Alex Ovechkin took the Stanley Cup to the World Cup and a Washington Nationals baseball game. He even slept with the thing. It was all fine with the NHL, except for one thing: keg stands.
Oh my god Alex Ovechkin was doing keg stands out of the Stanley Cup in the middle of Georgetown after throwing out the first pitch at a Nationals game and then ended up swimming half-naked in a fountain and I never thought i'd say this but this was all worth the 44-year wait 😂 pic.twitter.com/WZ5Bfh2aEM
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) June 10, 2018
The star of the champion Washington Capitals was among a number of players to be hoisted over the Cup so they could drink what was presumably beer. Ovechkin and goalie Braden Holtby even got Jimmy Fallon to do it on TV.
Ovi and Holtby helped Jimmy Fallon do a keg stand out of the Stanley Cup, which is something they've become very experienced at in the last few days.
— NBC Sports Capitals (@NBCSCapitals) June 12, 2018
WATCH: https://t.co/MqVyeBY7JN pic.twitter.com/LKLI7yxNea
But according to the keeper of the Cup, Philip Pritchard, the NHL would respectfully prefer that players not subject the trophy to keg stands for fear of hurting it.
Typically during a keg stand a person does a handstand with their full weight on the keg -- or in this case Cup -- while they drink as much as they can.
"We ask them politely not to do it," Pritchard told the Washington Post. "We're trying to preserve the history of the Stanley Cup. We don't want any unnecessary damage to it or a person, in case they drop the person or he presses too hard or something."
A final decision on whether the keg stand is banned will come when the Cup gets its annual tuneup.
"We'll see what happens as we move forward with the Cup," Pritchard told the newspaper. "At the end of September, the Cup is going in to get engraved and updated and cleaned and everything, so we'll see how it is because we have to take it apart then and everything. We'll know probably more then, in early October, once it's back for the home opener. Our biggest thing is respect for it."