The great Bob McDonald was singing the national anthem near 7:00 Tuesday night in a darkened Verizon Center when, standing high above the playing surface in the press box, I noticed something most peculiar: two uniformed Verizon Center maintenance workers were, to Bob’s immediate left, on their knees, trying to remain inconspicuous, a bucket stationed between them, doing something of a repair nature to the ice quite near a goal cage.
This was transpiring some 120 seconds before the puck-drop for an Eastern Conference quarterfinal Game 7 in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The maintenance workers performed their labor while the arena lights were dimmed and while most of the arena was patriotically distracted. It was abundantly clear that they didn’t want their work to be noticed.
As odd as this sight was, I didn’t make much note of it at the time. I think I was consumed by the novelty, the spectacle, of taking in my first playoff game 7 from a press box to pay it much notice.
Then I encountered Daniel Briere’s reflection to the Washington Times’ Corey Masisak yesterday afternoon. This is what Briere said:
“Another thing that favored us was the condition of the ice,â€? he said. “It was so bad that it was tough for guys like Semin, Backstrom and Ovechkin to get anything going, the ice was so bad. That was another thing that went our way.”
Twice in the same sentence Briere used the words “so bad” to describe Verizon Center’s ice surface Tuesday. Post-game, Briere was amid a madhouse celebration of Flyers’ teammates. What in the world was he doing flapping his yap to a Washington Times’ reporter about Verizon’s Center’s ice surface . . . unless it really was part of a storyline of the game?
A bit more backfile before I lay my bombshell of a theory on you. I was able to arrive in the Verizon Center press lounge reasonably early in the 5:00 hour Tuesday. It was a zoo in there, as you might imagine. There were a lot of friendly faces and plenty of new arrivals as well. It being a game 7, I wanted to survey the pros — the men and women who get paid to work hockey as a beat, and especially the veteran ones who’ve worked these decisive games before — to try and gain a sense of how they thought this remarkable series would conclude.
I was able to chat up 11 press members before seating myself upstairs at my assigned seat, eight affiliated with Washington media, two with Philly, one with a Canadian outlet. All eleven reporters forecasted a Caps’ victory Tuesday night. That sort of unanimity, imbalanced as the survey sample was, struck me as odd, particularly for a series as closely contested as this one. But it matched forecasts I’d seen on television since late Monday night.
With two of the scribes I pressed the matter. Why so Caps’-certain, I asked? The answers were the same, and interesting. The Caps had matured about midway through the series — learned tough lessons from the series’ first three games. Moreover, they were able to adapt in the series in a way that the one-weapon Flyers weren’t: the big-bodied Caps could go physical, whereas the bruising Flyers couldn’t hope to out-finesse the highly skilled Caps.
These reporters mentioned the word “momentum,” if at all, only at the very end of our dialogue, almost as an afterthought. The one variable of vulnerability for the Caps, a few of them suggested, was if somehow Cristobal Huet turned in a dog of a showing. Unlikely, they suggested, but possible.
The Flyers as we all know prevailed Tuesday night, defying the forecast of all 11 hockey media pros I surveyed and a host of national television commentators. I didn’t really think much about this oddity until late yesterday afternoon.
Over a beer early Wednesday evening, without a game to monitor for the first time in months, I had this thought: couldn’t it be possible that all 11 reporters presumed, subconsciously of course, that the Caps Tuesday night at home would be skating on a sheet of ice comparable in quality to Philly’s from the night before?
Makes sense. The two cities, close as they are to one another, experience basically identical weather, and both are home to multi-purpose venues experiencing virtually identical challenges in terms of attaining hockey ice integrity. And perhaps more to the point: fresh in the minds of these reporters was the nature of the goals the Caps scored in game 6 just the night before: that dazzling exchange between Brooks Laich, Alexander Semin, and Nicklas Backstrom on the first Caps’ goal, the one that led Pierre McGuire to issue a warning to the rest of the Eastern conference for its virtuosity; then, Viktor Kozlov’s near 100-ft. bullet, to the tape, of Alexander Ovechkin’s stick blade up the center of the ice, for a third-period breakaway, game-winning tally. And lastly, the insurance marker — a perfectly flat, cross-ice setup from Laich to Ovechkin for a bullet one-timer Martin Biron never saw.
Those type of plays can only be made on decent ice. Those type of plays weren’t made just one night later — though some of them were attempted. On Tuesday night the Caps, on about a half dozen attempts, tried long-range, middle-of-the-ice passes from various players to Ovechkin and Alexander Semin, seeking to replicate game 6’s success. All of them failed, most of them bouncing over or away from the recipients’ stick blade.
Also conspicuous Tuesday night, in light of the preceding night’s success in breakout passes and offensive zone entry, was the Caps’ reliance on dumping and chasing. Why so dramatic a reversal in tactics just 24 hours removed from stunning success — and before 18,000 lunatic-loud supporters?
The explanation, it seems to me, is both simple and shocking: the Caps had no home-ice advantage very late this spring; indeed, as Daniel Briere noted, they had a distinct disadvantage at home. Worse, it was a wound self-inflicted in nature. A most unnecessary one. At one time not all that long ago the Verizon Center aptly demonstrated its ability to chill out, and get the building feeling like a hockey rink should. Correspondingly, the hockey played on the sheet within was of comparatively high quality. But despite the absence of Verizon Center’s other principal tenant, the Wizards, over the weekend, event staff was unable to deliver a competent playing surface for a game 7 in the playoffs — for perhaps the most anticipated and important hockey game Washington, D.C., has hosted in a decade.
It was — is — a scandal.
On Wednesday fans who attended the game shared with us here and on message boards elsewhere the shocking conditions they observed on Tuesday night. Many of them observed Verizon Center maintenance personnel out on the ice during intermission breaks, after the Zambonis had resurfaced, squeegeeing the ice. And even with this labor there remained still “pools” of water on it.
Later still on Wednesday I had this thought: the Flyers lost one of their most important players, Mike Knuble, to a series-ending leg injury in game 5, on Verizon Center’s sheet, not from a devastating hit but rather from his skate blade getting caught in a rut. That same night, Mike Green also suffered a leg injury. Also on Wednesday Washington media learned from Capitals’ general manager George McPhee that one of the team’s most important defensive forwards, Boyd Gordon, had competed in the Flyers’ series with a torn hamstring.
For the most important hockey game played by the team in perhaps a decade, the host venue offered up a playing sheet compromised of its integrity. It was abysmal. Disgraceful. Unacceptable for a September exhibition game let alone a game 7 in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Had such a sh*t sheet greeted teams competing this week in a Canadian arena for a game 7 (of which there was one), the Canadian Parliament would have have convened an emergency session for an inquisition. Which is partly why I want to emigrate there.
Washington’s hockey fans should have rioted over the home ice conditions. Their team is out of the playoffs because of them. The Flyers on Tuesday night deployed no swarming shut-down of a system against the Caps’ supremely skilled skaters. They didn’t need to. It was no Daniel Briere hat trick that did them in, nor a goat-of-a-game collapse by Cristobal Huet. The Caps on Tuesday night couldn’t replicate their dominance of the night before — one that sent thousands of Flyers’ supporters out of the arena conspicuously early — because back home they couldn’t play the same game.
No one affiliated with the Caps, I’m sure, would knowingly have tolerated such conditions has they known of them in advance. Stanley Cup finals games, after all, have been rescheduled due to fog, for instance. Still, players taking pre-game skates most assuredly inform coaching staffs of any and all abnormal conditions they confront, and there were high-ranking organization members seated in and among the press who surely saw what I did during the national anthem. Did any of them express concern to Verizon Center officials? Is there protocol for doing such? More importantly, how did the decent ice of February and March degenerate into such dire dysfunction just this month, and what if any steps can be taken to assure it never happens again — in a game 1 or a game 7?
This would be only a marginal story were the Caps the lunchpail, grinding outfit of 15 or 20 years ago. Today they are molded into a collection of young, elite talent, a roster which includes gifted skaters even among the checking lines. The Flyers wanted nothing to do with a skating game with them. Verizon Center Tuesday night made sure that couldn’t happen. It’s a travesty, it’s a scandal, and it’s unimaginable and unacceptable that this could have happened.
This is nothing less than a scandal. Eighteen thousand Washingtonians on Tuesday ponied up a hundred bucks-plus each with the expectation of seeing Washington’s most compelling sports story in a decade, the home team long tormented in the postseason, staking a claim to rewriting a sorry hockey history here, in resounding fashion. By all rights they should have been able to do it. But the home arena made sure it couldn’t happen.
There were two entirely different Washington Capitals’ teams on display in games 6 and 7, separated by a mere 24 hours, and the Philadelphia Flyers did nothing tactically to create that.
This is what Capitals’ captain Chris Clark had to say of Verizon Center’s ice last December, reported at the time by the Washington Post:
“There’s a lot of ruts in the ice,” Clark said. “It’s soft. It’s wet half the time. I could see a lot of injuries coming from the ice there. It could cost [players] their jobs.
“I’ve been trying to tell them” that the ice is a problem, he continued. “But it’s been three years since I’ve been here, and it’s the worst in the league. It’s tough to play on. Even guys on other teams say the same thing. When we’re facing off, they say, ‘How do you guys play on this?’ ”
Can you imagine an NBA playoff basketball between say the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, contested on a parquet floor in Beantown, and players in warmups or early on in the game discovering their dribbles deadened all about the floor? The game would be canceled and the floor, if unrepairable, replaced. Without hesitation. Why is the integrity of hockey’s surface any less guarded? If the price is rescheduling a big game and inconveniencing a few dozen out-of-town travelers, in pursuit of avoiding an inauthentic outcome, is there really a debate in the matter?
We posed the question of Tuesday night’s game conditions to Alexander Semin on Wednesday, courtesy of SovetskySport’s Dmitry Chesnokov.
Chesnokov: “Danny Briere said the ice was so bad that the skilled players like you, Backstrom, Ovechkin were struggling. Is it true?”
Semin: “Well, you could say that the ice was like that. Maybe because it was hot? Maybe that’s why the quality wasn’t as one would want.
Chesnokov: “Did you feel it down there [at the surface]?”
Semin: “Honestly, yes. It was very hot.”
I think Daniel Briere spoke out Tuesday when he should have been celebrating because he loves hockey, and he never again wants to see a game 7 like Tuesday’s — even while being on the winning side of one.
I hope, finally, hockey forces its hosts to listen.
Stumble it!
43 Comments
Do you guys get any sense that this ongoing travesty is being addressed? I bet Ted’s Take doesn’t link to today’s OFB post.
Are you suggesting that WS&E officials who are definitely pro-Wizards had soemthing to do with it? They wanted the Caps out of the playoffs? We are just tenants there, remember!
This issue perplexes me. One would think the team management was on board in preparations at VC before the game. It almost seems like the Caps have to deal the VC just like they do a out-of-town arena, they take what they can get. Cant be anything nefarious must be just energy frugal cost savings at best or incompetance at worst. It is probably the latter.
And I thought that Kettler’s Ice was a little soft…Wonder if they use the same Ice Crew or if they are just trying to replicate VC so we are at least used to Home Ice
In game seven, sitting where I was, the goal crease at the end the Caps shoot at twice was a lake. There was standing water in the crease, and when the goalies came out to scuff the ice at the start of the period, they could have made sno-cones with the results. In the last games of the season, one could see a lattice-work of cracks in the ice. It looked as if someone had dropped a boulder from an overpass onto a windshield.
The Capitals have made a $124-million investment in a player. They have built a team for speed. They employe a coach whose governing philosophy is to press the action. Yet, they play on an ice sheet that jeopardizes the investment and the very nature of the team they have built.
It is past an embarrassment; the word you used — scandal — is precisely correct. It’s like buying an high-definition TV and hooking the thing up to rabbit ears. What was the point in making such an investment or buying in to such a strategic philosophy (speed and pursuit) when the underlying infrastructure is so inadequate?
R E L A X
This site was much, much more pleasant to read before you became convinced that the world centred around the Capitals
The ice condition at VC is really starting to irritate me. Chris Clark has made comments before that it contributed to his groin injury. Can someone please tell me why this problem isn’t fixable?
I agree with everything you say…except the part about the parquet floor in the Garden. It was, without a doubt, the worst floor in the NBA. It had dead spots and gaps everywhere. And the Celtics wouldn’t have had it any other way.
The difference between the Boston parquet and the Caps’ ice is that the Celtics benefited from their knowledge of the floor’s idiosyncracies, whereas the ice at the VC does nothing but hamper the flying Capitals.
Chris, I am aware of that parquet history, which is sorta why I alluded to it. There’s a lot of truth in what you noted, but I’ve also been of the opinion that the parquet’s mystique was a bit overstated. The Lakers, you might recall, won a title on it one year.
I have posed this question in another forum but never received an answer: Does it actually hurt the Caps even more that they PRACTICE on a nice sheet and then have to PLAY on a crappy sheet? It just seems like anything they do in practice can’t theoretically be replicated on the VC ice.
Why are people here telling me that the world is not centered around the Capitals??? You guys need to get out more often and get a clue…the Caps are the sun.
And what is wrong with Rabbit Ears, picture quality is good, quality gets only a little better when viewing a BETA video.
I was sitting on the glass behind the Caps bench and saw pools of water all over the ice surface throughout the game- not just after resurfacing. Also, it seemed like players were cleaning snow off of their skates a lot more than usual. It’s unfortunate that the ice is better when I play pickup games at Piney Orchard than it is at the VS for game 7 of the playoffs.
VC,not VS…I need more coffee…
Ryan, when I’d visit Piney Orchard for the team’s July development camps back in the day, you know what I’d take with me? A sweatshirt. And a jacket. The best part of July in D.C. was being inside Piney Orchard.
Instead of Olie, maybe we can get Abe to take his nameplate and go home. How Ted restrains himself from leaping across the conference table and strangling Pollin (aka Mr. Burns)is a mystery to me. Inner city tenants get better treatment from slumlords than Ted gets from WS&E.
Few things here:
1. Show me any media report that says Knuble hit a rut. I did not see this and it is wrong for you you to speculate. He said he was trying to pull up from a slide and things went wrong. Was Gordon injury ice related? Who knows.
2. Philly has the Spectrum, which hosted the circus last week, so Wachovia does host less events. Just saying.
3. You don’t know if the Caps would have won on good ice. The ice could have been Calgary-caliber and they still could have lost.
4. The Boston analogy, albeit understood, is a poor one. It it not comparable, which has already been pointed out.
I too noticed some of the staff doing some repairs during game 7. But what I noticed more was during the breaks when the crew shovels off the snow/ice shavings that have built up during play. They were scooping up excessively large snow piles, which indicates soft ice.
I used to be an ‘ice technician’ and drove an Olympia previously at a rink. IMO the ice staff here in DC is dumping too much water during the resurfacing. I have noticed this problem not just during the playoffs, but all year long. The staff is squeegeeing excess water waaay too much as was pointed out.
Ideally during games, you want to do more of a cold cut with more cold water than warm at half to quarter open and drop the blade a notch lower to cut more ice off. This achieves two goals, first it eliminates the depth of the ruts and secondly it doesn’t heat up the surface of the ice too much during game time. After the game is over, then you lay down a lot of hot water to fill in all the ruts and build up the height of the surface to allow for what you scraped off during game time.
I’m not sure what the problem is or where to start, but these are my ideas. It could be due to the equipment, or it could be due to how the staff has decided to care for the ice sheet. If it’s the equipment & ice refrigerant system the coils under the ice may not be doing their job very well, or the ambient air temp of the building way too warm. If it’s the staff they may want to reconsider different ways to resurface the ice before next season, with different Olympia settings such as blade height, cold/hot water mix, and how far open/closed each is.
Where have you gone John Millsback, the former ice man/zamboni driver for the Caps at the Cap Centre
I’ve noticed this problem at most of the Caps games I’ve gone to this year - admittedly, it might be harder to maintain the ice on hot days, but back in January there seemed to be a lot of breaks to clean up around the goals. I hauled a jacket to the last 2 home games expecting to need it — I didn’t — I was comfortable in a t-shirt. You just saw how many guys were skidding out in game 7 to know that ice conditions stunk. Think it’s time to have a hard-nosed talk with the landlord.
#6 what you write is completely irrelevant. If the ice is as bad as what is being said here, it doesn’t matter what happens in Philly, Calgary or Boston. The only thing that matters is for a professional league to put out a professional playing surface where the teams can compete evenly.
Why would Chris Clark, Briere, and Semin ALL say the stuff about the ice if the ice had no effect on the game, and not just game 7 either, but all Caps games? This is insane.
I feel like boycotting until this gets fixed. How many Caps fans knew they were shelling out good money to see a professionals play on a high school rink?
OFB, please keep the pressure on. This IS a travesty.
I just want to mention, apropos of your earlier post, that not only do I come here because of the access you provide for the regular fans, but also for the outstanding comments of well-informed readers. Where else do you get an ice technician weighing in on a potential ice scandal?
What can be done? Can we hire away the ice guys in Edmonton, even on a consulting basis?
Should there not be a pretty simple answer?
My concern — aside from that already expressed — is that the ice here makes it tougher to retain our own free agents and sign new ones.
As much of a travesty this is, and we know how Abe and his minions hate the caps; but doesn’t Abe benefit by having a lot of games in the VC because he still keeps the majority of the concessions? So it benefits his bottom line. (I can’t remember the lease agreement Uncle Ted has with Abe with regards to the caps playing there, but I do know he’s getting shafted)
Blame Abe for allowing the Circus to come to town during the final weeks of the season.
Blaming Abe for trying to ruin the Caps is a bit of a stretch.
Blaming Abe for not holding up his end of the deal in providing a TOP NOTCH STATE OF THE ART MULTI-USE VENUE IS VALID.
I feel like boycotting until this gets fixed.
Hah. So now next year when the place is only 2/3rds full again, are you guys going to be saying it’s because of the ice boycott?
@Heads Up Feds:
1: http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=234697&lid=sublink02&lpos=topRelated_main
3: That’s true; however, if a member of the opposing team says a certain factor helped contribute to their win, that factor needs to be taken away from them.
Heads Up Feds:
http://www.fannation.com/tags/show_tag/4876
“Knuble, who scored the winner in double overtime of Game 4, appeared to catch his skate in a rut while attempting to block a shot late in the second period. He had 29 goals and 26 assists during the regular season, and two goals and three assists against the Capitals.”
It was also pretty clear on replays on the original broadcast.
Not an excuse, not conspiratorial, and probably unrelated, but through two and a half periods Tuesday night was as warm as I’ve ever been in that arena (Caps or Wiz). There was an odd point 10 minutes into the third when we felt some serious air-conditioning kick in for the first time all game.
I wonder how much worse this ice was from the ‘decent’ stuff of February and March. Its been the worst surface in the league all season. I saw the pools, and the frantic technicians, but we’ve seen that sort of thing all year.
please, can anyone answer my question above?
on ice: I have heard from some out at Kettler that that sheet ain’t all that hot, either. That building, too, probably isn’t as cool as it should be. Certainly it’s not Piney Orchard chilly.
Who said that Kettler was nice? I thought it was ok but still a little soft. During a game at Kettler, I watched the Goal Pegs (older medal pegs) sink over 1/2 inch into the ice. I didn’t even realize it happened until we removed the nets for the resurfacing for next game.
I don’t know about you but that is pretty soft ice. Can’t really speak about current conditions though, this incident happened a year ago.
@on ice
Well sir, that is a trick question, playing on a better sheet will result in less injuries, so no they won’t get hurt
Seriously though, you could make that argument in any sport. Would the Redskins execute a play differently on their practice field than at FedEx field?
You will probably never be able to always execute a set play the way its designed every time due to a lot of other factors, such as ice conditions, the opponent, how they are playing defense, etc. However, you can apply the same basic patterns, knowledge, and positioning on any field and use that to your advantage.
The ice surface/condition would affect how well you could execute a play certainly, but that would be true for both teams, not just the Caps. The only differences that I could see would be how the puck plays off the glass/boards. There may be funny angles or different caroms the puck takes and you could use this to your own advantage in the VC as opposed to Kettler where they practice.
***NastyEmu wrote:
I feel like boycotting until this gets fixed.
Hah. So now next year when the place is only 2/3rds full again, are you guys going to be saying it’s because of the ice boycott? ***
I wish I could say my boycott would be noticed. I live too far away to attend but one game… A DECADE now.
What I’m saying is that the NHL is such a clownishly run organization it doesn’t surprise me that the ice is allowed to be so treacherous to the point of effecting game 7’s AND players careers. Notice the NFL and NCAA got rid of astroturf, why can’t the NHL mandate a proper ice surface?
But, instead the NHL is too busy worrying about octopi in Detroit. Why do I even bother is beyond me. But each year, with the utmost excitement I’ll spend two solid months watching the playoffs, even with teams like Calgary and Tampa playing. I’m a true sucker.
Everyone that is citing a blog about Knuble hitting a rut, please show me a quote from him saying that is what happened. All I found was this from one of the Philly papers: “I just saw the replay for the first time [yesterday], extremely ungraceful,” Knuble said. “You go down to block a shot and change your mind and get caught up in the ice. It never happened to me before. It’s one of those fluky things, but it’s an awful time to have it happen.”
The rut was him changing his mind, not in the ice.
Great observation, I knew something was wrong when great skaters like Ovie and Green were just falling over themselves throughout the home games in the 1st round. Mr. leonsis should get on top of it, he seems like a sharp guy, I hope he protects his 124mill investment.
P&B-
Don’t let this issue die. It’s a wonder why someone like Comcast hasn’t run this story.
I don’t know if it’s something political, something out of Ted’s control or what the issue is exactly, but it’s a real one.
It should be as important to fans as the Caps tightening their defense over the Summer months.
Oh, yeah, changing one’s mind causes injury all the time. I remember one time I changed my mind and my spleen ruptured.
Dude, it wasn’t like he had time to take notes. And perhaps the news reports (not blogs) were wrong, but he admits the ice contributed to his injury.
As not only a die hard Caps fan but someone considering season tickets for the first time, I feel this absolutely MUST be addressed.
I don’t know whether this is necessarily “shocking,” but I do agree. The ice has looked inexcusably bad during the entirety of the season, but even more so during the spring.
I don’t care that the circus is in town, or that the Wizards had a game the night before. When a team that relies on talent and puck movement isn’t getting the job done because of the ice, why not just play Devils or Flyers hockey?
The Caps have always taken second place in this town and especially to the Wiz, everybody remember the 03 Easter Sunday playoff game? I still think that was Abe P’s doing to draw more to B’ball the night before–schedules can and are changable even in the NBA.
I’m up in the 400’s and I can see the puddles and have all year. We have a great thing started here again; hopefully the ice gets some attention.
Come on, people. Both teams had to play on the same sheet of ice for Game 7. If anything, the Caps had the advantage because they have gotten used to playing on a crappy surface and know how to adjust. We got beat - plain and simple. The officiating was more of a problem than the ice was.
That is bull, the two teams may have played on the same ice, but they play completely different styles. The caps play - when they are at their best - a very precise and fast game. It doesn’t matter how used to the ice they are, if you don’t know whether the puck is going to suddenly jump over your stick at the last second, you can know how to receive a pass… On the other hand, the flyers play a nitty gritty style that relies on lucky bounces and crashing the net, which isn’t something that you need good ice for.
Saying that the caps have the advantage just because it’s their home ice and they should be used to it only shows that you don’t have any experience playing hockey!
But, i do agree to some extent. The officiating was embarrassing for most of the season, especially in the playoffs for both teams…
You’re right, Jed. I don’t know anything about playing hockey. In fact, I don’t know anything about hockey at all. I’ve never strapped on a pair of skates, I’m not a loyal season ticket holder, I don’t ever discuss issues like this with hockey players, nor do I read Tarik, Corey, the Hockey News or blogs like this one. You’ve got me.
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