{"id":603427,"date":"2026-04-24T10:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T10:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/603427\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T10:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T10:22:10","slug":"alex-ovechkin-attends-hershey-bears-playoff-game-with-aliaksei-protas-does-teams-signature-roar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/603427\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Ovechkin attends Hershey Bears playoff game with Aliaksei Protas, does team\u2019s signature ROAR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/russianmachineneverbreaks.com\/player\/alex-ovechkin\/?ref=internal-player-link\" class=\"player\" title=\"View Alex Ovechkin&#039;s stats, bio, and status\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alex Ovechkin<\/a> made a surprise appearance at Hershey\u2019s Giant Center on Thursday night.<\/p>\n<p>The NHL\u2019s greatest goal-scorer attended Hershey\u2019s first playoff game of 2026 along with <a href=\"https:\/\/russianmachineneverbreaks.com\/player\/aliaksei-protas\/?ref=internal-player-link\" class=\"player\" title=\"View Aliaksei Protas&#039;s stats, bio, and status\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aliaksei Protas<\/a>, who was there <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DXfgJkolPI1\/?img_index=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in support of his younger brother Ilya<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Ovechkin and Protas, a Calder Cup champion with the Bears in 2023, were announced to the crowd during the first TV timeout in the first period.<\/p>\n<p>Ovechkin did the ROAR as the camera panned to him, <a href=\"https:\/\/russianmachineneverbreaks.com\/2023\/04\/26\/the-story-behind-the-hershey-bears-epic-roar-celebration\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a celebration first made famous by Mike Vecchione in 2023<\/a>. Ovi notably wore a Hershey Bears jacket over an Air Jordan shirt and held a giveaway rally towel.<\/p>\n<p>He also got to meet the team\u2019s mascot, Coco.<\/p>\n<p>As absolutely perfect hosts, the Bears had several bags of Flamin\u2019 Hot Cheetos waiting for Ovechkin in the luxury box.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can see how many talented players this organization has,\u201d Ovechkin <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Capitals\/status\/2047482655814336766\" rel=\"nofollow\">told the Capitals\u2019 Katie Florio in an interview<\/a>. \u201cObviously, brought us Miro, Bogdan, Cristall. So all those young guys are gonna be like a very good players.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A Bears representative tells RMNB that the team didn\u2019t know Ovechkin would be at the game until late in the afternoon. It appears Ovi\u2019s trainer, Pavel Burlachenko, was also there with him in the suite.<\/p>\n<p>Ovechkin\u2019s appearance in Hershey tonight comes <a href=\"https:\/\/russianmachineneverbreaks.com\/2025\/10\/03\/alex-ovechkin-capitals-preseason-game-hershey-strome-brothers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">after he missed the team\u2019s preseason game there in the fall due to injury<\/a>. Ovi never played in the AHL early in his career, but <a href=\"https:\/\/russianmachineneverbreaks.com\/2025\/09\/25\/alex-ovechkin-one-game-hershey-capitals-preseason-penguins-rookie-nhl-season\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">did play one preseason game for the Capitals in Chocolatetown in 2005<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s great,\u201d Ovechkin said. \u201cLast time I was here, my rookie year, and you can see how many championships they have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Ovechkin made a surprise appearance at Hershey\u2019s Giant Center on Thursday night. The NHL\u2019s greatest goal-scorer attended&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-603427","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\/603427","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=603427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}