RIP (Photo: @WashCaps)

Washington Capitals head coach Barry Trotz might have given his players the day off Thursday, but everyone ended up on the ice anyways. The Caps held what I can only describe as an “intense team building event” at the Calgary Curling Club and I’m sad to report there was one casualty: Alex Ovechkin‘s pants. Let us have a moment of silence for #OviPants.

Trotz organized eight teams of four (which included players, coaches, and staff) and each team competed in a curling tournament for the chance to win cash prizes and a silly trophy. To give you an idea of how seriously the organization took this: the team ordered dozens of multi-colored toques which had specially-designed Caps curling logos embroidered on them.

After watching Monumental Network’s video documenting the day, it became clear what the point of the event was. Though some of the Caps had played the sport before (such as Troy Brouwer because it was in his Canadian high school’s curriculum), everyone was terrible at it. That in turn put everyone on an equal playing field (or I guess “playing ice”) and rewarded the teams that worked together best.

Evgeny Kuznetsov’s gutter, uh, stone.

The team that Karl Alzner captained – which included forever-injured forward Aaron Volpatti and assistant coach Blaine Forsythe – won the championship trophy thing while Team Backstrom outlasted Team Chimera in a thrilling two-round shootout for second place. Team Holtby finished tied for fourth with Team Ovechkin, despite Braden’s sister Taryn Holtby being a professional curler. Team Brouwer and Team Orpik brought up the rear along with Team Fehr who finished DFL.

Now Karl, please celebrate with your prize.

Additional Photos

The toques. (Photo: @WashCaps)

Team Alzner celebrates. (Photo: @WashCaps)

Video