Fatima Al Ali of the United Arab Emirates Women’s National hockey team met Washington Capitals great Peter Bondra in November and blew him away with some smooth stick skills.
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Al Ali, who discovered hockey while working as a photographer for the country’s men’s team in 2008, has now been playing the game for a few years. When Bondra visited, she mentioned she was a big fan of the Capitals and, of course, Alex Ovechkin.
Earlier this month, Bondra and the team surprised her with a pair of plane tickets to Washington and invited her to a Capitals game at the Verizon Center in February as part of the NHL’s “Hockey is for Everyone” campaign, where she hopes to meet the whole team and even show off some of her on-ice skill.
Al Ali was moved to tears when she found out the news.
Bondra was in the UAE to serve as a coach at the Pavilkovsky Hockey School in Abu Dhabi and couldn’t get enough of Al Ali’s hockey skills. How many of you could do this after playing the game for just six years?
She picked up the sport in 2011, one year after the women’s team was created and is a great ambassador for this campaign.
We can’t wait to see what kind of moves she teaches Alex Ovechkin.