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The Washington Capitals’ White House visit

By Elizabeth Kong

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March 25, 2019 3:09 pm

The Washington Capitals visited the White House on Monday to be honored for their 2018 Stanley Cup Championship. The team reportedly received a private tour of the presidential mansion, and met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.

In a break from previous championship ceremonies, the tour and meeting were private and closed to the press (until the last minute), but that didn’t keep attendees from posting about it on social media.

11:41 AM – Ted Leonsis and Gary Bettman will be taking the Stanley Cup to the Supreme Court.

2:29 PM – Dan Scavino, director of social media for the White House, posted this photo of the Stanley Cup in the West Wing.

2:33 PM – Donald Trump’s official schedule shows the Capitals will visit the Oval Office at 3 PM.

2:55 PM – It appears the visit is now open to the White House press pool.

2:58 PM – Keeper of the Cup Philip Pritchard posted this photo of the Cup in the Roosevelt Room.

3:14 PM – Here’s Alex Ovechkin with President Donald Trump and the Stanley Cup.

3:18 PM – The Washington Capitals appear to have presented Donald Trump with a customized number 45 jersey. Capitals Russians Alex Ovechkin, Dmitry Orlov, and Evgeny Kuznetsov are the players positioned closest to Trump.

3:26 PM – Several high-profile Trump staffers, including Jared Kushner (who posed with the Cup and wife Ivanka Trump during the Caps’ June celebrations in D.C.), Rudy Giuliani, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, attended the visit. Advisor Kellyanne Conway can be seen wearing a “Champs” hat.

3:33 PM – NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman also attended the meeting, and C-SPAN cameras showed him greeting President Trump during the photo-op.

3:34 PM – According to NBC Sports Washington’s Brian McNally, Trump welcomed “the entire Capitals team.” (Goaltender Braden Holtby and forward Brett Connolly both declined to attend the meeting. Forward Devante Smith-Pelly, who has been reassigned to the Capitals’ AHL affiliate in Hershey, had also indicated he would not attend.)

3:49 PM – Trump spent several minutes congratulating the team.

You were led to victory by a very special athlete, a great player, captain, team captain, Alex Ovechkin. And—where’s Ivanka, she was back there, she’s a friend and she’s a tremendous fan. Alexander the Great, they call him, has spent his entire 13 year NHL career with the Washington Capitals and his hard work and his loyalty has paid off last season. He outscored every player in the league. Wow, that’s not bad right? With 64 goals—It’s like Babe Ruth—he had more than any player in the league. 64 goals, 118 points, and was named the playoff MVP and that was easy. No one did more to deserve the Conn Smythe trophy and Alex congratulations and we’re all going to be watching you in a couple of weeks. And I have no doubt your team is going to do great.

A full transcript of Trump’s remarks can be found here.

4:00 PM – Capitals Captain Alex Ovechkin also delivered brief remarks, thanking Trump for hosting the team and pledging to try to win the Stanley Cup again.

“Thank you very much for having us,” Ovechkin said. “It’s a huge honor for us to be here, to meet you personally. And we’re going to try to do it again. We have the same team, experienced team, very good group of guys and we’re going to try to do it again.”

4:32 PM – In addition to a jersey, the Capitals also presented Trump with a gold stick engraved with the text, “Presented to President Donald J. Trump in recognition of the Washington Capitals 2018 Stanley Cup Championship June 7, 2018”

4:35 PM – The Capitals’ official Twitter account recognized the visit for the first time Monday evening, posting several photos of the team during their White House tour, but none featuring Trump.

This article will be updated as more news, information, and quotes are made available in real time.

Headline photo: Phil Pritchard

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