Five years ago to the day, the Washington Capitals won the franchise’s first Stanley Cup championship. A journey that at best seemed improbable if not impossible was suddenly not. Cue the tears.

To mark Wednesday’s Cupiversary, the Capitals posted a photo on their social media accounts of the stars from that team still remaining on today’s roster hoisting Lord Stanley including Evgeny Kuznetsov, TJ Oshie, Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, John Carlson, and Tom Wilson.

The Caps reached hockey nirvana in Las Vegas on the back of goals from Jakub Vrana, Alex Ovechkin, Devante Smith-Pelly, and Lars Eller. With just 10:08 left in the third period it was DSP that truly set up the ensuing months of partying as he made a diving effort to put a puck past Marc-Andre Fleury and tie Game Five 3-3.

The ultra-clutch tally was DSP’s seventh goal of that postseason and cemented him as a DC sports legend.

Less than three minutes later, Lars Eller found himself all alone in front of a yawning cage after a Brett Connolly shot beat Fleury but didn’t have enough to get all the way across the goal line. The Tiger slammed home the eventual game-winning tally and sent Caps fans everywhere into sheer bedlam.

With the Cup-winning goal, Eller became the first ever Danish player to win the storied trophy.

The Caps clung onto that lead through a bizarre, heart-stopping clock malfunction and Vegas’ final push where they recorded every shot on goal in the game for the rest of regulation after Eller put the Caps on top.

Then the clock hit zero. And this call from John Walton sums it up pretty well.

And then the moment that we all had waited over 12 seasons for, Alex Ovechkin hoisted the Stanley Cup over his head. The Great Eight paraded Lord Stanley around the ice before handing it off to his closest running mate for a majority of those seasons, Nicklas Backstrom.

Ovechkin would also be awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the postseason’s MVP.

After a night of not a lot of sleeping as suddenly dreams had become reality, the Caps released a video that every diehard fan has returned to time and time again when they need a little pick me up. It’s a classic set to I Will Wait by Mumford & Sons.

Worth The Wait. #ALLCAPS #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/TxsZrBUgoL

— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) June 8, 2018

It’s been five long years since and yet that summer is still seared into a lot of our memories and probably will be for the rest of our lives. It was a seminal moment in Caps fandom, for this ole website, and for this ole dumb writer. June 7, 2018 – what a day.

Happy Cupiversary!

Drop your best memories in the comments.