Editor’s note: Katie and Daniel recently welcomed a little bundle of joy into their lives in December, and they want to tell you about it.

I grew up in Northern Virginia. I’ve been a DC sports fan for as long as I can remember. My life revolved around the Redskins, Wizards, and the Caps and that will never change. My wife Katie, a Pittsburgh girl born and raised, and I met while in college.

While I’ve given it my best shot, I have never been able to change her mind when it comes to football, however hockey was surprisingly a blank slate. She would occasionally watch the Caps with me as I taught her the rules of the game and soon enough she was hooked, especially on the Caps.

In early 2011, our careers brought us to Boston, which made the 2012 playoffs even more fun. She and I immediately became fans of the quirky young goalie and his eccentric pre-game rituals. At one point in the excitement of that series versus the Bruins, I remember yelling something along the lines of “If we win the Cup, I’m naming my first born after this guy!”

It was from that point forward that Braden Holtby became Katie’s favorite player.

During the beginning of lockout-shortened season the following year, Katie surprised me with tickets to see the Hershey Bears vs. the Worcester Sharks for our anniversary. Her thinking was that we could see Holtby in net for the Bears. As our luck would have it, days before the game, the lockout was ended and Holtby was reassigned to Washington. We still had fun at the Bears game, but while we were there we had a started conversation as a bit of a joke. If we had a boy one day, he would need a good strong hockey name, so what would it be?

We started to toss around all sorts of names, including quite a few of the Russian variety. With her love of Holtby, my wife kept tossing in the name Braden, so I figured if she’s allowed to use her favorite then I’m going to throw in Alexander. When we finally said it out loud a few times we came to the official conclusion, if we ever had a son we’d name him Braden Alexander.

A few great hockey seasons later and the news came that we were expecting our first, a baby boy due in mid-December. As fate would have it, her water broke while we were watching the Caps. Later that evening we welcomed our bundle of joy into the world and without hesitation we knew that our chosen name was absolutely perfect.

Oddly enough, after being born late in the evening on December 10, the Caps won nine-straight games. Coincidence? I think not.