] celebrating the Washington Capitals winning the [expletive]
Stanley Cup,” he yelled at one point, “make some noise!” Every few
minutes on stage, the Cup would rise above the fray, bouncing to the
beat. Sometimes, it needed a break. At 3:42 a.m., it rested on a couch
next to defenseman John Carlson, who caressed it with his right hand.
The
threshold for who could venture on stage started to lower. Disbelief
had yet to dissipate. “How amazing is it you can walk into a bar and the
Stanley Cup is there, 10 yards away?” one Capitals employee asked,
standing by the bar. He then escorted onto the stage a longtime Caps
season ticket holder who had gained entry, in part, by buying acceptable
clothing off the back of a man on the street for 20 bucks. (He had
previously been denied on the grounds of wearing sandals and shorts.)
A
bouncer was asked when the place closed. “Four,” he replied. He checked
the time on his phone: 4 on the nose. He shrugged. “When the lights go
up,” he said. Then an EDM version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” started
blasting and Carlson walked past. The lights remained down.
'It's something special'
The
Cup’s journey into the Vegas night had begun early in the afternoon,
some 12 hours earlier. Packed carefully into a black trunk, it rolled
into a small room in the bowels of T-Mobile Arena, across from the
officials’ locker room. The room was marked TR05.
It
would be moved to the “Hockey Night in Canada” pregame set, eye candy
for television. Late in the third period, after the Capitals had taken a
4-3 lead, Phil Pritchard polished it until the silver gleamed.
Pritchard works for the Hockey Hall of Fame in a unique job. He is, to
put it simply, the keeper of the Cup. He travels with it wherever it
goes, on all the journeys players from the winning team take it on over
the summer.
When
the game ended, Pritchard and his partner, Craig Campbell, wore white
gloves as they carried the Cup down a red carpet toward center ice.
Campbell joined Pritchard on the job 20 years ago. The first time he
carried the Cup was in 1998, at what was then known as MCI Center in
downtown D.C., when the Detroit Red Wings beat the Capitals.
They
placed it on a black podium. At 8:19 p.m., Ovechkin grabbed the Cup,
hoisted it over his head and kissed it. He screamed, “Yeah!” toward his
teammates, then kissed it three more times.
“I’ve
obviously seen it before, but every year, it’s so special,” Pritchard
said. “Every year, you see all the emotions that he had going, from joy
to happiness to tears — everything. Right before he grabbed the Cup, he
turned to the guys and cheered. That’s Alex Ovechkin. He’s such an
emotional player, and so deserving of a Stanley Cup championship.”
Ovechkin
passed the trophy to Nicklas Backstrom, who skated a small circle with
the Cup over his head, the start of a procession. Orpik, Matt Niskanen,
Jay Beagle, Carlson, Braden Holtby, Lars Eller, Dmitry Orlov, Evgeny
Kuzentsov, Wilson, Andre Burakovsky, Michal Kempny, Devante Smith-Pelly
and on down the line.
Owner Ted Leonsis lifted it last. “It’s heavy!” he said. “They say it’s 35 pounds. It feels like 95.”
Ovechkin
lifted it for a horde of Capitals fans to see. He walked to a room
reserved for a news conference, skates clacking on the cement hall. He
placed the Cup on a riser himself, took off his black CCM blades and sat
behind the dais.
“This is going home to our families, our fans,” Ovechkin said. “It’s just something special.”
'Thank you, Vegas!'
Back
on the ice, his teammates mingled with their families and wondered what
had happened to the Cup. Ovechkin emerged from the tunnel, greeted by
Wilson. “Who took the Cup?” the Caps forward asked him. Ovechkin smiled
and handed it to Orlov, a fellow Russian who posed for a photo with his
wife, who leaned down to peek inside the Cup. Wilson grabbed the Cup
next and skated away for another photo.
“Where you going?” Burakovsky asked.
For
another 14 minutes, players took turns posing with family and friends
around the Cup, the trophy always the star, right in the middle.
Ovechkin lay down in front of the scouting staff. Leonsis and the rest
of the owners huddled around it.
“Let’s go to locker room,” Ovechkin shouted.
“Take it,” Leonsis said. “Make sure you hold it up.”
Ovechkin
grabbed it and walked toward the tunnel to the dressing room. “Locker
room,” he yelled. He searched for teammates and herded them with his
shouts.
“Locker room!”
“Locker room!”
“Locker room!”
Players
followed his order until Ovechkin was the last Capital on the ice. As
he stepped off the ice, ringed by cameras and reporters, Ovechkin
paused, turned back toward the rink one last time and kissed the Cup
again. He hoisted it over his head, smiled and shouted, “Thank you,
Vegas!”
Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom hoist the Cup after the Capitals’ victory. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)
About
an hour and 15 minutes after he had first touched the Cup, he left the
ice and carried it into the Capitals’ locker room. An arsenal of Bud
Light, Coors Light and Champagne waited on ice. There was screaming and
spraying booze. Players sipped from the Cup, two players tilting it and
pouring a beverage into one’s mouth.
At 9:45,
just after Backstrom had guzzled Champagne from the Cup, Pritchard
pushed two black cases into the room. “I got to talk to” the Capitals
equipment manager, Pritchard said. “I got to figure out how we’re going
to load it and get it out of here.”
The
Capitals gave him plenty of time. They downed more beers. They sang “We
Are The Champions.” One passerby glanced through a crack in the door and
said, “It smells like my freshman year of college in there.”
At
10:33 p.m., Beagle shouted, “We’re going streaking!” The Capitals
loaded on to buses, Ovechkin placing the Cup between his legs, and
headed to the ballroom on the third floor of the Mandarin Oriental. When
Ovechkin walked in, families, friends and staff were already there. He
raised the Cup overhead when he entered, and the room gave him a
standing ovation as he made a lap.
“He was a captain,” Pritchard said later. “Exactly what you hope a captain is, he was. All class.”
The
party of about 250 dined on a buffet of pan-seared chicken,
herb-crusted salmon and roasted vegetables. Drinks flowed — Milagro,
Chivas 12, Labyrinth gin, Bud Light, Fat Tire. Players posed for photos
with the Cup surrounded by parents, siblings, spouses, friends —
everyone they loved most in the world. The Cup was a magnet, a sacred
totem and a source of joy. Every few minutes, it would be hoisted in the
air to whoops and smiles. Over and over, you could hear delight:
“There’s the Cup.”
At 12:36 a.m., Ovechkin
stood from a table that held the Conn Smythe trophy and drained a
Stella. He walked to the corner where an unfamiliar group posed with the
Cup.
“All right, sorry,” Ovechkin said. “We have to go.”
He
paused to kiss the Cup as he headed to a bank of three elevators. A
dozen or so fans waiting by the buses cheered Ovechkin as he emerged and
climbed the bus stairs, at which point waiting teammates roared at
glimpsing the Cup — their Cup — again. They were headed to the MGM,
where the party had not even begun.
Finally,
at 4:16 a.m., the lights went up. Vrana still danced on stage, popping
his Orpik throwback. Bouncers shooed out clubgoers, allowing the
Capitals and the Cup to linger on stage a little longer. At 4:25 a.m.,
Carlson scooped up the Cup and headed toward the elevator that led to
the exit.
“Thanks for having us,” he said to a bouncer.
The
elevator opened to the lobby, where straggling gamblers and
bachelor-party attendees were greeted by the sight of Carlson carrying
the Stanley Cup through the MGM casino. A throng formed behind him, and
Niskanen played bodyguard. “Don’t get too close,” Niskanen warned. “I’m
going to start throwing elbows.”
When Carlson
passed the poker room, players cheered and clapped, and Carlson lifted
the Cup over his head. He kept walking until he reached the exit back to
the VIP valet. The Cup had a little time left in Vegas, but soon it
would head to its new home: Washington, D.C. One party had ended. The
ones to come hadn’t even started yet.
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