Our thoughts this morning are with John Walton and his family, in Cincinnati, where John’s son Jack is having surgery today. We’re expecting him to be good and healed up and ready for Caps’ and Bears’ training camps come fall.
10. The Rebuild Is Over. Owner Leonsis uttered this proclamation during the preseason, later claiming that the season’s barometer for success would be qualifying for the postseason. Through the middle of November both seemed delusionally wishful thinking. But when the right guy arrived behind the bench, when the Caps’ skilled young core was encouraged to attack, the team took off, rampaging from last in the league at Thanksgiving to a Southeast Division crown on the regular season’s final Saturday. The right pieces indeed were in place, and the team’s future has never been as promising.
9. Backstrom: the no. 1 Pivot of the Future — and the Present. Really nobody knew what Nicklas Backstrom’s rookie season in the NHL would bring. During last July’s Development Camp, he seemed to struggle a bit with making plays on a smaller sheet. But he looked better at the end of camp than at its start, and by September’s training camp he looked even more adjusted. Like other skilled players in Glen Hanlon’s system, he struggled. Like other skilled players under Bruce Boudreau, he blossomed.
His 69 points on the season represented the second-most prolific rookie season in Caps’ history (behind a certain precocious Russian in 2005-06). Most telling: 60 of his points came in the final 61 games. He adjusted all right. He played his finest hockey of the season when you want a player to — in the postseason. In so doing he defied a long tradition of rookies fading under the rigors of an 82-game season. And he rightfully earned a nomination for the Calder trophy.
8. One Seriously Sorry Sheet. Washington’s never been known to offer a quality sheet of ice for its NHL games, but the matter gained unprecedented urgency when in December team captain Chris Clark spoke with commendable candor to the Washington Post about the indefensible ice at home. This surface wasn’t merely bad aesthetically, it was, suggested Clark, injurious to players. Clark himself lost virtually the entire season to a groin injury. Flyers’ winger Mike Knuble injured his leg when he caught it in a Verizon Center rut in the playoffs. And game 7’s sheet was so ill-prepared that arena workers could be seen repairing it on their hands and knees in the moments before puck-drop — and throughout the game.
Whatever greatly skilled and exciting roster Capitals’ management assembles for the future, it won’t much matter if at home it’s asked to compete on an ability-leveling and integrity-sacrificing surface.
7. Deadline Day Doozies. Trade deadline day was supposed to be quiet for the Caps. It turned out to be anything but. General manager George McPhee engineered a dramatic infusion of postseason experience and skill in areas of weakness on February 26, including securing a no.1 netminder in Cristobal Huet from Montreal for merely a second-round pick in the 2009 Entry Draft. All three players acquired on deadline day played pivotal roles in the season’s final 18 games.
In his Capitals’ debut on February 29, Huet stopped all 18 shots he faced in backstopping the Caps to a 4-0 win in New Jersey. He went 11-2 in his 13 starts for the Caps, winning the final nine games he started. In the biggest game the Caps played in years, Sergei Fedorov, acquired for 2007 second round selection Teddy Ruth, was named the game’s first star in the Caps’ 3-1 win over Florida on April 5, which vaulted the team to the SouthEast title and the postseason for the first time since 2003. He was especially adept in the faceoff circle. Matt Cooke played a less significant part statistically during the stretch run but recaptured his active, pest-like play from years ago in Vancouver night in and night out. All three veterans were credited with providing vital leadership to the young and inexperienced Caps.
6. Mike Green: the no. 1 Gun Arrives. If there was one overarching question confronting the Caps’ blueline heading into the 2007-08 season, it was: is there a no.1 Gun among? If last September you thought there was, you knew something the rest of hockey didn’t. In 2006-07, Mike Green played 70 games for the Caps, tallying just 2 goals and 10 assists. He offered glimpses of high-end promise, but he also seemed years away from becoming consistent and reliable and earning a top pairing assignment. But this past season Green blossomed into a dominant, mature-for-his-years force. He led the entire league in goals by a defenseman during the regular season, and he followed that with a superb playoff series — so much so that Flyers’ head coach John Stevens very publicly made it known that Mike Green was a weapon his team had to strategize to stop. The no.1 Gun on the Caps’ blueline has arrived.
5. AO: The Best Hockey Player on the Planet. Alexander Ovechkin’s hardware-hogging brilliance during 2007-08 earned him broadcasts of “Ovechkin Ovations” on the NHL Network and, more importantly, ascension over the Nova Scotian as the game’s greatest talent. His 65 goals during the regular season were the most scored by a Capital in franchise history, and he became just the 19th player in NHL history to score 60 goals in a season. By the end of the regular season he’d staked unassailable claims to both the Richard and Ross trophies and was a near mortal lock to command both the Hart trophy and the Lester Pearson award for his most valuable performance. At one point no less than the Great One suggested that his seemingly unbreakable record of 92 goals scored in a single season could be within Ovechkin’s visored viewfinder.
4. Canning Glen; Finding the Right Guy Right up the Road. After winning their first three games of the season, the Capitals proceeded to lose 15 of their next 18 and plummet to the very bottom of the NHL standings. While Glen Hanlon may well have been the right coach to preside over the rebuilding Caps beginning not long before the team began its purge of high-priced, under-achieving talent in the 2003-04 season, autumn 2007 seemed to deliver a resoundingly rotten verdict on his ability to advance the team to where management deemed appropriate for 2007-08.
No one would suggest that Hanlon didn’t offer the organization his fullest possible effort. But by late 2007 that effort wasn’t working. “He knew as soon as he saw me this morning,” McPhee told the Washington Post on Thanksgiving day. “He said, ‘I wouldn’t have known what to do today.’ ”
Enter Bruce Boudreau, aka “Gabby.” On Thanksgiving Eve Bruce Boudreau was in his third season behind the Hershey Bears’ bench. He’d enjoyed an auspicious first two seasons there: a Calder Cup title in his first season in Hershey in the spring of 2006 and a return to the finals the following season. He’d won a Kelly Cup title in the East Coast League as well. Still, to many Capitals’ fans, he appeared to be just another “no name” plucked from the farm.
Probably it was with this in mind that Hershey Bears’ Senior Manager for Communications John Walton authored a memorable open letter to Capitals’ fans on the day that Gabby was announced as the new Caps’ coach. “Know this first and foremost,” Walton wrote in his letter. “He’s a winner . . . For what it’s worth, we have seen the magic here. We’re more than willing to share.” Continue reading ›
Ever heard of a goalie making 100 saves in a professional hockey game? It almost happened last night.
The Philadelphia Phantoms and the Albany River Rats last night played the longest game in the American Hockey League’s 72-year history. They went into five overtimes! The Phantoms’ Ryan Potulny scored at 2:58 of the fifth OT to end it, giving Philly a 3-2 lead in the series.
The Phantoms fired an astounding 101 shots on the Albany net. River Rats’ netminder Michael Leighton made 98 saves.
Incidentally, the referee who worked last night’s Phantoms-River Rats’ marathon, Frederic L’Ecuyer, is slated to make his way to Wilkes Barre-Scranton to work tonight’s game 5 between the Bears and the Penguins. As of early this afternoon, according to the Bears’ John Walton, L’Ecuyer was still scheduled to work it. I’d have taken L’Ecuyer and his six-OT legs to work our game 7 here on Tuesday before either Koharski or Devorski.
Note: the following letter was penned by Hershey Bears Senior Manager of Communications and radio play-by-play voice John Walton on the day that Bruce Boudreau was named head coach of the Washington Capitals last November.
AN OPEN LETTER TO CAPITALS NATION
11/22/2007 - To: Capitals Fans far and wide
From: Humble Bears Radio guy
Re: Bruce Boudreau
Caps Nation:
I know it’s been a trying few weeks watching your team slide in the standings, and I know a lot of you have been frustrated with what you’ve seen. I also know that some of you in discussion boards have wondered what Bruce Boudreau will do for your team, with some of you thinking “here we go again” with another AHL coach being called up instead of some “name” coach for big bucks. I just wanted to let you know, as a humble servant of your minor league affiliate, I believe Bruce is the guy you need. Bruce Boudreau is one of the greatest people I’ve ever been around, a great leader of men with just enough grit to go with his compassion for his players to get the job done for you. I’ve ridden the buses with him, I’ve seen him one-on-one with players, I’ve seen him when times are good, and I’ve seen him when times are bad. Know this first and foremost: He’s a winner. He’s won more games than anyone in the last ten years in the AHL, and twice with two different teams has won at least 50 games in a season. In 2005-06, he took a group of Washington farmhands that missed the playoffs the year before in Portland, shaped them along with some Hershey guys that also missed the playoffs the season before and made them into Calder Cup Champions. To prove it wasn’t a fluke, the BEARS the next season won a franchise record 51 games (and we’ve been around for 70 years now, not a shabby record to have) and went all the way back to the Finals again. We’d have gone back-to-back except we ran into goaltender Carey Price, who now tends goal for the Montreal Canadiens. That’s 29 wins in the playoffs the last two years. When Hershey won the Cup in 2006, they had to beat the Portland Pirates, who featured NHLers Dustin Penner, Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf. Yes, that would be the Penner that signed for big bucks in Edmonton this past summer, and yes, that would be the same Getzlaf who just this week signed a five-year deal with Anaheim. Suffice it to say that Bruce has a pretty good handle on guys who play at the National Hockey League level. All big name coaches in the NHL had to come from somewhere and get their chance before they became “name” coaches. I refer you to none other than your own Bryan Murray from back in the day. He was Hershey’s coach too before he came to D.C., and I’d say as the franchise leader in wins down there, that worked out pretty well.
We’re pulling for you guys to turn it around. We really are. So many players on your team started here and got their feet under them in Hershey, and we wish them nothing but the best. If Bruce remains for the long term in Washington, we’ll miss him terribly here, but you’ll love him like we do. Honest. For what it’s worth, we have seen the magic here. We’re more than willing to share.
Sincerely,
Humble Bears Radio Guy
My good friend Eric McErlain didn’t pick a good night to play hookie from the hockey rink. But he doesn’t have much red in his wardrobe anyway.
But first thing’s first. I asked for one WaPost columnist to attend Tuesday night and George Solomon sent two, including himself. There were enough Post reporters in attendance last night to fairly fill the media elevator. I messaged Dan Steinberg after the game, explaining to him my need now to call out the Post for ‘dissing the Wizards and Redskins in its Caps’ slant. Hah.
(Reader Dave: did you really deliver my letter to the Post yesterday?)
Every Caps’ player in the post game commented on the home crowd. The Caps Tuesday night established their bona fides as an aspiring playoff team to be reckoned with; their supporters in the stands likewise auditioned magnificently for the role of postseason noisemakers of distinction. Both are new to the endeavor — both seem very ready.
Those of us in the hockey blogging community wondered what would happen to our privileged perch in the Verizon Center press box when our sweet secret about this hockey team got out, and a tsunami of bandwagoning old media came a calling. Tuesday night, we learned. To accommodate all of the press demand for the big game the Caps’ media maven Nate Ewell filled every press box seat, two rows deep, on both sides of the sixth floor, and managed to fulfill every media request he fielded, new and old. That impressed me. I’m not going to suggest that should the team make a deep run in the playoffs we in new media will all be there to cover it . . . just maybe reminding Mr. Leonsis of his pledge to ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ to host us in his box should press credentials run short. Hah.
Wow but it was red in the rink. During the national anthem, with the lights dimmed, the three levels of red managed to cast a powerfully pervasive haze of hometown unity. Mr. Leonsis was beaming in the post-game locker room adorned in his red Caps’ sweater. Channel 4’s Lindsay Czarniak looked fetching in a stylish red sweater. (”Fetching”? That’s awful writing. The woman could fill a cathedral of male worshippers wearing a potato sack and mud mask.) Lisa Hillary was red literally from neckline to toe — eager to show off a new red paint job on her toes. Sportscasters Michael Jenkins and Dave Feldman brought their naturally red hair. I wore a smart looking red necktie.
You know who looked reddest of all? Peter Laviolette.
Our good friends from the Hershey Bears sure picked the right night for a visit. John Walton was blogging in-game and delightfully distracted from all those Bears’ injuries by the electric atmosphere in the rink. Tim Leone of the Patriot News was sharing with me his anticipation for next week’s Frozen Four, with the upstart, Cinderella Fighting Irish of Notre Dame having captured his former USC Trojan heart. Chris Poisal summed up the feelings of all from the farm: he came away impressed with this hockey team’s “swagger.” He told me during the second intermission that what he was seeing out on the ice Tuesday night reminded him a lot of the swagger the Hershey Bears had en route to their Calder Cup in 2006.
“This team is going to make the playoffs,” Poisal told me, “and once there, they are going to do damage.”
The game atmospheres feverish hockey fans fantastically improve correspond intimately to the magic their eyes consume. This new Red Army in town seemed Tuesday night unleashed as a fixture battalion on F Street. At times Tuesday, most especially when the home team delivered a glass-rattling check, they ascended to alarming realms of raucousness: with clenched fists they’d turn and pound on the glass partition separating them from the game’s media. It was, initially, somewhat scary — but scary good.
Chalk it up to excessive Red Hook.
Thursday night — and thirty months from now — I can envision the earth-toned-clad hockey fan arriving at the Phone Booth to looks of disdain from his impassioned puck peer in scarlet. Even Gang Green has gone red.
Let’s designate this Wednesday — mercifully for our panic-attack hockeyhearts a gameless day for the home team — a Code Red: meaning, ours is the team and sport white-hot in town, we its supporters now send screams of “Let’s Go Caps!” cascading through Metro tunnels and Green Turtles. Let’s bask in this red glow of victory all day and evening long, get dinner out of the way early and settle in before the TVs for a fresh set of Eastern conference showdowns. And even in our temporary, domestic R&R, dress for battle.
Saturday night’s Bears-Phantoms game at Giant Center was a sellout. “We could have sold 15,000 for this one,” John Walton told me a half hour before faceoff. The Bears are number one in the American League in attendance, averaging almost 8,500 per game — more than 700 fans more per game than second-best in attendance Wilkes Barre-Scranton.
Philadelphia is in first in the AHL’s East division, and entering Saturday night’s play they held a 10-pt. lead over the second-place Bears. But Bob Woods’ charges won at Philly Friday night, and a followup victory Saturday, coupled with the fact that Hershey has four games in hand, could have made things interesting. You have to think, too, that the return of Eric Fehr and Sami Lepisto, perhaps as soon as Monday, will strengthen the surging Bears down the stretch.
This weekend represents a rare opportunity for hockey fans in Hershey to catch the team at home for much of mid-February through mid-March. Beginning February 14 in Cleveland, the Bears went on the road for five straight, which ended with Friday night’s victory in Philly, returned home this weekend for just two games in 22 hours, then will board a plane for two mid-week games in Manitoba against the Moose. They’ll remain on the road and play four games in New England the following week. All told, over about a month’s time, the Bears during a crucial stretch of the season will have played 14 of 16 games on the road.
No one in the Hershey organization would utter anything but the goal of catching the Phantoms, but surviving this road warrior stretch still in second place would be no small feat in itself.
And no one in the Hershey organization would have scripted Saturday night’s first period any differently. The Bears raced out to a 3-0 lead on goals by Kyle Wilson, Jay Beagle, and Andrew Joudrey — the latter coming shorthanded on a superb cross-slot feed from Andrew Gordon. The first-20-minute Bears won seemingly every race to the puck, had all four lines clicking, forechecked with abandon, and got some strong saves from Freddie Cassivi.
But first-place hockey clubs don’t often go gently into the swept in a home-and-home night, and the Phantoms erased a rotten first period with a stellar second. A Bears’ official told me he’d “give a million dollars” to have Boyd Kane back in a Bears’ sweater: “He was the heart and soul of our Calder Cup run in 2006,” this team rep told me. Here was Kane’s second period Saturday night: two goals and an assist. The Phantom captain is not a swift skater — he’s just consistently in the right place at the right time, playing a heady, very leader-like game. The Phantoms scored three unanswered goals in the second period, two coming on the power play, to even the game at 3 at the second intermission. A sold-out Saturday night home crowd rather swiftly fell silent.
Incredibly, things got worse in the third. Two Phantoms scored their first goals of the season Saturday night, with Martin Grenier tallying at 5:31 when a lumbering puck-carrying Sasha Pokulok was easily overtaken in his own end, stripped of the puck, and sent sulking back to the Bears’ bench with the red lamp lit behind Cassivi and his team suddenly in a 4-3 hole. Of Pokulok it could be said, charitably, that he is having an underwhelming first full season in the American League. He did nothing Saturday night to change that assessment.
Less than a minute later, at 6:08, Phantom captain Kane would pot his fourth point of the evening, assisting on a Jared Ross marker that had the home faithful sounding like they’d wished the Bears had stayed on the road. Five unanswered Phantom goals resulted in a 5-3 revenge of Friday night. The Bears’ line of Scott Barney, Andrew Joudrey, and Andrew Gordon, while an offensive catalyst on many shifts in the first period, was on the even strength ice for both of Philly’s third period tallies. The youthful center and right wing are very promising prospects, but they suffered tough lessons late Saturday night.
At least I had the very pleasant company of Caps’ goaltending coach Dave Prior beside me for the farm team’s two-period meltdown.
One bright spot in a home sweater was Patrick McNeill, recently recalled from ECHL affiliate South Carolina and a Caps’ 2005 draft pick (115th overall). He’s listed at 6′1, 200, but his is not a physical game. He passes extremely well, gets the puck moving out of his zone with poise, manuevers agilely at the point, and Saturday night displayed some effective work along the boards at times. He put up monster numbers with Saginaw in the OHL the past couple of seasons, including 58 points in 58 games last season. He may be in Hershey to stay and develop.
Saturday night’s game came easily to the Bears in the opening 20 minutes. After that, they didn’t pay the price; they sat back and allowed the Phantoms to dictate possession and pace. What could have been a memorable and important statement against Hershey’s Pennsylvania rivals this weekend — Wilkes Barre-Scranton arrives at Giant Center tomorrow afternoon — was rudely interrupted by a persevering Phantoms club. Head Coach Bob Woods had tough words for his troops afterward.
“We sat back. We got bored with [doing] the simple things and we said ‘let’s get fancy’.”
“I don’t blame Freddie [Cassivi]. I blame the guys out there in front of him.”
“We played it to a tee in the first period . . . but [later] guys were on their own page, [and] we’ve had this problem all year.
“[General Manager] Doug’s not going to stand for it.”
The Bears on Sunday will heed their head coach’s words or face a long and most unpleasant plane ride back out on the road, out to frozen western Canada, early in the new week.
I’m a blogger banished to the American League on a behavioral conditioning assignment. As banishments go, Hershey’s hardly a hardship. If you’ve read this blog for three months, you know of my affinity for this community, its state-of-the-art rink, the quality people surrounding the team, and its unrivaled hockey heritage.
There’s a lot more to recommend this visit. This Hershey Bears’ club, which a month into the season appeared to be in rebuilding mode, is today 21-14-0-2. They’re nine points back of first-place Philly but just three points back of Wilkes Barre for second. The Bears lost last night in Wilkes Barre 3-1, where BJ apparently stood on his head to keep the game close. No wonder he got called back to D.C. so fast. Anyway, big-time turnaround going on here. Sound familiar?
It’s also the first-ever visit to Giant Center by the first-year Lake Erie Monsters. That’s historical, not in an alert the National Archives sense, but quirky novel enough as inducement for me to drive up on a January Saturday night with the Caps idle. When the Monsters unveiled their logo prior to the season, we had a little fun with it. Tonight, too, there’ll be some prospects I haven’t seen play in Bears’ sweaters, like Daren Machesney and Patrick McNeill. And Chris Bourque is recently returned to the lineup recuperated from a concussion.
Machesney is fast becoming a real story here. He’s 11-2-1-1 with a 2.02 goals-against and am epe-popping .933 save percentage. As Caps’ goalie prospects go, I’m not sure he was on the tips of too many Caps’ fans tongues three months ago, but I wasn’t long in the Hershey press box tonight before a handful of writers and Bears’ folks brought him up to me.
Eric Fehr played last night in Wilkes Barre but is getting tonight off. Understandable that the Bears wouldn’t want him going all three games this weekend. He’s likely to play tomorrow.
Josef Boumedienne is making his first appearance for Hershey tonight since December 1.
Stephen Werner scored his first goal of the season on a nifty shorthanded breakaway just 2:08 in. Then: the Monsters, on a Jeff Jillson tally, knot up it just seconds later.
The PA announcer may earn his stipend tonight: still not 5 minutes in, and three goals are already up on the board. 2-1 Bears on a Jason Morgan marker.
And not five minutes in, we have the evening’s first Louis Robitaille dance card, with Monster Mitch Love. A lot of prelude and prancing, but a decent tilt that I’d award the slight decision to Robitaille, though Love definitely got some un-love blows in.
It’s really enjoyable seeing two promising forward prospects — Andrew Joudrey and Andrew Gordon — skate on a line together, and at the 7:13 mark, Joudrey made a superb centering feed from the half boards that Gordon blasted home. If Hershey scores a fourth here in the first, will Monster netminder Tyler Weiman get the hook?
Speaking of getting hooked, I mean hitched, Oh My God, another marriage proposal at another hockey game! She said yes, but it took her a while. On this weekend when I’m trying to remind Mr. Leonsis of my virtues, being a bit of a Cupid karma in rinks is one, no?
16:12 into the first: Lepisto with a well-aimed, low bomb from the right point that Andrew Gordon deflected past Weiman. Weiman’s still in, but there was nothing he could do on that one. It was a superb redirect by Gordon. He’s doubled his goals on the season (4) after just one period tonight.
One uber-impressive period in the books: 4-1 Bears after one.
During the first intermission, I was invited to join Bears’ radio voice John Walton for a chat during intermission two. I wonder what he wants to talk about? Continue reading ›
Monday night was anything but another ordinary weeknight regular season game at Verizon Center. A healthy sampling of the communications crew from the Hershey Bears made the trip down, their schedule at last allowing for a visit to D.C. to catch up with the newly promoted coach they so admire. The voice the Bears, John Walton, brought along Chris Poisal, who’s keeping Bears’ stats for Coach Bob Woods, and Lamont Buford, who keeps the Bears’ web site fresh and informative. Chris, incidentally, started blogging this fall ["Dupree in the Sin Bin"] and is tracking American Hockey League life with commendable breadth and detail. He’s become my pipeline to real-time progress reports on Eric Fehr’s rehab.
Coach Boudreau didn’t know about the visit from his friends ahead of time, and so the scene inside the Caps’ room after last night’s victory was warm like you might imagine — made the moreso by Quintin Laing’s game-winning heroics.
I hadn’t seen these guys since Hershey’s home opener back in late October, and given the intervening developments of note since then, last night’s reunion made for a lively dinner chat. It was fascinating listening to the perspectives on the big changes from these guys who know Coach Boudreau best. You might recall that the Bears were in Philadelphia on Friday, November 23, playing that night against the Phantoms after Bruce Boudreau made his debut as Caps’ coach that afternoon against the Flyers. These circumstances helped fuel an emotion in the Hershey organization that day that was, Walton told me, at times overwhelming.
“After the [2006 Calder] Cup, that day was the most rewarding in my entire hockey career,” he told me. “I was so spent that by the time we boarded the bus to get back [to Hershey], I was asleep before it pulled out.”
There seems to be a lot of Hershey Bears influence about the Caps these days, all of it positive. I find myself wishing it’d arrived here about 10 years ago.
Now then. There were of course notable items from last night’s game, led first and foremost by the fact that someone in Caps’ communications managed to see me seated next to a recent Miss New Jersey, who was, yes, blogging from the game. I didn’t believe at first, either (although she was distinctly attractive), but Vogel assured me it was true. Plus, early Tuesday morning, over breakfast in a Mayflower suite, she showed me her crown. Kidding about the Mayflower — what blogger could afford that lodging?
November 23 in Philadelphia was, technically, Bruce Boudreau’s debut as head coach of the Washington Capitals. But I actually believe we’ll see Bruce Boudreau’s Washington Capitals for the first time tonight, in New Jersey, in the new Prudential Center. It should be an evening of newness and renewal.
Last Sunday I asked Coach Boudreau about the importance of this week’s five-day break from play in terms of putting his imprint on the team. Without pause he affirmed it — this was to be a week of actual instruction, whereas in the frenzy of six games in his first nine days in D.C. all he was largely able to impart to the team were basic alignments and exhortations. This has been a teaching week for Bruce Boudreau. Tonight we begin to learn how much his pupils have absorbed.
We know this from the Bruce Boudreau track record: his teachings and tactics more often than not take hold, and winning commonly followed. The voice of the Hershey Bears, John Walton, yesterday told me, “If there’s anybody in hockey who can get the Caps to eighth [in the East], it’s Bruce.”
It may have been the case that a substitute teacher — students’ favorite kind – had been instructing the Caps the past three seasons. This December in D.C. there is a headmaster in charge. He’s stern, he’s a taskmaster, but he’s also a classic hockey personality. To be around Bruce Boudreau is to be regaled in hockey lore. Some of this, I’m sure, is shared with his players. This in itself has to be a welcomed, refreshing change in the Caps’ room.
Since Boudreau has taken over the Caps I’ve wondered about successful hockey coaches and their ability, over the course of brutally long seasons, to extract excellence out of battered bodies with such consistency. The Hershey Bears last season enjoyed their finest season in their storied history: 51-17-6, good for 114 points. The season prior, also under Boudreau, was merely excellent, and capped with a Calder Cup. Both seasons were marked by lengthy winning streaks — including, during the 2006 postseason, an astounding 10 consecutive victories. Under Boudreau the Bears also won seven consecutive playoff series. Those kind of accomplishments, it seems, can only arrive from magnificent preparation, instruction, and motivation — from the head guy — and extraordinary selflessness and sacrifice from his players.
Boudreau, I think, in addition to possessing a savvy hockey head must also have enjoyed inordinate credibility with most of the players in every room he’s coached to get the results he has.
Skepticism surrounding the long-term prospects of the interim coach are premised, I think, on the fact that Boudreau’s predecessor, too, arrived in Washington via the American League, and that like Glen Hanlon, Bruce Boudreau never before managed an NHL bench. But such a view views the coach in static fashion; Bruce Boudreau was a better coach in Hershey than he was in Manchester (and he was quite good there as well). Why wouldn’t we think he’d improve here too? And he brings a championship pedigree with him.
This week Boudreau was asked, with reference to his team’s last-place standing, just how much improvement he thought the team could make this season. Noting that more than 50 games remained, he responded, “Why not first?”
We shouldn’t have expected any other answer.
Per Tim Leone:
Defenseman Jame Pollock is leaving the Hershey Bears to play in Russia.
“The listing on eurohockey.net is accurate,” Bears broadcaster John Walton said today. “For any further clarification, we’ll have to defer to the Washington Capitals.”
Washington suspended Pollock. However, since Russia operates outside the International Ice Hockey Federation agreement, the suspension has no real teeth in this situation and Pollock will be free to play for CSKA Moscow.
Here’s more from John Walton’s blog:
I’d gotten several calls and e-mails here today about Jame Pollock, and a blurb that appeared on Eurohockey.net about his signing a contract with a team in Russia. The rumor was that he had signed a contract with CSKA in Moscow. I honestly thought it was a mistake at first, because Pollock practiced with the team today, and I saw him at about 11:45 this morning once practice concluded. Turns out he has indeed decided to leave, and Russia is his destination. Upon hearing of his intentions, the Capitals were left little choice but to suspend Pollock, who was under NHL contract for the season. In any case, his days in Hershey have come to a sudden halt. Washington had no official comment on the situation. An already battered blue line takes another big hit, no question about that.
John Walton, radio voice of the Hershey Bears, published an open letter to Capitals fans on his web site.
I know it’s been a trying few weeks watching your team slide in the standings, and I know a lot of you have been frustrated with what you’ve seen. I also know that some of you in discussion boards have wondered what Bruce Boudreau will do for your team, with some of you thinking “here we go again” with another AHL coach being called up instead of some “name” coach for big bucks. I just wanted to let you know, as a humble servant of your minor league affiliate, I believe Bruce is the guy you need. Bruce Boudreau is one of the greatest people I’ve ever been around, a great leader of men with just enough grit to go with his compassion for his players to get the job done for you. I’ve ridden the buses with him, I’ve seen him one-on-one with players, I’ve seen him when times are good, and I’ve seen him when times are bad. Know this first and foremost: He’s a winner…
…If Bruce remains for the long term in Washington, we’ll miss him terribly here, but you’ll love him like we do. Honest. For what it’s worth, we have seen the magic here. We’re more than willing to share.
The complete letter can be found here.
Per John Walton’s Blog, Walton, Wired and Unwired, Chris Bourque has been recalled and should be in tonight’s lineup against Atlanta.
Tonight, the Hershey Bears are in Connecticut to play the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. They left yesterday afternoon to arrive by dinner time, allowing plenty of rest before the puck drops. Keep in mind, this is the AHL where you travel old school. You travel by bus. This trip is roughly a four hour ride — without traffic.
Bears’ radio voice John Walton didn’t let a bus ride hinder his blogging. Thanks to wireless internet (via cell technology, no doubt), he was posting “from the posh surroundings of the team bus” and gave us a glimpse of life in the AHL.
The guys are taking in “Blades of Glory” on the bus this afternoon with Will Ferrell. If you haven’t heard me mention it on the radio before, the movies on the team bus are 100 percent the selection of the head coach. There is no form of democracy present once we’re wheels up when it comes to television programming. Usually the movies are ok, like today. There are other times I’ve considered climbing up on the roof to get away from whatever’s being shown. Today is a good day, though. All part of a day’s work on the road.
Fans of both the Washington Capitals and Hershey Bears received more good news this week: Bears’ Senior Manager of Communications and radio play-by-play voice John Walton debuted his blog yesterday: Walton, Wired and Unwired.
Walton’s game calls rank among the best in all the business, and his access to the Bears — “I go everywhere the team goes,” he wrote yesterday — means that Capitals’ hockey fans looking for the inside scoop down on the farm can visit Walton, Wired and Unwired and gain even greater insight from a true insider.
We’ve specifically told Walton to consider adding snippets of his Bears’ broadcast work to the blog, and file no. 1 should be his call of Eric Fehr’s Eastern Conference clincher in game 7 sudden death the spring before last.
Welcome to the hockey blogosphere, John!
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