The Stanley Pup aired on both ESPN plus and Monumental Sports Network recently and it was a fun competition to bring rescue pups together to represent the 16 teams who qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs.
ESPN aired it to kick off the Stanley Cup Final between the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers who as of this writing lead the best of seven series three games to none with Game 4 lurking on Saturday night.
The dog lineup is adorbs
The event itself was filmed in May and showed the doggos fighting for their own version of a Stanley Cup. The dogs that were represented were given names like Alex Ofetchkin, David Pupstrnak, Sergei Bobruffsky, Connor McDoodle, Auston Mattchews.
Other names you might recognize as a play on to NHL stars include Brady Sharfel, Anders Leash, Adam Foxhound, Nikita Poocherov to round out the east.
Over on the west it was Nathan MacKibble, Jow Pawvelski, Anze Kopitarf, Connor Yellerpuck, Mark Bone, Quinn Chews, and Roman Yorkie.
Alex Ofetchkin's player card
Per the NHL, Alex Ofetchkin is a heeler mix that's nine weeks old and weighs 14 pounds. He played forward in the game and he hails from Wolf Trap Animal Rescue.
The other Caps that were in it
The special would feature Tom Wilson and Trevor van Riemsdyk who gave interviews and pep talks to the fellow doggos. There were several dogs from Wolf Trap Animal Rescue and other shelters across the league on display.
What was also cool was that we got to see the good side of Philadelphia Flyers head coach John Tortorella, who gives back to local shelters no matter what city he coaches. See even the toughest people have good hearts when it comes to canines.
Overall I'd give it 5/5 stars and if you haven't watched it yet I highly recommend. Out of respect to those who already viewed it and those who haven't seen it yet, we won't say the final score between the East vs. West but we will say it is a good watch.
Alexa Landestoy also does the reporting rinkside where she interviews both Wilson and TvR among others.