Jon Hamm hosted Friday night’s NHL 100 gala, and had a pretty awkward gaffe in front of a full house of hockey fans in Los Angeles.
Hamm cracked a joke during his monologue about 19-year-old Toronto Maple Leafs phenom Auston Matthews — who scored four goals in his NHL debut — potentially breaking Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal record before the Washington Capitals win a Stanley Cup.
Hamm then said, “I would like to say to Sergei Ovechkin, I did not write that joke.” And the problem there of course is the Capitals’ star is named Alex Ovechkin, not Sergei Ovechkin. Whoops:
Now, this may very well be on the people that wrote the joke and not Hamm himself. Either way, it’s a pretty notable blunder during this ceremony to get the name incorrect of the guy that is third in goals scored among NHL active players.
Hamm redeemed himself a bit by bringing up the gaffe later in the ceremony and saying, “I think in my monologue, I called Alex Ovechkin ‘Sergei’. So if I get out of here alive tonight, that’s gonna be a win for me.”
Oh, and Ovechkin was in the house during all of this, as he was named one of the 100 greatest players:
[NBCSN]