In 2018, the Washington Capitals published a Q&A with forward Jakub Vrana in their game-day program, Breakaway. In it, Vrana revealed that his biggest fear was the “bat in the corner.”
It led to some bewildered amusement amongst Capitals fans as they pondered what kind of horrifying experience Vrana might have had with one specific bat, in the corner.
Turns out, it was a spelling error.
As part of Monumental Sports’ “Level With Me” series, Vrana sat down with fellow Czech national, Radko Gudas, and the two traded questions, one of which asked for more information on Vrana’s fear of the “bat in the corner.”
“When I’m writing, I sometimes spell things wrong,” Vrana admitted. “I tried to write ‘Batya in the corner.’ Because [Brooks Orpik] was always extra hard on me, giving me some light crosschecks and stuff. We’d just joke about it a little bit. And I guess I wrote it wrong. And everybody thinks I’m scared of ‘bat in the corner’ now. But, pretty close enough.”
“We had a good laugh about that one,” Vrana added.
Vrana also shared another story about Brooks “Batya” Orpik from a team dinner during his rookie year on the team.
“When we were playing in Buffalo, and I was sitting at the pregame meal with– Nick [Backstrom] was there, Brooks Orpik was there,” Vrana said. “Think it was my fifth NHL game or something like that. We finished a pregame meal and I went to take some ice cream. I had four scoops of vanilla ice cream with all this chocolate sauce on it. Came back to the table, and I sit down. I was sitting next to Brooks Orpik and I just look at him, and he was staring at me. I didn’t know what he wants.
“I was pretty nervous at that time. So, I’m asking him if he wants some ice-cream. He goes, ‘Nah. No, V, I’ve got a game to play today.’ And I was just sitting there, and all the guys are laughing hard. We had a really good laugh about it later on.”
Better check those corners before getting some late night ice cream, Jakub. You never know when Batya might be lurking.
RMNB is not associated with the Washington Capitals; Monumental Sports, the NHL, or its properties. Not even a little bit.
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