Tommy Williams knew how to celebrate. After all, he won a gold medal with the 1960 U.S. Olympic team. And when a game ended, the party was just starting. “He was a wild man off the ice,” recalled one teammate.
Take his nickname, “Bomber” – earned for telling a customs agent he was carrying a bomb (that remark got him arrested). While in flight, he was known to wield shaving cream to decorate the hair of sleeping teammates.
On a 1974-75 Capitals team that lost 67 times, the majority of celebrating took place away from the rink. “We drank better than we played,” Williams told the Washington Star. “The more we played, the more we wanted to drink.”
So when the Capitals beat the Seals in Oakland for their first road win – after 37 straight losses – naturally it was Bomber who led the cheers.
 |  It'll always be a fond memory for teammates Yvon Labre and Ron Lalonde, who described it to washingtoncaps.com.“Tommy got hold of a trash can, and we paraded it around the locker room like the Stanley Cup,” said Labre. Lalonde continues the now legendary tale in the audio clip at left. |
The story of the Caps 5-3 win gets even better. Tommy’s younger brother, Butch, played for the Seals. “Our dad was listening to the game,” Butch told Brad Kurtzberg for his book, Shorthanded. “I was the first star, with 1 goal and 2 assists. Tommy (2 assists) was the second star.” Truly a night for the Williams family worth celebrating.