The Capitals’ practice facility will have a slightly different look to it next season.

Monday morning it was announced that Kettler Capitals Iceplex will be renamed to Medstar Capitals Iceplex. The name change comes as part of a partnership deal involving all the teams owned by Ted Leonsis’ Monumental Sports & Entertainment. As part of the deal, the practice facilities for the Capitals, Wizards, Mystics, and the Wizards District Gaming esports team will have Medstar naming rights.

Rick Maese from The Washington Post had more.

Under the naming rights deal, the esports training facility in Chinatown will become the MedStar Wizards District Gaming Studio. The Capitals’ Arlington practice facility, which has become a popular destination for fans taking in open practices and morning skates, will become MedStar Capitals Iceplex. (That facility has been known as Kettler Capitals Iceplex since it opened in the fall of 2006.) And the practice facility at Washington’s new basketball arena, the $65 million project in Ward 8 on the former St. Elizabeths hospital grounds, will be named the MedStar Wizards Performance Center. It is expected to open this fall; the arena itself does not yet have a naming rights deal.

Medstar is already the Capitals’ health care partner, and its logo is on the practice jerseys for both the Caps and Wizards.

According to a press release from Monumental, another part of the partnership involves Medstar establishing a council of the medical professionals who provide services to all the teams. The council will be in charge of assessing, discussing and administering the best practices and training techniques for each team, according to the release, so the teams’ medical personnel can learn from each other. The council will be overseen by an Organizational Medical Director. Medstar will also team up with MSE for six public awareness campaigns.

“We are thrilled to enter into this innovative partnership with them that will bring MedStar’s unparalleled excellence in health care to every single team in the Monumental Sports family,” Ted Leonsis said in a statement. “We hope that this expanded partnership will help reimagine the way teams in professional sports approach delivering the very best medical care.”

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MedStar Health and Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE) announced an expanded, innovative and fully-integrated medical partnership that will make MedStar the naming rights partner for the 2018 Stanley Cup Champion Washington Capitals, Capital City Go-Go, Washington Mystics, Washington Wizards, and Washington Wizards District Gaming (DG) training facilities. Specifically, the Capitals training facility will immediately become MedStar Capitals Iceplex. The new practice facility, opening this fall at the St. Elizabeths campus in southeast Washington, D.C., for the Wizards, Mystics and Go-Go, will be named MedStar Wizards Performance Center. The Wizards District Gaming training facility immediately becomes the MedStar Wizards District Gaming Studio.

Additionally, MedStar continues to serve as the Official Medical Provider of the Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards, Washington Mystics, Capital City Go-Go, Washington Valor, Baltimore Brigade, and Wizards DG. MedStar also continues as the official training camp and practice jersey patch partner of the Capitals and Wizards.

As part of this expanded agreement, MedStar and MSE will create a groundbreaking new medical partnership model, which establishes a Medical Council that assesses best practices and applies new, cutting-edge medical training techniques to each team. An Organizational Medical Director will oversee the team medicine operation to ensure maximum performance efficiency. MedStar and MSE will also join forces on six health-related public awareness campaigns, designed to impact the health and wellness of the community.

“MedStar Health is a trailblazer in health care in the Washington and Baltimore communities,” said Ted Leonsis, CEO and Majority Owner of Monumental Sports & Entertainment. “We are thrilled to enter into this innovative partnership with them that will bring MedStar’s unparalleled excellence in health care to every single team in the Monumental Sports family. We hope that this expanded partnership will help reimagine the way teams in professional sports approach delivering the very best medical care.”

“We are also very proud to have MedStar join us in bringing their powerful brand to southeast Washington,” Leonsis added. “We are focused on making the MedStar Wizards Performance Center a vibrant part of the community in Anacostia, and we are thrilled to have MedStar partner with us in this effort.”

“The evolution and expansion of this exciting agreement, the breadth and scope of which is truly unique in health care and professional sports, reflects the strengths and expertise of our respective organizations, people and services,” said Kenneth A. Samet, FACHE, President and CEO, MedStar Health. “We welcome the significant opportunities this collaboration with Monumental Sports & Entertainment will bring to our organizations, the teams and sports we support, and most importantly, our patients and communities.”

In addition to the Capitals and Wizards performance facility naming rights, MSE’s NBA2K esports team, Wizards District Gaming, will now train in the MedStar Wizards District Gaming Studio, a new, top-of-the-line esports training facility adjacent to Capital One Arena. Esports are one of the fastest-growing sectors in sports and entertainment with a huge-and young-global audience. MedStar and MSE are expanding their partnership into esports just as its audience is growing at an exponential rate.

Headline photo: Cara Bahniuk