On June 7, the Washington Capitals defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 4-3 and captured the franchise’s first Stanley Cup. Caps captain Alex Ovechkin geeked out and hugged his pregnant wife Nastya on the ice postgame, but his mind drifted quickly to one of his biggest supporters who wasn’t able attend: his dad.
According to a Russian reporting, Ovechkin’s mother Tatyana said that Mikhail was not well enough to travel to the United States during the Capitals championship run. Ovechkin called Mikhail, who’s had health problems over the years, in Moscow immediately after the Caps’ Stanley Cup victory.
Stanley Caps | Get a behind-the-scenes look at Alex Ovechkin's 48-hour tour of Moscow with the #StanleyCup. #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/BHP9V506bf
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) July 29, 2018
“I watched the game alone at the house,” Mikhail Ovechkin said, according to the Capitals, recalling that fateful night. “There was such joy, I cried from happiness. I cried. There was no way I could sleep all night after that.”
“[My son] called me and said, ‘Dad, I love you,'” Mikhail continued. “This is such a happy time, not just for me and my family, but for all of Russia.”
Mikhail, a former soccer player, made the comments during an interview with the Capitals as they documented the Russian machine’s two-day celebration in Moscow.
Ovechkin finally gave Dad the opportunity to raise the Cup at Dynamo Moscow’s training facility in Novogorsk.
“Congratulations on your win,” Mikhail said to his son. “14? How many? Did we wait 14 years?”
“13,” Ovechkin replied.
“We waited 13 years!” Mikhail said.
He kissed his son.
Alex and his papa eventually made it out onto his childhood rink and took photos together. Mikhail gave an enthusiastic thumbs up.
The next day, the Ovechkins made a pit stop at their former home before visiting Sergey Ovechkin’s gravestone. Later that night, they shared the Cup at a private party which included fellow Capitals Evgeny Kuznetsov and Dmitry Orlov.
“Alex, I congratulate you,” Mikhail said. “I congratulate your whole team. You’ve finally reached the goal. I wish you happiness, health, and more Stanley Cups!”
Mikhail’s dad then posed for a photo, hugging the NHL’s championship trophy.
Russian Machine Never Breaks is not associated with the Washington Capitals; Monumental Sports, the NHL, or its properties. Not even a little bit.
All original content on russianmachineneverbreaks.com is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)– unless otherwise stated or superseded by another license. You are free to share, copy, and remix this content so long as it is attributed, done for noncommercial purposes, and done so under a license similar to this one.
Share On