Founded in 2009 by Ian Oland and Peter Hassett, Russian Machine Never Breaks came into being as an independent Washington Capitals fan blog named after a quote by Alex Ovechkin who, after being hit by a puck in 2006 and questioned about a potential injury, responded "I'm okay; Russian machine never breaks." Oland, a co-founder and publisher handling design, management, writing, and site promotion, and Hassett, a James Madison University English graduate who went on to work as a writer and UX engineer in Frederick, Maryland, built RMNB into a credentialed independent media company with over 29,000 articles published, contributions to the Capitals' Emmy-winning television show Caps Red Line, and national media attention in February 2013 when the site published the first U.S. media report on the Russian meteor event. Today, Russian Machine Never Breaks operates as an independent LLC based in the United States, not affiliated with the Capitals, Monumental Sports, the NHLPA, or the NHL. Today, Russian Machine Never Breaks is mainly focused on Washington Capitals game coverage, Alex Ovechkin milestones, NHL news, player analysis, trade and roster updates, and data-driven hockey journalism from their base in Frederick, Maryland. One interesting fact: Despite being an entirely independent fan-founded blog with no corporate backing, RMNB broke the first U.S. media report on the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor event in Russia before major news outlets, a moment that went viral nationally and illustrated how a niche hockey blog's Russian-language reading capabilities made it unexpectedly faster than mainstream American newsrooms on a major international story