Our heroes' home playing surface is back in the news. Of Saturday night's Phone Booth sheet, our good friend JP put it this way: "One could pour 4,000 Slurpees across an elementary school blacktop and it would probably provide as good a playing surface as the one at Verizon Center last night thanks to an afternoon Hoyas game." The home team's owner placed the Slurpee pump on idle on Monday, claiming on his blog that not only was his team's ice nice but that those raising objections about it were X-Files exiles: we who discuss this serious issue are, in his view, the perpetrators of a "mass hysteria."

Here's what seems certain: given the rotation of events at the Phone Booth, from one night to the next no one can tell what caliber of ice quality the NHL games there will get. More on that in a moment.

But just so we're clear: it wasn't Washington hockey bloggers with too much time on their hands ginning up poor ice as a writing topic that started this subject; it was actual Capitals' players voicing outrage in post-game candor, with cameras and microphones recording. No less than the team captain complained. This he told the Washington Post:

"I could see a lot of injuries coming from the ice there. It could cost [players] their jobs."

At one point Tom Poti termed Verizon's surface "embarrassing." Saturday night a disgusted and Slurpee-logged Olie Kolzig threw up his arms in the post-game locker room.

Neither Jeff Friesen nor Chris Clark -- both renowned power skaters while in their prime -- suffered lengthy and debilitating groin injuries before (or even, in Friesen's case, after) calling Verizon Center home. Might be pure coincidence. Might not. Friesen the then-Cap ultimately needed surgery. Last season, repaired and skating in Calgary, he played 72 games for the Flames.

I made the case earlier this season that there was something peculiarly pernicious about this season's home sheet of ice. Clark, slightly younger than Friesen, of course posted 20- and 30-goal seasons in his first two seasons on it. In Friesen's case, I personally find it noteworthy that the old Continental Airlines Arena he skated in as a Devil was, like Verizon Center, a very multi-use venue: the Nets bounced balls there, and so, too, did Seton Hall. It was only when the 29-year-old -- not quite the age we associate with being washed up in the groin -- arrived at the Phone Booth that he lost his stride. Now the vital cog that is the Caps' captain is on the shelf, in perpetuity.

To their credit, Caps' management hasn't slogged through the season in blissful defiance of the complaints. Mr. Leonsis promised an inquiry, got it, and acted upon recommendations. I personally noticed a dramatic change in the temperature of Verizon Center way up high in the press box in January. That's a good start. (Of course, this begs the question: why wasn't it cold there to begin with?)

The owner on his blog yesterday noted that recent improvements apparently had earned the venue a ranking of 12th in the league in ice quality. But his having recently made a $124 million investment in a very serious skater, now only 22 and therefore physically immortal, is that Verizon Center in its present state, I'd suggest, at best an inadequate gamble. Or put another way: with the likes of Mike Green and Alexander Ovechkin likely to lead the puck rush up the slush in D.C. the next decade, just what caliber of sheet does management demand that its charges skate on?

To the rejoinder that Leonsis' owning all of Verizon Center and its assets will ultimately improve things ice, I wonder. First of all, who knows when that will be. But more basically, hockey, generally, needs to be played in the evening. Here and in other towns, recreational and youth hockey, consuming families, is played on autumn and winter weekend mornings and afternoons. The winter weekend afternoon hardwood and its consequences, for better or worse, is here to stay.

But does that mean that evening ice sheets must always Slurpee? I wonder. I'm no engineer, but advancements in insulating materials are such that here in the home of NASA, is it delusional to imagine that some day soon some hockey lover in Greenbelt might devise a covering for arena ice that would preserve its integrity no matter the time of year, no matter the duration of hoops overtime?

I wonder. And it is in this vein I would have all of us who are concerned about this issue direct our thoughts. Capitals' management wants a quality surface, of that I'm convinced. But at present, it can't happen with consistency.

That needs to be addressed, somehow. It's the right thing to do, for players and fans. And if that isn't reason enough, I have one hundred and twenty four million others.