Over 286,000 people tuned into the Capitals Twitch channel on Wednesday night to watch a once in a lifetime showdown between Wayne Gretzky and Alex Ovechkin.
The two faced off in NHL20 to help raise funds for COVID-19 relief with Monumental Sports & Entertainment Foundation's "Feeding the Frontlines" fund and Edmonton's Food Bank each receiving half of the donations.
With concurrent viewers peaking at 26,642, The Great One played alongside his sons Ty and Trevor while The Great Eight played with
The opening goal of the series was scored by none other than Gretzky himself and he would go on to take home the first game in an epic overtime thriller. But the game only reached OT because Ovechkin tied the game with less than three seconds remaining in regulation.
The second game wasn't nearly as close with Ovechkin owning a 4-1 lead after two periods, scoring the first goal as himself and loving every second of it.
Everyone decided to call it quits after crushing the original fundraising goal of $10,000. The total at the end of the night was well over $20,000 and the two legends decided they would each generously donate $8,000 of their own, bringing the total to $41,041.67.
Both players shared many laughs over the course of the 1 hour and 45 minute stream, providing fans an inside access to their personalities and a much needed reprieve from everything going on in the world around us.
Ovechkin and Gretzky tweeted afterwards thanking the fans for donating expressing how much fun they had.
It was a great time to play with u and your boys!! don’t trade them they are good players ))) huge thx to all the fans who donate and support us! See u guys soon https://t.co/ZrwM3m4n2h
To support the COVID-19 relief effort, MSE Foundation created the "Feeding the Frontlines" fund to provide meals to heroes in the medical community. The chefs from the Washington Capitals and Washington Wizards, along with Social Impact partner DC Central Kitchen, are making meals for frontline first responders and health care workers which are being delivered to COVID-19 testing sites and area hospitals. Learn more at:
