Monday afternoon, Andre Burakovsky attended Wish Upon A Par, a charity event held at Topgolf. During the event’s meet-and-greet, I asked the injured Swede about his viral Uber incident that happened a week and a half before.
Burakovsky went into a car that wasn’t his Uber, but got driven home by the Caps fans anyway.
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“Well, the quick story is there was the same car as I ordered,” Burakovsky said. “I opened the door and I just asked him, ‘Is this for Andre?’”
“They say, ‘No, man, sorry. We’re not an Uber driver.’ But then they recognized me, and they offered me a ride home. They were pretty cool guys. They were nice. Me and my friends were just like, ‘Yeah, let’s just go.’ And we jumped in.”
According to The Washington Post’s Scott Allen, Burakovsky, along with two other friends, stopped Manny Nicolas and his friend, Byron Graham, in front of a kebab spot on K Street NW in DC. Nicolas was driving a 2013 black Infiniti G36X.
Nicolas lives in Silver Spring, but he and Graham agreed to drive Burakovsky and his two buddies back to Burakovsky’s apartment in Northern Virginia. Graham said the five of them were just “cracking jokes” during the ride. They also took a selfie, which Nicolas, who is on the left with no hat in the photo, posted to Instagram later that day.
Burakovsky was surprised by how popular the story became.
“It was everywhere,” Burakovsky said. “I wasn’t really expecting that from the beginning.”
But this next part is even more surprising: Burakovsky and the fans exchanged numbers.
“[The driver] texted me the next day,” Burakovsky said. “He say, ‘Thanks for making me famous for 72 hours.’ He was pretty pumped about it. I mean at least they were happy. It came out as a good story too.”
Considering Burakovsky is still alive, I agree. I think it turned out pretty perfect.
Headline photo: Cara Bahniuk
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