Partly because the rest of the Washington sporting landscape is so bleak from a competitive standpoint, our favorite question is being asked these days in conspicuous volume: just how far along has Washington come in its appreciation for hockey — is Washington in fact becoming a hockey town? Already in the new year I’ve appeared on Comcast’s “Washington Post Live” to discuss the matter; later today WTOP’s Jonathon Warner will air a 5-minute feature on the topic; and no less than the Washington Post is dispatching columnists to Verizon Center to survey the hockey scene and, in attempted whimsical fashion, try and make amends for their savage slight of the sport the past few decades.
Also, both print and broadcast reporters keep coming back to Sergei Fedorov’s locker and asking him if what he experienced all those years in Hockeytown could somehow be replicated here.
Color me amazed. And giddy.
I particularly enjoyed the lead of the Washington Times’ Thom Loverro this past Sunday morning, which spectacularly captured the scene and sense of Saturday’s matinee heart-stopper with the Wings.
“Verizon Center,” Loverro wrote, “seemed poised to lift off the ground.”
“The mixture of tension and joy in the arena was almost unbearable,” he added.
The answers to this To Be or Not To Be question wherever and whenever it’s posed are far less important than the very fact that the question is being posed.
In truth, there are no rigid metrics for monitoring hockey’s maturation in these parts. But there doesn’t need to be. I’m comfortable alleging that there is in the terra firma under our feet these days the slightest tremor of change. That in itself is an amazing accomplishment. It’s Comcast debuting a weekly Caps’ show beginning next week. It’s the Post dispatching columnists to behave like bloggers at hockey games. It’s features — print and broadcast — being produced on the subject of hockey taking hold in the nation’s capital. It’s a hockey legend like Feds suggesting that yes indeed there is something special taking place here.
It’s especially fans of Original Six franchises, ones who’ve long descended upon our town to root for their enemy heroes with impunity, acknowledging that the game in town has changed.
The wrong way to ask the question is to speculate if the Caps and their red-crazed, rapidly growing fanbase can overtake the priority perch of pigskin. That one-team hierarchy was ill-begotten, bred out of a falsely fatalistic sense that Washington and its congenital transiency could never truly be a sports town. So big media glommed on to the local entry in a quasi national pastime (baseball having abandoned the city in the early ’70s), the sport easy to cover with but one game contested a week, and big ad revenue followed the coverage as Washington emerged as a big media market.
Two things seem certain to transpire over the next 10 years here: Alexander Ovechkin will continue to delight a growing number of sports-loving locals, and Daniel Snyder, by virtue of his youth, will continue to own the Redskins. The first fact is very good news, the second — from the vantage of competing for championships — can hardly be thought so. More tremors, methinks.
Of course, not everyone is happy with local media’s Johnny-come-lately lovesongs for the one winning team in town. It did strike me as a bit odd to see a WaPost reporter so flippantly reference his paper’s poor hockey coverage last week, but on-line responses to his schtick actually rose at times to the venomous — and I assure you I didn’t write any of them:
“Here’s the problem with bandwagon coverage: so many journalists in this town have spent so much time dismissing hockey that when they come around to writing about it, it reads like a freshman term paper on a book they only thumbed the cliff notes to. It’s not just about content, it’s about context, too. I don’t give a damn what Wilbon thinks about hockey now, when he spent so much time undermining it then.
“The point is, oh washingtonpost, we don’t want more writers, we want the stories on the cover of the sports page, up front and center, with ample space for the reporter (cough, tarik) to cover everything he wants to say. That, instead of losing teams and high school sports. By the way, you’re catching on a little late.”
There’s a whole lot of truth there, but there is also, unintentionally I think, the overlooking of a key consideration in the development of HockeyWashington’s puck-savvy sensibilities and heightened coverage expectations of late: the rise of, and passionate coverage pursuit by, alternative media here. Voids are the wellspring of invention.
So geezing, big old media is catching on indeed, but they’ve a problem with the newbies being assigned: JP, Pepper, and Peerless (among others) will kick their ass.
Here’s the kicker: it’s playing out just as the owner imagined, and forecast.
9 Comments
It’s a love-hate relationship. As a long-time Caps fan (22 years now) you want the additional exposure, the freedom for Tarik to be able to write about whatever in depth topic he sees fit, that frontpage photo of OV’s toothless grin as he pots another GWG. At the same time, you cringe at the bush league “introductions” to hockey for the uninitiated. Necessary, definitely, but painful nonetheless.
Hardcore hockey fans get their information from a number of sources, not the least of which are blogs like OFB.
Must of us can’t get enough hockey coverage.
And fans come with all sorts of hockey knowledge. Maybe some will need the “freshman term paper” approach to reel em in.
My point is “the more the merrier”. You can’t fool hockey fans when it comes to hockey… Just don’t fall victim to “venomous” attacks of your own on the WP. You have set the bar higher than that.
I hate to say this, but for those of us who’ve been around a while it may be better that hockey stays somewhat “underground”. Do we want to fight the same battles that Redskins fans are faced with these days? Do we WANT a 10-year waiting list for season tickets that are twice as expensive as we can all afford (those who still have jobs, that is)? Do we want the media all over our guys to the point they no longer want to talk to ANYONE? We might be asking for something that we really don’t want in the long run. These are our halcyon days, soak them in and enjoy them. We can say we were there when no one in MSM really cared about our Capitals. Long beer lines follow ALL champions, our only hope is that the love affair fades a few months after Ovi hoists the ‘Cup. Call me a pragmatist… but thanks to the STRONG local blogosphere encircling our team, I couldn’t ask for anything more from a coverage perspective. MSM will churn out the “flavour of the weak”, we’ll stick with this team far longer than that because we’re passionate about this club. Let the casual fans stay where they belong… at Redskins Park.
Thank goodness for Ted! Learn that other team’s lessons well…
“So geezing, big old media is catching on indeed, but they’ve a problem with the newbies being assigned: JP, Pepper, and Peerless (among others) will kick their ass.”
Well..if WaPo had even the littlest bit of sense in their head…they might approach these esteemed bloggers and offer to pay them for their services and offer publication in the Post.
The old…if you can’t beat them, join them creedo. But I suspect the Post isn’t that bright.
I’d gladly accept payment for a guest column
I don’t think that the Caps can ever eclipse the Redskins or the Wizards in the amount of reporting. Look at DC United and how many MLS Championships they have won and look where they are in the news chain around here. The Caps, like DC United, are similar to a cult movie. They will be continue to be this sort of underground movement. Shame really because hockey is one of the most, if not the most exciting sports to watch, especially live.
Also, the Post lifts stats and links from JP, particularly, on an almost daily basis, without credit.
I particularly enjoyed Loverro’s final lines:
“It’s quite possible that these two teams could meet again in the Stanley Cup Finals. If that does happen, Detroit fans can forget their travel plans. There will be no room at the inn.”
Those who genuinely embrace the Caps — as, for example, Dan Steinberg seems to have done — are more than welcome on board. Those who pay lip service to the Capitals as a trend that they’ll abandon as soon as the team hits a rough patch (like, say, Mike Wilbon)… well, write what you want of course, but those in the know are laughing at you.
Hey Lee,
Your comments in particular stood out to me. It’s a subject I’ve been meaning to treat for some while — hockey as sport’s equivalent to the garage rock band preferred over the mainstream hot-sellers. I have to say, I agree with you 100 percent in spirit; there’s something deliciously charming and absolutely spiritual for we who’ve discovered our great game’s soul. It’s like the world’s greatest secret. There’s virtue in our minimal numbers.
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