When Caps partied in Vegas, Cup came along
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-whatother-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 D Js and back out to the fluorescent desert — meant witnessing an entire workday’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.”
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, 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-yearold 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 D J. “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.
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.
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.
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.