Friday after practice, Dmitry Orlov gave away one of his ORLOV-branded sticks to a four-year-old Caps fan. Beyond being a kind gesture, Orlov appears to have received a brand new shipment of twigs which he used during the team’s back-to-back away games over the weekend.
During the first period, NBC zoomed in on Alex Ovechkin on the bench, capturing the stick rack in the background.
If we zoom in and turn the photo around, you’ll notice that Orlov’s sticks say OREL9.
Orlov’s English nicknames are Dima, Orly, and Snarls. At first, Orel seemed to be a misspelling, but after reaching out to RMNB’s Graham Dumas, it has a pretty incredible meaning.
Russian last names are frequently derived from trades, locations, or the natural world. Ovechkin’s last name comes from the word for sheep; Kuznetsov means “blacksmith.”
In Orlov’s case, his name is a form of the Russian word for eagle, which in Russian is pronounced “oryol”. Another way to transliterate the Russian word for eagle, “орёл,” into English, is “orel”.
So the name on the stick is another clever play on words off of Orly’s last name and, coincidentally, his team’s secondary logo.
