The Capitals’ pre-game featured Shaggy, Kenan Thompson and Pat Sajak being a hype man

The Capitals’ festivities for hosting the Stanley Cup Final are one of the most bizarre and charming things about this hockey season. On the one hand you have the young, brash Golden Knights, with their Medieval Times-esque intros, complete with pyro and a miniature stage show — on the other you have the Caps, rolling out Pat Sajak to ham-fist his way through player introductions as hype man.

But that’s not all folks. If the presence of Mr. Wheel himself doesn’t get your engine running then there are plenty of other luminaries the Capitals have lined up to entertain you. Did someone say ... KENAN THOMPSON?!

I love it. I love all of it. I say this without irony too. There is nothing more perfectly DC than flubbing hype by way of a game show host from Chicago and a comedian from Atlanta, because that’s all you really have.

And let’s not forget that this was all kicked off by Sting and Shaggy performing on the steps of the Smithsonian, because why not?

It’s counter-programming at its finest. Sure, Vegas might be the plucky Cinderellas who weren’t supposed to be here and enjoying the spectacle of it all, but they’ll never have Kenan trying to pretend he knows the names of Capitals players.

Twitter is roasting everything the Capitals did before the game, because the world is a cold and cynical place — but I love it. It’s the appropriately weird to juxtapose DC’s grand-seriousness. All I hope for in this world is for the Caps to get progressively sillier as the games go on. I want a seven game series just so we can have two more chances for DC to get weird pre-game. I’m talking:

These are just combos I thought up off the top of my head on a Sunday morning. I know you can do better Caps. Think of the possibilities. Embrace the weirdness. Become a legend on your own terms.