TJ Oshie details origin of Stanley Cup keg stand and how Alex Ovechkin was first player to participate: ‘There’s not a better guy to party with than the big man’
TJ Oshie was recently hired by ESPN to be one of the network’s NHL studio and game analysts for the 2025-26 season. To help kick off the newest stage of his post-retirement career, the former Washington Capitals forward made a guest appearance on The Pat McAfee Show ahead of the league’s Opening Night.
After discussing his new role on TV, Oshie was, of course, asked about the wild fun that he and the rest of the Capitals had when they were celebrating their Stanley Cup victory in 2018. The team’s captain and 2018 NHL playoff MVP, Alex Ovechkin, was at the center of most of those festivities and for good reason.
“Yeah, it definitely was [the time of my life],” Oshie said Tuesday. “We felt like we were on top of the world. There’s probably not a better guy to party with when you win the Stanley Cup than the big man (Ovechkin). We had a lot of good times.”
“We felt like we were on top of the world when we won the Stanley Cup..
There’s no better guy to party with than Alexander Ovechkin..
We were lifting him upside down to do a Stanley Cup beer stand” 😂😂 ~ @TJOshie77 #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/IBRbphM0gK
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) October 7, 2025
One of the most memorable parts of the nearly two-week-long marathon bender was when the team turned the Georgetown Waterfront into what became their version of a hockey frat party. After a few hours of fun at a Washington Nationals game, the team moved about a half hour west in the city to continue painting the town red.
Once there, the now-iconic Stanley Cup keg stand was invented, which eventually led to several members of the team swimming in the park’s fountains. The quick dip has since been memorialized by a plaque placed on a fountain tower in the park, unveiled last February by Oshie and Nicklas Backstrom.
“I’ll tell you when I kinda came up with doing the Cup stand, it was super hot out, there wasn’t a lot of beer coming to us, there were fans around us, and I was like, ‘We gotta do something to fire this thing up,’” Oshie said. “So, I told Tom Wilson — me and him are kinda partners in crime a little bit — I was like, ‘Let’s go do a keg stand on the Cup.’ He was like, ‘Really?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do this.’ And he was like, “Alright, let’s go, let’s go.’ And I was like, ‘Wait, wait. Ovi has to be first.’
“I’m not a big guy at all. Ovi is a lot heavier than me, so me and Tom — Tom has no problem — but we’re lifting Ovi upside down to do a Cup stand, and I remember that next day, from lifting the Cup, from lifting up Ovi, then the rest of the guys that funneled in, I could barely lift my arms over my head.”
While Oshie may have been banged up, he says the pain didn’t stop him from getting right back to it.
“Yeah, it was an upper-body [injury], for sure,” Oshie said. “I was on the mend for a couple weeks, but we got it going the next day, and I forgot about it. The big man definitely sets the tone, and we all follow. The pictures I have on my phone of me and him celebrating – just pure joy. It’s pretty special.”
Oshie played nine seasons with the Capitals during his 16-year NHL career, announcing his retirement from pro hockey this past June at the same place where he invented the Cup stand. He moved his family back to Minnesota later in the summer and is set to contribute on TV with both Monumental Sports Network and ESPN.
With the backlog of stories he has, like the one he told Tuesday, he’s likely to be an instant success on whatever programming he graces with his presence.
