The Washington Capitals misspelled Mikhail Grabovski‘s jersey nameplate a couple times last season (1, 2). It was funny, but not a big deal. With players from countries that use the Cyrillic alphabet, I and Y endings are interchangeable when translated into English. Each player chooses how he’d like it to be translated.
The Caps’ mistake was innocent, but it turns out it wasn’t limited to Grabovski’s jersey. RMNB reader Jacob explains.
So my name is Jacob and I’m a huge Caps fan. Like most hardcore supporters of the team, I went to Fanfest at Kettler Capitals Iceplex today. Since I was able to gain access to this year’s equipment sale, I went through and picked up a bunch of stuff. Jerseys, sticks, anything you can imagine.
Well as I gathered my loot, I noticed a table full of the locker stall nameplates and I thought those would make perfect wall hangers. I quickly began grabbing a bunch of the more notable names in the organization. Then I saw a Grabovski nameplate and I had to have it. I am a big fan of Grabo’s and I’m bummed we couldn’t re-sign him.
When I got home I began looking through my stuff and I noticed it was misspelled. Then I remembered an article you guys had when Grabo went out for warmups and his last name was spelled Grabovsky. This locker tag has the same spelling. I think that makes it a really cool one of a kind item and I’m absolutely thrilled to have it.
Yes. Yes it is.
Also, because Jacob was so nice to share his sweet find, here’s a plug for his Caps YouTube channel: YouTube.com/Capitals103. Check it out!
