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How Alexa Landestoy ended up covering the Capitals and living out her dream as a broadcaster

By Faith Harris

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December 8, 2022 1:30 pm

Alexa Landestoy has been the host of the Capitals’ pregame and postgame live show for the past three seasons. Working with former Capitals player Alan May, the duo has brought personality, interesting guests, and even deeper analysis to the shows than in years past. The pair’s unique chemistry seems built on their genuine friendship off-camera and how they rely on each other’s strengths to carry the show.

Alexa’s energy, intelligence, and mastery of hockey parlance have made the pregame and postgame shows cohesive. While she has vast media experience and star quality that others don’t naturally have, she routinely makes others shine by how she sets up their commentary or analysis with humbleness she has every reason not to have.

As an aspiring journalist myself, I always wondered how Alexa — a Californian who adored football — landed what I would consider a dream role covering the hockey team I love and doing so with exceptional results.

I recently got the chance to talk to her about the journey that brought her to Washington, her job with the Capitals, and what’s next.

Photo courtesy of Alexa Landestoy

Alexa had always had a love of sports throughout her childhood and knew she wanted to incorporate that into what she did as an adult. Her uncle was a high school football coach in the area she lived in Southern California, and she loved attending his games with her whole family. During her senior year of high school, Alexa decided to kick-start her career by interviewing players at the local high schools during games. Filming on her iPad and using her mom as a camerawoman, she would film interviews with local recruits and upload them to her YouTube channel.

Alexa went on to Texas Christian University where she continued to push for a career in sports journalism. Studying sports broadcasting with a minor in journalism, Alexa got her first official “yes” in the industry with TCU then football coach Gary Patterson, who had seen her work on social media and followed her. She took a shot in the dark and sent him a message via Twitter to ask about scheduling a meeting together.

Patterson saw the message and invited Alexa and her mom to tour the athletic facilities during her TCU college visit. Patterson helped connect Alexa with digital media creators at TCU who she could pitch her ideas to. She began serving as the main reporter for her school’s football team and hosting the Sports Report on Horned Frogs Nation.

Her work continued to progress and just two years later, she was the in-stadium reporter for TCU Athletics, a role where she covered games (usually football) live from her own broadcasting area in the arena. This helped to build her confidence in doing live coverage on games.

During her sophomore year of college, Alexa got her first big break, interning at Fox Sports Southwest. She kept in contact with everyone she met and continued to send them clips of her work after her internship concluded. She ran with all the opportunities that were presented to her, and between 2017–2018, she covered everything from Texas high school football games, to being the sideline reporter for the WNBA Dallas Wings.

In 2019, Alexa got a call about an audition in Washington DC for a broadcasting job. She had never done a live job interview before, but decided to fly out to give it a chance anyways. When asked about the interview, Alexa noted “I thought it went really well.” She was offered the job as a co-host for DC Sports Live, a former nightly talk show on NBC Sports Washington. Alexa teamed with Nick Ashooh and Wes Hall, giving live analysis of local sports games and commenting on popular social media posts.

When COVID hit in 2020, the show was paused, but Alexa continued to work on whatever NBC Sports Washington needed help with. During the rebuilding period after COVID, Alexa was asked to step into the Capitals hosting role alongside Alan May.

Since joining the show, Alexa and Alan have helped each other and become close friends. Their energy on camera radiates off of each other and brings a lighthearted energy to the show, while still covering all the pregame and postgame themes thoroughly. Whether its a charity event or watching away games, the duo tries to do everything Capitals-related together to build their chemistry. Alan was even a guest at Alexa’s wedding back in August 2021.

“I have really loved working with Alexa,” May said. “She won me over early in our first season together and she’s amazed me ever since with her attitude, work ethic, and personality.”

“We enjoy each other’s company both on and off camera and I really hope the fans see that,” Alexa said.

Over the last two years, Landestoy has used her past experience with interviews by leading or being a part of incisive interviews with several big names. She chatted with actor Ralph Macchio of Karate Kid fame to get his reaction to Peter Laviolette’s post-game headband award in 2021, which was a tribute to Macchio’s Cobra Kai series.

Landestoy has also interviewed Mark Howe to get his reaction to Alex Ovechkin approaching his dad’s 801 goals milestone.

During training camp, she also went one-on-one with Alex Ovechkin and other Caps’ stars.

Most of the time, the duo works from the studio, but off and on they conduct their shows on-location and inside Capital One Arena, where they can report on the game while watching it live.

All the hard work earned the team an Emmy for the Best Live Sports Program.

Aside from the shows, Alexa has created her own trends to share with Capitals fans. On every game day, Alexa posts her “Outfit of the Show (#OOTS)” on her stories, as a way to share her thoughtful preparation process with fans for each game.

She also started her own trend called “Power Ponys,” where she puts her hair in a ponytail on important game days and tweets it out, inviting fans to rock the hairstyle with her.

“I’ve always prided myself in being who I am” Alexa said, “and I hope that people can connect with that.”

For Alexa, the future is hers to take. She recently renewed her contract with NBC Sports Washington over the summer and is set to remain the pre and postgame host along with Alan for this season.

“Since I started broadcasting the dream has always been a national network,” Alexa noted. “But at the same time, I’m so happy where I am now that I could stay here and maybe piece some of those jobs into this.”