Sometimes, it’s because of camp attendees who don’t have two pixels to their names but who pleasantly surprise you—both with their play and their natural talent at answering a barrage of questions from unfamiliar journalists (let’s face it … how many 17-year-olds can do that?).

Sometimes it’s because of the fans watching the camp, like Victoria and her son, Troy. Victoria recently started playing hockey at the Fairfax Ice Arena, but it’s her son who’s the big Caps fan… although he plays just about every sport but hockey.

Victoria heard about this year’s camp on WTOP, and, while she and her son were able to attend one Caps game last year, they decided to take advantage of the free-to-watch development camp. Troy has been a Caps fan basically his whole life (he’s currently in college), and Victoria said her father was a big Caps fan from the franchise’s founding and that she remembers watching games on TV back when they would highlight the puck on the screen. Troy now follows the Caps from Maryland while attending college at Mount St. Mary’s, where he describes the student body as either Flyers or Caps fans. In fact, his roommate last year was loyal to the Flyers.

Though a Caps devotee, Troy said he’s finally stopped saying “This is their year,” simply because he’s said so every other year. This time around, he’s not saying anything, hoping that might change the Caps’ mojo.

As for development camp participant Garret Haar: he’s only 17, yet talking to the media afterwards seemed as natural to him as when he and his brother play roller hockey in their backyard in California.

For a kid who didn’t expect to be drafted, there’s something about Haar that kept the media around him asking questions for a good 11 minutes (an eternity in development camp interview time) – he walked the fine line of being friendly and honest in his answers without blowing up bridges, which included a good-natured exchange about the Los Angeles Angels t-shirt he was wearing and the pronounced differences between his home state of California and his USHL location in Fargo, North Dakota.

He’s also the kind of player who doesn’t leave the sport at the rink.

“I’m always watching hockey. I’m always watching NHL Network and stuff like that, Versus – even if it’s not hockey, it’s hockey-related,” Haar said, adding that the roller hockey with his brother takes up a good amount of his time away from the rink. “I’m always surrounding myself with hockey. There’s never a break, and I have no problem with that.”

Haar admitted he’s usually been one of the youngest at everything he does – though he doesn’t have a problem with that, either – and said that although he likes supporting his teammates and cheering them on, he’s never been a captain on a team and he’s usually “kind of the quiet guy.” His cover was blown, however, when Capitals head coach Bruce Boudreau praised him during his presser Thursday, saying the scouts were “pleasantly surprised” by Haar.

“Being completely honest, I wasn’t expecting a lot out of myself – I mean, being one of the youngest kids here, I was just going to come in and see what I could do, but I think I’m surprising myself,” Haar said. But he said he’s been training hard over the summer and that his speed on defense is helping him at the camp.

He stayed home during the draft last month, concerned that otherwise he’d be a kid that attended but didn’t get picked. As it got later in the draft, Haar said he had to stop watching the ticker and went upstairs to play Call of Duty with his brother. He got the call that he was the Capitals’ seventh-round draft pick and ran downstairs to tell his parents, only to find out they’d just seen it on the ticker.

Haar did watch the HBO 24/7 series last year, of which his biggest takeaway was Boudreau’s now infamous use of the f-bombs, although he said Boudreau hasn’t utilized that much in camp. For Haar, one of the most exciting things this week is getting to know the other guys and hearing their experiences, although in the end playing the game “is the most fun.”

And that, bottom line, is what makes covering development camp worth it – these are players still able to recognize they’re having fun playing the game, and fans who think that’s important enough to the franchise to come watch them do so.

Rock The Red was able to generate interviews with campers Andy Miele, Braden Holtby, Joe Finley, Samuel Carrier, and Brett Flemming. Punch In The Face Blog compiled a helpful guide to identifying many camp participants, especially those added late.

Russian Machine Never Breaks captured, in words and pictures, a novel off-ice moment last week when two of the Caps’ Russian prospects, newly drafted Evgeny Kuznetsov and Stanislav Galiev, assisted a group of students from the University of Maryland studying Russian.

We were especially impressed by the volume and quantity of photographs captured at camp throughout the week. We take pictures when we can and feel we are getting a bit better with them, but there are other bloggers on the beat that simply excel at it. Some publish pics on their blogs while others share their shots via Twitter or Flickr. Take a look at these and keep in mind that as far as we know, only one is a “professional” photographer.

• @CapsInPictures attended camp every day and posted her pics on her blog appropriately titled Caps in Pictures.
• Heather Mabb is a teacher in D.C., and when her schedule allows, a photographer. She posts her shots on Flickr. Her shots from the midweek scrimmage are here.
• Kelly Stoner keeps the women’s point of view going strong posting her stuff on Flickr.
• Neil Greenberg is one of the guys behind Russian Machine Never Breaks, but this week he was also helping out Michael Hoffman of the Washington Examiner.
• With Neil moonlighting, Addison Huber focused his lens for RMNB as well as posting on Flickr.
• Mike Rannells is behind the relatively new blog Fight For Old DC and captured some wonderful shots, particularly of camp’s first round of fisticuffs. Those that did not show up on the blog were placed in his Flickr account.

Final Day: I woke up with all my bags packed from the night before and lugged them down to the banquet room for breakfast at the hotel. After attacking all the major food groups I started the march to Kettler with bags in hand. All the guys who were flying out before 4 p.m. we required to bring their bags to the rink to catch the bus ASAP after the game. I stopped in the Kettler pro shop to pick up a few things for friends and family members who made requests from back home, and I also got a nice Brooks Laich jersey that he signed so I could donate it to my buddy TJ’s golf tournament at the end of the month. It was awesome to see the support we received from the fans at our final scrimmage. Both teams played great and provided the hockey-deprived fans some high quality mid-summer fun. The game was highlighted with Bruiser and Delly’s scrap, an overtime session, and concluded with a shootout. Again! There must have been something in the water in room 825 this week, ha. After the game I hustled out of Kettler and made my way to the airport to flew back to Minnesota. I know looking back on the week I played hard, had a lot of fun with the guys, and am focused and ready to make another big step forward in the seven weeks leading up to training camp. I want to thank everyone who has been following what I’ve been able to share with you and ask that if you have any additional questions about anything over the past week you can get those to John and I’d be more than willing to answer them the best I can. Thanks again and enjoy the rest of your summer. - Fins

On Frozen Blog Reader www.onfrozenblog.com Washington, DC 20004 USA

This morning I was the bigger man and didn’t SLAM the door on Bruiser as he did the day before on me. I made quick work of a Denver Omlette, fruit with yogurt and a bagel, and headed to the rink for on-ice testing. On ice we were run through four different tests (S-test, top speed, sprint, neutral zone agility) by Jack Blatherwick. Of all the tests we do on ice, these tests are the most important for obvious reasons: they are the most hockey specific. I had done all of these before so I was comfortable with them, but the thing that is always difficult is the poor ice conditions. It was another hot day in D.C. on Wednesday, but it was amazingly humid. Humidity is no friend of an ice sheet, and with so many spectators coming in and out of the Iceplex we were bound to have ice issues. A number of guys, including myself, fell during the testing. It’s not the end of the world because you are allowed another attempt. In my case I’m lucky to skate away from my not so graceful tumble. After the testing was over Eakin, Delly and I went to Noodles for a quick carb load. Of course my eyes were bigger than my stomach and I ordered too much food to eat so I took some to go. We all headed back to the hotel and took a quick nap before heading back to the rink for the camp’s first scrimmage. [con't]

On Frozen Blog Reader www.onfrozenblog.com Washington, DC 20004 USA

[continuation of postcard text]

The scrimmage was a good starting point for me after nearly 8 months since my last official game. I tried to keep things simple and play physical. Obviously I expected to make mistakes, but I also wanted to stay away from letting one mistake lead to another. It was great to get the feeling of that first shift, to get the legs burning in actual competition, and I’m excited to get on the ice tomorrow.

Reflecting on the game today I started to think about all the effort I had put in during my injury to be ready for this opportunity, and I wanted to take the time to recognize a few people that were extremely important in my progress and ability to improve.

The first guy that comes to mind is Jack Blatherwick. He’s been more important to my training, both mentally and physically, than anyone else, not just over the past 8 months, but over the past few years in the summer months. The way that we train is to mimic on-ice movements and maximize their correlation with skating. I could go on for the next few days divulging the information that has sunk in, but I’ll spare you all.

The second guy is Tom Donahue from the Blake Ice Arena back home in Minnesota. He’s been opening the doors to his rink since I was 8 years old and I have rented ice from him (well my parents when I was younger) since I can remember. Having ice to skate on all year round is an unbelievable resource to have. The fact that he’s always been willing to help make me a better player and always has a smile on his face makes it that much more inviting to come in and work hard. Even if it’s for just a half hour just to go shoot pucks, Tom has been invaluable. For that I will always be indebted.

With all of that being said, I want to thank everyone who came out to support us today. I can’t thank you all enough and explain how great it is for all of us at this camp to play in front of a large crowd of passionate hockey fans in the middle of July! Again THANK YOU.

Time to tuck Bruiser into bed and read him a bed time story about Group A beating Group B for our scrimmage tomorrow.

–Fins

Finley, a native of Edina, Minnesota, was the Capitals' first-round selection in the 2005 NHL Entry draft, selected 27th overall. He played four seasons with the North Dakota Fighting Sioux of the WCHA, where he made his presence very known on most shifts. He spent the 2009-10 season with the Capitals' ECHL affiliate in South Carolina. He arrives at Development Camp this week listed by the Caps at 6 '8 and nearly 250 pounds. Let there be pain.]

Hey Capitals Fans, it’s Joe Finley and I was asked by OFB to share a week in Arlington, Va., at the Washington Capitals Conditioning Camp with you. The Capitals call it Development Camp, but I think of it as Conditioning Camp, it makes you so tired! I am excited to take the time each day and make my best attempt to bring you all closer to the process as experienced by me, the player.

Day One has been a long one. I started my travels jumping out of bed at 5:30 a.m. and hustling to the airport to catch a 7 o’clock flight from Minneapolis to D.C. It was nice to have been set up with a direct flight and be seated next to a number of familiar faces (Trevor Bruess and Kurt Davis) on the flight.

The next step was to get all of our gear dropped off at the rink and to get situated in the hotel before diving in face first for some great food and Vapiano’s right next to the hotel. I fell into a quick “deja vu” scenario after realizing I’ll be rooming with Bruess again (we were roommates at training camp last year).

A number of guys, including myself, went out for a 30-minute skate at Kettler today to get the blood flowing. Coach Woods ran us through some skating and passing drills before we broke for a informal 5-on-5 scrimmage. It was great to get out and start competing.

We had all our medicals and off-ice testing conducted after the skate. I always enjoy this portion of camp because you get to measure up against other guys but most importantly against yourself. I work to keep setting the bar higher year after year with test scores and am able to measure up when Mark Nemish and Jack Blatherwick present us with the numbers at the end of the week.

The day wrapped up with Braden Holtby gracing us with his presence to prolong testing (not his fault: plane delays and a cancellation), but you have to give him a hard time. We had an introduction to all the coaching staff, medical staff, equipment trainers, scouts, and strength and conditioning crew. A nice dinner at the hotel and some down time is wrapping it up. Time to catch some sleep before we hit it hard on the ice tomorrow!

ARLINGTON, VA. – Twenty-three Washington Capitals prospects, including all five selections from last month’s NHL Draft, will participate in the team’s annual development camp from July 12-17 at Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Arlington, Va. The camp, which features recent Capitals draft picks, select rookie players and other prospects, includes on- and off-ice workouts led by head coach Bruce Boudreau and his staff.

Among the confirmed participants are Capitals first-round draft picks Evgeny Kuznetsov (2010), Marcus Johansson (2009), Anton Gustafsson (2008) and Joe Finley (2005). Three participants – Cody Eakin, Braden Holtby and Zach Miskovic – played for the American Hockey League’s Hershey Bears during their run to the 2010 Calder Cup. Two players from last season’s development camp played for the Capitals in 2009-10 (John Carlson and Mathieu Perreault).

All development camp on-ice workouts, which will include multiple scrimmages, are open to the public. The off-ice workouts are closed to the public. Camp concludes with a scrimmage on Saturday, July 17, at 10 a.m., the highlight of Fan Fest that day will also include autograph sessions, interactive games, street hockey, a free public skate, the team’s annual equipment sale and an appearance from current Capitals forward Brooks Laich.

Capitals Summer Development Camp On Ice Schedule

Sunday, July 11		Players arrive
Monday, July 12		Group A on ice at 9:45 a.m.; Group B on ice at 2:30 p.m.
Tuesday, July 13		Group B on ice at 9:30 a.m.; Group A on ice at 11:45 a.m.
Wednesday, July 14		Group A on ice at 9:45 a.m.; Group B on ice at 11:15 a.m.; scrimmage at 3:15 p.m.
Thursday, July 15		Scrimmage at 9 a.m.
Friday, July 16		Group A on ice at 9:30 a.m.; Group B on ice at 11:15 a.m.
Saturday, July 17		Scrimmage at 10 a.m.

Along with his prestigious career in the American League, Coach Woods also had a notable career in . . . roller hockey. Greg Wyshynski has a great story on it over at Puck Daddy.

With the Caps, Coach Woods told us, he will specialize on helping out with the defensemen and certainly smoothing the transition to the NHL for call-ups from Hershey.

Here are the photos, courtesy of Chanuck:

Saturday is the final day of the Washington Capitals Development Camp, and as is our custom, OFB will be there armed with laptops and the company of cheerful, knowledgeable new media colleagues.

While young prospects try to show Caps’ management that they warrant an invite to fall training camp, OFB will be covering the camp-concluding scrimmage with an All-Star lineup of bloggers. You can tune in right here for insight, comment, and quips on the next generation of Caps. We’ll be joined by the world’s most famous goalie and beauty queen, Miss Virginia 2008 Tara Wheeler, who will be keeping a close eye on the play of our young goalies. She’s certainly qualified, as she stood between the pipes out at Kettler last year and took shots from the Capitals’ Dave Steckel and Sean Collins.

Additionally, several new and rising voices within the Capitals blogging community will join us. Reed Albers of Capitals Kremlin will be on hand, as will Alex Perlmutter of the brand new blog The Capital Letter. Alex has been spending the early part of summer working in the Toronto offices of the Hockey News with their editorial team. Hockey Mom is also heading out to Kettler Saturday with her laptop and stopping by our party. Empty Maybe will make a most welcomed return, and be joined by pucksandbooks. And this sizable party is even making room for the intern. We hope you’ll join in the fun.