Por exemplo, no dia um do acampamento nós teríamos um dos dados atuais de Dopler dos meteorologists da região que conformam-se que nenhum repórter que cobre jogos dos tampões' se congela realmente da experiência. Indeed, at Verizon Center, there’s the greater likelihood of visitors suffering heat stroke. It is simply not true that the Caps travel to Saskatchewan to contest their games outdoors December through March.

As part of camp, the editors would be taken on field trips to the region’s rinks — Reston, Ft. Dupont, Columbia and Cabin John — where they would be asked to view the thousands of youths, male and female, clogging the weekend clocks morning, noon, and night with the playing of hockey. They would be asked to sit in the rinks’ stands among players’ parents and interview them about families’ devotion — in finances, time, and travel — to the sport of ice hockey. The tongues the hockey families would speak in would be foreign to the editors, and so bloggers and Caps’ communications professionals like Mike Vogel would be strategically stationed in the stands to facilitate translation.

Back at camp, VIP speakers would address the editors. An emissary from the Canadian Embassy would allege that his home is not in fact a 51st American state or territory, but instead a sovereign nation which celebrates the awe-inspiring playgrounds that nature etches across his home’s landscape for half the calendar year. Executives from cable television providers would arrive and testify to the fact that indeed thousands of Washingtonian households spiritedly subscribe to NHL CenterIce and the NHL Network.

High priests of puck like Don Cherry and Barry Melrose would lunch and cocktail hour with the campers and lead chalkboard Xs and Os and endearing narratives of the sport’s legacy. Melrose would even suggest that here in Washington there is a viable Jack Adams candidate.

Craigh Laughlin and Joe Reekie would lead a discussion of conflict resolution in hockey, and how the United Nations Security Council is not involved.

A professor of comparative literature and linguistics from the University of Maryland would attend and identify the sliver of contemporary professional athletes who commonly speak to the press in complete sentences, often thoughtfully. He will introduce the editors to the concepts of humility and modesty that commonly lace these orations.

The District’s Chief of Police would brief the editors on the needlessness of bringing along weapons of self defense into the players’ rooms during interviews.

Necessarily, camp would conclude with a screening of ‘Slapshot,’ and accompanying consumption of beer would be mandatory.

To prepare for camp, we who conduct it might want to view the film ‘300,’ for in this quest we face the same odds for victory as the Spartans.

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Posted at 10:06 am. Filed under Barry Melrose, Don Cherry, Hockey Movies, Kettler Capitals Iceplex, Lisa Hillary, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, Other Sports, Redskins, Washington Capitals, Washington Post.
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9 Comments

  1. The Peerless wrote:

    Top ten sports-writer reasons that hockey is better to cover than football..

    10. Two half times!…more chances to hit the head and grab a sandwich

    9. Hockey players look like normal people, not Michelin Men who could crush them like a beer can (ok, there is that Chara fellow)

    8. It isn’t crowded in locker rooms (though it might be if you guys covered the sport)

    7. Nicknames…Greenie, Clarkie, Ovie…they sound like they’re right out of “Leave It to Beaver”…can you imagine anyone calling Dave Butz, “Butzie?”

    6. Ice Girls…ok, the Caps don’t have them, but nothing is kinder to the eyes than ladies on skates.

    5. Lower standards…football has Bryant Gumbel and Frank Deford…hockey has Eklund and Larry Brooks. You guys would win a Pulitzer with that kind of competiton.

    4. Cool goal horns. Score a goal in an NHL rink, and you might hear a horn from a lake freighter, or a siren from an emergency vehicle, or Don Cherry. What does football have?

    3. Action!…in football, it’s 15 seconds, then wait for two minutes for the replay, the commercial, the replay with the telestrator, the challenge, the shot of the referee gazing under the hood into the monitor (he’s watching porn, you just know it)…in hockey, they actually play while the clock is running. Give you guys something to write about.

    2. Appreciative fans…hey, we’d just be happy if you didn’t bash the sport…if you actually wrote a nice story about it from time to time, we’d be thrilled!

    and the number one reason hockey is better to cover than football…

    Hockey has no balls, just like you guys!

    Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 11:58 am | Permalink
  2. Gustafsson wrote:

    Outstanding, Peerless, as always.

    Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 12:03 pm | Permalink
  3. NS2NOVA wrote:

    Sign me up for camp staff, I’m sure my days of misspent youth playing street hockey north of the border could come in handy.

    Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 12:18 pm | Permalink
  4. pucksandbooks wrote:

    Peerless,

    With respect to your virtuoso offering, I can quibble only with no. 6. Follow the link:

    http://www.onfrozenblog.com/ofb-museum-of-high-art/

    Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 12:23 pm | Permalink
  5. hockeygrl76 wrote:

    Everything sounds good except the ice girls….please no ice girls! I hate the whole concept of them…

    Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 12:50 pm | Permalink
  6. Gustafsson wrote:

    Here’s the Melrose video:
    Video Removed
    It did not embed correctly in Firefox and not at all in IE.

    Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 1:54 pm | Permalink
  7. The Peerless wrote:

    hockeygrl…I tend to agree, but sports writers — being the somewhat primitive type — need inducements…

    Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 5:09 pm | Permalink
  8. L wrote:

    If having ‘ice girls’ on the ice shortens the beer lines, I’m all for ‘em!

    Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 9:53 pm | Permalink
  9. Dan Steinberg wrote:

    What’s hockey?

    Also, would Steve Downie and/or Chris Simon be able to speak to the needlessness of bringing along weapons of self defense? That would be excellent.

    Saturday, January 12, 2008 at 8:29 pm | Permalink

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