Russian Machine Never Breaks

The story behind Alex Ovechkin’s quote, ‘Russian machine never breaks’

Here’s a special Cyber Week offer you’ll only find on RMNB. From December 2 through 8, you can get 66% off a subscription to The Athletic. Don’t miss out! Redeem now.

On Monday, December 9, 2019, our website, Russian Machine Never Breaks, will celebrate its tenth anniversary. (Come to our party!). Over the years, lots of people expressed puzzlement at why we named our hockey website after the United States’ geopolitical rival.

The name is actually a quote uttered by Alex Ovechkin thirteen years ago. Recently I spoke to The Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir, the beat writer who first reported the viral quote, about its origin.

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By Ian Oland 2 months ago

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Dehydrated Alex Ovechkin does Stanley Cup media at Nationals Park, but as Nicklas Backstrom says ‘Russian Machine Never Breaks’

As the Capitals stopped by Nationals Park to show off their new shiny trophy and have their captain throw out the ceremonial first and second pitches, they also did some quick media.

Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and John Carlson did said media and Backstrom uttered quite the familiar phrase about Ovechkin’s continued partying since Thursday night.

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By Chris Cerullo 2 years ago

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Nicklas Backstrom on Alex Ovechkin’s durability: ‘Russian machine never breaks’

Wednesday’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers marks the Capitals’ 1,000th game of the Alex Ovechkin era. According to Jon Press of Japers’ Rink, Ovi has played in 971 of those games, missing only 2% of those contests due to injury. Press added that Ovechkin has sat out 8 games due to suspension, 1 for bereavement, and another for oversleeping.

Capitals’ senior writer Mike Vogel sat down with Nicklas Backstrom after the morning skate and asked Ovechkin’s main centerman for much of the last 11 seasons, what he thought about the accomplishment.

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By Ian Oland 2 years ago

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There’s a Caps fan at Maple Leaf Square with a ‘Russian machine never breaks’ sign

Two games after three Caps fans went viral for showing up at Maple Leaf Square, another Caps fan has showed up at the Leafs watch party. Wearing an Alex Ovechkin jersey, the Caps fan was seen proudly holding up a Russian machine never breaks sign.

The news was first reported by NBC 4’s @dckerNBC4.

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By Ian Oland 3 years ago

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Russian Machine Never Breaks: We Suck, 2011 Edition

We just finished basking in the glow of our successes in the past year. Ahhhh… Yes, that was nice.

But now it’s over, and we must look ourselves in the mirror to see the billion things we have screwed up over the past year. We’ve got a huge collection of embarrassments and goof-ups that should have shamed us out of blogging altogether. But we’re shameless. You already knew that.

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By Peter Hassett 8 years ago

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Russian Machine Never Breaks: The Highlights, 2011 Edition

Grab a chair, pour a ginger ale, and put some soft jazz on the hifi. We’re about to take a leisurely ride through the world of RMNB 2011. Today we’ll be looking at the good stuff today, and the really awful stuff we’ll see on Friday.

In 2011 we published more than 470 articles that more than doubled (206%) our traffic from 2010. Our readers (i.e. you) stay longer on our site, view more articles (102.5%), leave more comments (119%), and correct our grammar more than ever before. We climbed above 5k followers on Twitter (mostly spam bots), and we are now flirting with 6k. We’ve got around 3600 people liking us on Facebook, most of whom are just trying to win the swag Ian gives away every game. We started a tumblelog, where almost 500 people follow our silly pictures and quotes and other stuff that doesn’t fit on the main site. We’re working on a pinterest page, as soon as we figure out what that is.

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By Peter Hassett 8 years ago

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A Capitals Christmas

Merry Christmas from Terry Dobbins, Mike Green and the 7 Raccoons That Perished to Make That Hat

Merry Christmas Eve from everyone here at Russian Machine Never Breaks! As our writers disperse across the state to spend time with their respective families, we wanted to thank you for welcoming us into the Capitals Diaspora with open arms and giving us a chance to entertain you for the last two weeks.

To give back, tomorrow on Christmas Day, we wanted to release to you some true stories and artwork that warmed our cold, Russian hearts and made us believe that the Christmas spirit of giving is still alive and well.

While we are away chugging alcoholic eggnog, dropping our mitts and fighting our in-laws, we wanted you to get on Twitter and let the Russian Machine know, what’s the best thing about Caps Fans? ie: @russianmachine The Best Thing About #Caps Fans is… [your answer]

We’ll post some of the best answers tomorrow! Take care and have a Merry Christmas!

By Ian Oland 10 years ago

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