Washington Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin carries the Stanley Cup during a banner-raising ceremony before the team's game against the Boston Bruins on Wednesday in Washington. (AP photo)

WASHINGTON — A Stanley Cup championship banner rose to the rafters at the home of the Washington Capitals for the first time, and everyone in attendance Wednesday night got to relive the sheer excitement of it all.

Alex Ovechkin and the other players, who craned their necks to see the video montages of last season on the overhead scoreboard — and couldn’t help but smile. Coaches, too, including new head man Todd Reirden. Not to mention the owner and the GM and the assistant equipment manager and anyone else on staff.

And, importantly, the 18,506 fans, decked out in their jerseys — most of them in the team’s main color, red, so many with Ovechkin’s No. 8. They sang along to “We Are the Champions!” in full throat and shook their team-distributed glow sticks during a half-hour ceremony before Washington opened the regular season by beating the Boston Bruins 7-0 behind a pair of goals from Evgeny Kuznetsov and one apiece from Ovechkin, Oshie, Nic Dowd, John Carlson and Lars Eller.

“Gave me chills. I was just looking up and I was hearing the crowd sing that song,” center Nicklas Backstrom said, then added with a laugh: “I want to experience that again.”