We recently reminisced about the ten-year anniversary of a golden moment: when Joe Juneau’s goal propelled the Washington Capitals to their first Stanley Cup Finals appearance.
Today, Steinz looks back on D.C. Sports Bog to the day the run ended with excerpts from the Post’s coverage 10 years ago. It’s a good read and, lest you think it’s a depressing topic, Tony Kornheiser (gasp!) put it in perspective:
The fact is that the Capitals made hockey matter in this city for the first time. The hundreds of shots Kolzig turned away, the playoff goals that Bellows, Sergei Gonchar, Adam Oates, Todd Krygier, Joe Juneau and Peter Bondra scored — even the shot that Tikkanen missed — they’ll all be remembered fondly, long after the pain of losing four straight to Detroit is forgotten.
While I still cringe at the seared-on-my-cerebellum image of Tik’s yawning-net miss, I have to agree with Kornheiser’s overall sentiment. 10 years later — when a Finals appearance for the Caps with a very different outcome seems not only likely, but imminent — I think we can safely look back fondly on the Caps’ far-away-yet-so-close brush with the Cup, with the strong belief of better things to come.
7 Comments
It was a great run. It was difficult but watching my two favorite teams playing each other for the Cup. I was hoping the Caps would take it since the Wings had won it just the year before. But it was also emotional seeing Vlady out on the MCI Center ice. One day the Caps will do it. Hopefully very soon.
Who ghost-wrote this for TK?
And Bellows and Oates up for Hall induction today. What an impact the former made in such a short time as a Cap.
To clarify, they are eligible. Oates might have a shot.
I got to go to Game 3. On the subway home afterwards, a couple Detroit fans started talking to us and said, “Detroit will probably win the series, and may even sweep again, but the Caps are playing them so much tougher than Philadelphia did last year.”
I was proud of them. Too bad they then got old and injured and the team fell apart. *sigh*
TG, that’s an a good and important reminder about the series. A lot of folks see a sweep and assume mismatch. It wasn’t. It had overtime. It had game-in-dispute in the third periods of all four games. And of course it had the eternal Tik what-if that OC alluded to. What it didn’t have was our shut-down checking forward Kono. I personally will always wonder what if he’d dressed and been matched against Feds.
It was a great run. I was hoping we could do the same thing this year.
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