On Frozen Blog

Hockey’s back! The evidence was everywhere out at Kettler Capitals on Monday. The GM looked on from on high. All of the organization’s coaches were in teaching uniform and out on the ice. Local hockey media (as well as the ABC TV affiliate from Hershey/Harrisburg) arrived in strong numbers. And the stands were basically filled. At 10:30 Monday morning blades brimming with talent hit the ice, and two Zam cuts later, Capitals’ vets — in conspicuous abundance — followed the organization’s prospects and drilled and shinny-scrimmaged for an hour themselves. From top to bottom the organization was inaugurating a new season.

Somewhere in the middle of it all I realized: while Labor Day generally is a bit early for the dawning of a new hockey season, every tick of the clock after 10:30 yesterday morning marched the Caps forward toward their 2009-10 destiny. I arrived at the rink in a bit of an “It’s too early in the calendar for this” fog; I left four hours later pumped for the start of a new season.

Was there some overarching, media-blanketing storyline to pursue at the rink yesterday? Not really. But for me, in a most personal way, there was. I left covering the Caps last season in the worst way imaginable in May (not to be spoken of here again), but yesterday I had a clean coverage slate before me, one hundred and how many points of promise churning in powerful strides just a few feet away from me.

One Capitals veteran, whom I won’t identify and of whom I’m outrageously jealous, spent his final day of summer freedom golfing Robert Trent Jones on Sunday morning and Congressional Sunday afternoon. I guess if we had June’s daylight now he might have tried to squeeze in nine at Pine Valley. I took this links lottery winning as a sign that hockey (and most particularly our hockey players) is enjoying a social rank heretofore unknown in these parts.

The first sign of something special on display Monday was Mike Green, off ice, in a t-shirt. He’s cut. Like one or two of his elite-talented, very young teammates, Green has been, shall we say, mildly tardy in combining committed offseason conditioning to supplement his gaudy skill set. This summer, however, Green had a real good reason to get in serious shape: his invitation to the Canadian Olympic team evaluation camp. Green may or may not make the Canadian Olympic team, but if he fails, it won’t be because of conditioning. And the Caps of course are the beneficiary of his summer commitment.

Speaking of evaluation camps, John Carlson attended his own this summer — the USA Hockey annual at Lake Placid in August, precursor to that governing body’s shaping of a roster for the World Junior Championships. Carlson’s 2008-09 season, from start to finish, was so conspicuously, outrageously strong that even the politically driven idiots in Ann Arbor couldn’t ignore Carlson’s candidacy this summer. Last year’s American entry at the U-20s bolted out to a 3-0 lead on host Canada in elimination play, before wilting. I have a hard time believing they’d have lost it had Carlson been patrolling the blueline.         

Whereas Mike Green perhaps made himself bigger and stronger this summer, John Carlson strikes me as being naturally hockey big. I stood next to him in a locker room after his first official fall camp skate, and he fairly towers over my 6 ‘2 frame. If Capitals’ fans in recent years have been concerned over the team’s finesse ethos on the blueline, John Carlson will be part of a more robust, more physical evolution there. The only question this fall is: will it arrive in early autumn or early spring? 

One youngster not yet conditioned for NHL rigors is Dmitry Kugryshev. Kugy had an outstanding Development Camp in July here, but Monday morning, as the opening Rookie Camp session drew to a close, he was among the first prospects to fall to his knees (and remain there) from the exertion of Gabby’s session-closing suicides. He actually collapsed behind a goal cage and appeared to try and hide there, in agony. I suspected, and afterward confirmed with him, that his struggles were largely attributable to the marked differences in conditioning approaches in Russia versus North America.

“Yesterday coach said, ‘It’s gonna be a tough practice, so you guys should be ready,’ Kugryshev told me. “It was the same practice [drills] as last year, but [suicides] are so hard.”

I asked Kugryshev if in Russia young hockey players skate suicides as so many young North Americans so commonly do. He told me they do not.

“In Russia, we practice different techniques, different drills. We have skating [drills], but it’s skating more with the puck. The conditioning is [more] off ice.”

Kugryshev’s English is vastly improved over last summer. Semyon Varlamov is virtually fluent with his, drawing praise from his head coach Monday. New goaltender coach Arturs Irbe, fluent himself in many tongues, actually may be holding meetings with his charges in English this season, right from the start.

Hockey of course is played and viewed within a common culture and language. Call it puck passion. I started speaking it again with my friends at the rink on Monday, smiling widely.