Ice-Cold Takes: Ovi and Oshie are loving life and DO NOT say it’s too much

Ice-Cold Takes is a weekly humor column covering what is trending around the NHL. We are undoubtedly the most incorrect NHL column in existence over the last three months.

Have you ever taken a test or exam that you came out of feeling really good about? You just knew that you absolutely crushed it. You answered every question with clear and concise reasoning and you don’t want to get ahead of yourself but you’re thinking this could easily boost your average back into the “B” range.

You talk to a classmate and find out they had a different answer than you on a few of the questions. What an idiot, you think to yourself. Then you talk to another classmate, and a third, fourth, fifth. They all say the answer to question No. 2 was “15” and your brain is now in a scrambled panic but you’re pretty sure you wrote down “President Andrew Jackson” for that question.

This is how I felt about these NHL playoffs. Going in, I was positive that it was going to be the Boston Bruins and the Winnipeg Jets in the final. I knew that the Vegas Golden Knights would lose to the experienced L.A. Kings and that the Washington Capitals would lose in dramatic fashion to a team within their division.

Was I ever wrong. But, hey! We’re aptly named “Ice-Cold Takes” for a reason.

Trending Up

1. Alex Ovechkin’s party tour

Picture the best party you’ve ever been to. Now double the fun you had, add about a thousand more people and toss in the world’s greatest trophy. Oh, and instead of one night, it happens for a week straight.

Watching Alex Ovechkin party with the Stanley Cup is equal parts exciting and exhausting. I’m hypothetically torn between really wanting to be a part of the celebration, but only wanting to be there for one night. As we all know, the Russian machine never breaks, and Ovi is proving it to the world.

No other athletes in the world party like hockey players do after they win the Stanley Cup. Perhaps it is because the Cup is the easiest and best suited trophy to party with, or it could be that it is the hardest to win. Either way, these guys enjoy every single second of being champions. I can’t wait to see what Ovi does with the Cup once he hits Russian soil and the true party starts.

Oh, did we mention he can dance?

2.  T.J. Oshie. THIS GUY.

Not to be outdone by his Russian teammate, T.J. Oshie is also getting in one this week. While no other player has been handed the Cup from Ovechkin yet, Oshie can be seen in the background of every video chugging beers, sometimes two at a time and often through his shirt.

Oshie, Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals are celebrating the right way. They are letting Capitals fans in on the celebrations in every possible situation, whether swimming in the fountains, drinking from the Cup or partying in the streets.

They’ve been open, approachable, fun-loving and oddly responsible given the level of intoxication we’re seeing on a nightly basis. Anyone who thinks they are going too hard needs to give their heads a shake (more on this later).

3. The Vegas Golden Knights

Hand up if you thought Vegas was going to be a terrible hockey city. I’d bet just about all of us have our hands up right now.

Vegas packed its barn on a nightly basis, put on shows that changed the NHL pre-game for life, got pre-game playoff tattoos at tailgate parties and generally put on a “how to own a team” clinic for over half of the league.

The Knights had the most successful inaugural season in sports history. They also answered questions such as “What would a hockey game introduction look like if I was on every drug imaginable?” and “What is Criss Angel up to?”

The Washington Capitals, proving on an hourly basis to be a team I should not have made fun of in every single playoff edition of this column, took the time to recognize Vegas’ incredible accomplishment in making the Stanley Cup.

While the Stanley Cup drought continues for the Vegas Golden Knights, they can hold their heads high knowing they put together one hell of a run. There’s always next year.

Trending Down

1. Milan Lucic to Montreal takes

This one is personal. When I heard that the Montreal Canadiens are a possible destination for the second-greatest Bruins player to ever wear No. 17 (a notch behind Ryan Donato when both careers are said and done), I felt sick to my stomach.

I love Milan Lucic; I always have and I always will. He’s older, slower and less effective now, but he still has a few years of good hockey left in him. Put him on the right team in the right system and he can find his role as a dominant power forward when his team needs him to be.

Milan Lucic to the Montreal Canadiens is just unacceptable. This is the same team he’s been in countless physical battles with over his great seasons as a Bruin. The same team he threatened to kill after an early playoff exit. Please, Milan, don’t ruin my memories by playing for the enemy (that sounds like an Imagine Dragons lyric).

If Milan Lucic goes to Montreal, I’m not sure what I’ll do. I do not have it in me to see him in a toilet seat-crested sweater next, or any, season.

2. Anyone who says the Capitals are partying too much or too publicly 

I can guarantee that the people getting upset over the way the Caps players are handling themselves are the same people who get upset when hockey players give generic answers to interview questions. Leave these guys alone; they just won their first Stanley Cup in franchise history and they are going to have fun with it.

If you don’t like watching them joyfully party with all of the Capitals fans, get off Twitter for another week or so. Don’t you dare hit us with those “The Capitals need to tone it down, this is a bad look” takes. I swear.

(I’ve gone from relentlessly making fun of this team to relentlessly defending them, and I hate it).

The people who are down on the Caps right now are the same kind of people who bring store bought macaroni salad to a potluck then have the audacity to say Brenda’s home-cooked brisket is too dry. Get out of my face, I can’t even right now.

3. These two at the Capitals parade

We appreciate the effort here, but you realize that the Cup was made to drink beers out of, right?

These guys went through all the trouble to build a makeshift Natural Light cup, but then used a colander for the most important part! WHY!? You’re at a parade with thousand of people who want to drink beer out of anything resembling a cup, and this is your offering?

How hard is it to go out and buy a metal bowl? Not nearly as hard as it was to stack and glue all of those empty beer cans together, I can tell you that much. While the makeshift cup looks spectacular, it’s completely useless.

We’ll give these two a pass because it’s their first ever parade but let’s clean it up, boys. If you ever get a second chance at this, try not be so irresponsible.

Next: 25 most insane things people have ever done with the Stanley Cup

Bonus Coverage

This may be the end of the hockey season, but there will definitely be hockey news throughout the summer. We’ll have plenty to cover between the draft, trades, free agency and summer vacations, which means there will be plenty more takes for me to get wrong. For now, let’s sign off with a brief summary of the Capitals victory parade.

Warning: It’s only Wednesday but this is going to get you fired up for the weekend. If you are hungover tomorrow, blame Ovi.

Stay up to date with everything NHL related at the FanSided NHL hub or tell me how wrong I am on Twitter @TheRealBruin. Until next week, keep your head up!