On Tuesday, ahead of the Capitals and Lightning’s Game Three matchup at Capital One Arena, three Caps fans posed for a photograph with Nicklas Backstrom after he autographed it. Though that wasn’t much of a phenomenon in itself, the fact that they posed with a broom — signaling their confidence that the team would sweep the Bolts in the Eastern Conference Finals — sent the wider fanbase into a spiral.

After the Capitals dropped Game Three to the Lightning, and following several inexcusable death-threats leveled at the fans, they vowed to burn the broom ahead of Game Four.

On Wednesday evening, they did just that.

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The moment you have all been waiting for. What had to be done, has been done. We are still #AllCaps. Let’s go win this thing! pic.twitter.com/IQMwgn0U6L — kuzy (@OozyKuzy) May 17, 2018

“Caps fans, Caps nation, the time has come. I speak for the rest of the Broom Guys and we sincerely apologize for what we have done to this team,” they said, holding the broom over an open flame. (They did not, for the record, do anything to the team.) “We take the full blame for Game Three. But that’s not a problem any more, because you guys are passionate. We’re passionate. So let’s burn this broom together, leave our woes behind, and take the Lightning down.”

They then took a rally towel out, waving it, and said, “Let’s go Caps,” as the broom burned in the foreground.

He signed our broom cuz we’re getting that 4-0 sweep pic.twitter.com/3hrfNzuRrM — Kuzy (@OozyKuzy) May 15, 2018

The backlash that the Broom Guys received prompted them to post a thread on Twitter, and asked at the end that the death threats stop.

DEAR CAPITALS TWITTER; MY PUBLIC APOLOGY FROM THE BROOM GUYS. Please Read. Thank you. — kuzy (@OozyKuzy) May 16, 2018

Dear Caps Twitter, we are sorry. No really, we are. Waking up this morning as a bunch of 19/20 year old kids getting to experience something that has not happened in our lifetime got us a little too high. We thought it would be easy, we were wrong. — kuzy (@OozyKuzy) May 16, 2018

We clearly underestimated our opponent, and our own organizations superstitions. We have been Caps faithful since the time we could walk and will be until we leave this earth. We know that things didn’t go that way, we were able to witness it in person. — kuzy (@OozyKuzy) May 16, 2018

As soon as the puck dropped, we knew we f#%?ed up. We never wanted it to be like this. Instead of us hiding from the fact we potentially ruined the series, we must come together and realize this team is special. — kuzy (@OozyKuzy) May 16, 2018

Never has anyone on here ever been able to bring a broom to get signed for the ECF. We must get behind this team and believe in them to send them to Tampa up 3-1. We want this as bad as everyone else does. — kuzy (@OozyKuzy) May 16, 2018

Now for as the Broom goes. As most of you know the weather was a bit damp in DC, so the broom burning exorcism will take place tomorrow evening. We want to all apologize again from the bottom of our hearts to any and all caps fans. Tonight we are #AllCaps. — kuzy (@OozyKuzy) May 16, 2018

Thank you for reading. We’re sorry.

-John. p.s please retweet so I stop getting death threats in my mentions. Go Caps. — kuzy (@OozyKuzy) May 16, 2018

Whether or not you believe the broom jinxed the Capitals, the situation got out of hand. Hopefully the burning of the broom will be an appeasement.