{"id":533126,"date":"2026-03-19T16:49:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T16:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/533126\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T16:49:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T16:49:12","slug":"aliaksei-protas-asked-and-received-permission-from-tj-oshie-to-change-his-goal-song-to-take-me-home-country-roads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/533126\/","title":{"rendered":"Aliaksei Protas asked and received permission from TJ Oshie to change his goal song to \u2018Take Me Home, Country Roads\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Aliaksei Protas<\/a> scored on an empty net and sealed the Washington Capitals\u2019 4-1 victory over the Ottawa Senators, Capital One Arena blared John Denver\u2019s \u201cTake Me Home, Country Roads\u201d over the loudspeakers, Wednesday night. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The goal song has long been synonymous with Capitals legend TJ Oshie, who retired in June due to lingering back issues. The team had not used the tune as a goal song since, leaving many wondering inside the barn and at home watching on TV what was going on. <\/p>\n

After the game, Monumental Sports Network\u2019s Alan May revealed he had the inside scoop: Protas went to his former teammate for permission to make the goal song his moving forward, and an agreement was reached.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Osh said that Big Pro came to him and asked him if he could have it,\u201d May said of his now Monumental Sports Network cohort. \u201cOshie said, \u2018Yes, but when you\u2019re done, you\u2019ve got to pass it down to a good one.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crowd sing-along is too great to die with TJ, so we wanted the fans to be able to have that and electrify the arena,\u201d May continued. \u201c[Oshie] did a great job, passed it to an awesome guy, but now Pro knows he has a responsibility as he ages out of the league or whenever that is, hopefully it\u2019s in 15 years or so, he\u2019s going to be passing it on to someone who\u2019s just barely skating right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al Koken, who reported live from the game, told the postgame show, \u201cI kept looking up, going, \u2018Wait a minute, I know that song. I\u2019ve heard that song many, many times.\u2019 I think it just shows you how well-respected TJ Oshie is on this team and what an influence he\u2019s been to guys like Pro\u2026 It just speaks testament to what TJ Oshie is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oshie used \u201cTake Me Home, Country Roads\u201d as his individual goal song for five years, from the beginning of the 2019\u20132020 season through his final game of the 2023-24 campaign. He remains close to the team and even recently offered shootout pointers to players during a practice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s different ways to pick a goal song,\u201d Oshie explained to the Washington Post in 2019<\/a>. It is either \u201csomething that is important to you and gets you going or gets the crowd going, so I figured the best part of playing in front of our fans is them getting involved, and I figured everyone, or at least most everyone, knows at least the chorus of \u2018Country Roads.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Belarusian forward had previously used the hardcore Eurodance song \u201cHow Much Is The Fish?\u201d by the German electronic group Scooter \u2014 a track first released in June 1998.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Aliaksei Protas scored on an empty net and sealed the Washington Capitals\u2019 4-1 victory over the Ottawa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-533126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}