OVI OVI OVI OVI OVI OVI OVI OVI OVIWOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW

— Alan May (@MayHockeyCSN) April 2, 2013

That Ovechkin guy is good.

— Ian Oland (@ianoland) April 2, 2013

OVI MY SAVIOR

— Melissa (@unibrouw) April 2, 2013

Oh wow. Ovi. Christ.

— JapersRink (@JapersRink) April 2, 2013

Where’s Milbury?! Hahahahaha#CapitalsTalk

— Ed Frankovic (@EdFrankovic) April 2, 2013

Ovechkin has 19 goals this season? I thought he was terrible and washed up and forgot how to shoot.

— Down Goes Avery (@DownGoesAvery) April 2, 2013

Ovi staying hot. Luv u Ovi.

— Joe Yerdon (@JoeYerdonPHT) April 2, 2013

Caps are down 2-1 after 20 minutes. Lots more hockey to come.

Finally. Washington Capitals Center and latest victim of #brittlegroin, Brooks Laich, just signed up for teh twitters. You can find him at the euonymous handle @brookslaich.

Uh oh – @therealcabbie what did you get me into here pal? #sayitaintso

— Brooks Laich (@brookslaich) February 20, 2013

How long before he catches and surpasses @russianmachine in followers?

How long before he realizes how many GIFs there are of him laughing in slow motion?

…Because there are a lot.

Sorry, Nick. Unless you’re an NFL referee or Big Bird, you’re probably not getting any love this debate season.

P.S. then Jeff Halpern chimes in…

Hockey players are just like us! They take crummy pictures of their TVs too!

A historic Twitter moment.

Over the weekend, the internet embarrassed itself once again when a Penn State student website called the Onward State prematurely reported Joe Paterno’s death. At 8:45 PM on Saturday, the website tweeted: “Our sources can now confirm: Joseph Vincent Paterno has passed away tonight at the age of 85.” CBS Sports, The Huffington Post, and SB Nation — all in a rush to get their stories up first to rank well in Google — posted stories of their own minutes later without attributing their information or checking their own sources. The Paterno family debunked the news shortly thereafter and a lot of yolk was on a lot of peoples’ faces.

The student editor of the newspaper stepped down hours later, but the aftermath has spread far beyond that, not the least of which has been the many voices blaming Twitter for the spread of false information. Ronnie Ramos of the National Sports Journalism Center offers a counterpoint here, positing that the problem is not with Twitter itself, but with simply reporting responsibly in any medium.

We here at Russian Machine happen to think that Twitter is awesome. While of course there are pitfalls to such a rapid-fire, scoop-obsessed form of news sharing, that speed itself and the ways in which information is able to be shared are changing news media every day. Mistakes happen–especially when information is not properly sourced and credited, which is a lesson that we learned again this weekend–but the sheer volume and accessibility of information is at an all-time high, even for the casual newsreader, or the casual fan.

Where Twitter has at least as much, if not even more value, though, is as a community-building tool–you can find those who share your interests by doing no more than simply clicking a hashtag. It can be great for concise, short-form discussion (CROSBY SUX!!1 / NO OVECHKIN SUXX!!), great for a communal joke (#Sh*tCapsFansSay)–and absolutely unbeatable for venting and reacting in the moment. Ravens choked at the last moment? Yell “NO! NOOOoooooo” on Twitter, as well, my entire feed did Sunday afternoon. Mad about Alex Semin’s latest stick penalty?

Commiserate with a thousand of your closest friends. (Video via Peter Robbio of Chirps From The Ledge)

Mistakes and incorrect stories are hardly a new phenomenon in journalism, and it’s worth noting that as quickly as an erroneous story can be spread on Twitter, it can just as quickly be corrected, as it was in the Paterno story in that same wildfire social-media way. We love Twitter because we love you guys, all six thousand of you — it’s not quite like being able to watch a game in a stadium and talk to every single other person there, but it’s getting very close.

Additional opining by Ana Hansen.

Lady Gaga and NYC Mayor Alex “the gr8″ Bloomberg orchestrate the dropping of the ball.

Caps’ players certainly seemed happy this past weekend. How can you tell? With a Twitter account and a pair of binoculars. The guys were ragging on each other, answering fan questions, posting pictures, the whole shabangabang. I guess that’s what happens when you win four of six games and get Sunday off. Now that our hangovers have finally subsided, here’s a sobering recollection of those tweets.

Join me if you will, RMNB readers, and let’s take a journey into the complex social (network) lives of our favorite players.

Karl Alzner — a dude who thinks getting a +1 is cooler than scoring goals, has Justin Bieber on his iPod, and owns the box set of Xena Warrior Princess — calls our taste into question. (I got your back, Peter.)

Alex Ovechkin, violating proper punctuation and first-grade capitalization rules, wishes Caps fans a gr8 2012. best!!))))))

Four minutes later, Ovechkin’s butler Alfred gets ahold of Ovi’s Blackberry and tweets something of his own.

Caps prospect Stan Galiev puts on his serious face.

Cody Eakin and John Carlson explain what Mathieu Perreault and a jellyfish have in common.

Karl Alzner has a new dog named Duncan and it’s almost as hairy as he is.

Mike Knuble, who is nearly the perfect person in every way, unsurprisingly has good taste in baseball teams too. Go O’s!

John Carlson reveals what Karl Alzner got him for Christmas and what he got for him in return

And then there were the tweets I failed to embed. Like one certain player’s love for a country song that would be NSFW. Or John Carlson’s explanation of how he got the #74.

Anyways, you should follow all of these guys if you’ve got a Twitter account — us too — and say hello. And if you don’t have a twitter account, you should get one today. Let’s hope the winning continues!

Remember this? Ovi’s All-Star Fantasy Draft photo of Phil Kessel netted over 11,000 hits in two hours.

Yes, the rumors are true! After 25 long months, the Great Eight has decided to start tweeting again. Why? Who cares. Just make sure to give one of the coolest players in hockey a follow here, @ him, and try to hit him up for some free Caps tix like Chad Ochocinco just did. (Someone please help make that happen, ASAP.)

If you’re really, really excited and just absolutely cannot contain yourself, please feel free to abuse our comments section below.

Who needs ESPN? The signing of right wing Eric Fehr to a two-year contract, reported to be worth $2.2 million per year, was brought to us the old-fashioned way: via Twitter, from Uno Seis himself while he summers at his cabin in Winkler, Manitoba. Take that Greenwich!

We know what you’re thinking: Do a joint “Two More Years” celebratory party at Front Page on July 31st! We would, but sadly Fehr intends to spend the rest of the summer in Manitoba before returning to D.C.

Speaking of D.C., Fehr made the most of his breakout 2009-10 campaign with the big club, scoring 2.71 points per 60 minutes on the ice at even strength. That was a better clip than Malkin, Marleau and Stamkos, albeit it against much weaker competition. With a GVT of 8.9 for the year, the 24-year-old goal scorer appears to be a solid 3rd-line player with 2nd-line upside. And that is going to be the question going into next season: Does Fehr log some time on the second line, where he should face some stiffer competition, or be a fixture on the third line paired with Chimera and possibly Perreault?

While starting 53.6% of his shifts in the offensive zone on a team known for its prolific offense is a definite advantage, that was about average for Washington’s forwards.  Improvement is needed in directing pucks to the net, as his CORSI of -5.5 relative to his teammates was on the low side.  However, Fehr reported on his press call that this is his first healthy offseason since his time in juniors, so he’s “expecting some big things next year.”

Some similarities can be seen in the career path of Alexei Ponikarovsky, who consistently scores 20 goals year in and year out and at age 30 had a similar cap hit, making Fehr a reasonably priced option for the next two years with some significant upside.