Auf gefrorenem Blog

. He is also asked about the prevalence of players exercising the “No” in their no-trade clauses: “Nobody makes a club give a player a no-trade clause” . . . I ask the commissioner about Ted’s expressed wish to take the team on a goodwill tour of Russia, “sooner rather than later,” and he expresses cautious support. When he references what a “big deal” it’s going to be for Jagr to return to Prague next season, I think I have my answer about the likelihood of Ovechkin’s returning to Moscow . . . He also acknowledges that the league today doesn’t have the relationship with the Russian Hockey Federation it once did . . . Even the arena’s game night personnel working in catering and as ushers seem buoyed by the day’s big news — they are all chipper and wide smiling in every encounter. . . On a day like today I appreciate the professionalism and the quasi-renaissance of renewed hockey coverage by our town’s two print beat reporters, both of whom blogged and filed on Tuesday until their fingers were sore, giving Washington hockey fans timely and superb breaking news; following Corey’s blog a bit during the game, I chuckled at his reflection “at some point I’ll eat” . . . Midway through the game I have a minimial amount of notes and reactions recorded, as friendly folks keep bending my ear for reaction and basic “Can you believe all this?” empathy, vanquishing my between-periods composition, and I relish it . . . Peter Bondra is back in the press box tonight, and on the ice sheet below the young prospect he was traded for, Brooks Laich, is having a career night, and I just sorta like the symmetry of that . . . in the second row of the press box, where the Caps’ communications staff works each game, I see each and every one of them, no one missing, and I think there’s so much work for them to do on a day like this they all have to be here, but it’s probably also the case that such a day makes a Caps’ staffer proud to have the careers they do, and they want to be in the rink, well dressed, helpful, and full of good cheer . . . very loud rock music typically greets bloggers and press in the post-game locker room after victories, but tonight it’s quiet, and I infer that the day’s drama has drained the entire team, that they want as efficient an encounter with media as possible, hot showers, and a race home to crash in bed . . . the circle of cameras and microphones and scribes around Kolzig is unlike anything I have seen in two years — it’s five-deep at turns, and Tarik has to make like a gymnast to get his recorder squeezed into some open space around Kolzig’s locker . . . no one much asks Olie the Goalie about the game, instead, The Trade . . . question after question on the trade: was he shocked? was he upset? how can it possibly work with three netminders? did the team approach him about a trade? . . . he says, among other things, “The thing that surprises me is that there’s three goalies here” . . . Coach Boudreau acknowledges the challenge of managing three netminders, but he dismisses a contention that the day’s developments insult the greatest goalie in Caps’ history; he maintains that the consumate professional will rise to meet the new challenge . . . Here’s hoping Fedorov this spring is Bellows of ‘98, Matt Cooke that year’s Esa Tikkanen, Olie Kolzig . . . Olie Kolzig.