The Washington Capitals defeated the Seattle Kraken 4-1 on Friday, notching their first three-game winning streak of the season. The Caps also hit the Bifecta Of Awesome when Alex Ovechkin scored.

As the buzzer was about to sound, Ovechkin took a pot shot at Seattle open’s net, plowing over former teammate Andre Burakovsky in the process. The puck found its target with four seconds to go giving Ovi career goal number 796. Capital One Arena roared in anticipation as Ovechkin received the puck and cheered even louder when he lit the lamp.

There was another crowd-sourced layer to Ovi’s goal that made it more special, too.

best to not get in the way of the #Gr8 and an empty net pic.twitter.com/xVOCM1FKMJ

— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) December 10, 2022

Earlier in the day, Capital One Arena re-installed the Alex Ovechkin goal counter in section 119 to help celebrate Ovi’s countdown to 800 goals and his chase of second-place Gordie Howe, who scored 801 times in his career.

When the goal counter was in-arena last year, Capitals mascot, Slapshot, turned the counter to 767 when Ovi passed Jaromir Jagr for third-place on the NHL goals list.

But with seconds left in regulation of the Caps-Kraken game, Slapshot was downstairs, preparing to skate onto the ice and wave the Capitals victory flag. This left no one to turn the Ovechkin goals counter from 795 to 796.

Well, that is, until a Capitals fan sprung into action.

Laura Olsen, a Capitals’ season-ticket holder since 2017 and a Caps fan since the team’s inception in 1974, noticed that the goal counter was unattended to and Ovi’s accomplishment was not being properly acknowleged.

“I felt this spontaneous urge to get that 796 on display, no different than every other milestone moment for that banner counter I’ve seen done by Slapshot,” Laura said in an interview. “I literally turned to my hubby of 44-plus years and said ‘hold my beer’ and off I went.”

Laura noted that the beer was a nearly-empty Bold Rock, which may or may not be pertinent to the telling of this story.

The moment was widely shared on Instagram, probably because of how adorable it was. Laura tipsy-toed over from her seat at 118. When she arrived at the goal counter she could be seen trying to get fans pumped up, like she was a volunteer member of the Capitals game entertainment team.

“At first, I just used my two hands to make a ‘6’ with my hands as I hovered over the five of the banner,” Laura said. “When I flipped the six, I pumped my fist and just enjoyed Caps Nation and the team’s celebration on the ice. I really hope Ovi got to see it.”

Many fans who were in attendance at the game told me that the moment was so seamless they thought a Capitals official turned the counter and nothing was amiss.

“I hope Slapshot will forgive me!” Laura said. “I didn’t do it for the spotlight or a ‘look-at-me’ moment. I’m just an excited Caps fanatic, who was all about giving Ovi his due for 796!”

We came to learn that wasn’t the only goal counter Laura updated on the evening. When Laura, 65, went home, the DMV school district employee found her Alex Ovechkin goal-counter bobbleheads (home and away) that RMNB helped conceive with FOCO several years ago and updated them to 796, too.

Laura, who earned the nickname Captain from friends after earning US Coast Guard Master Mariner license in 2018, is a natural leader and understands the chain of command.

“I was there and the goal counter sure needed to be flipped for our GR8 Captain.”