05 September, 2008

Category Archives: Hardcore Hockey Fans

In the State of Hockey, There Is No Offseason

By pucksandbooks
Friday, September 5, 2008

I had objectives to meet on business in Minneapolis-St. Paul this week, but the one I coveted most was meeting a local who could happy hour chat me through a bit of the State of Hockey’s passion for puck. I’d read a lot about it over the years, but I wanted a real live, first-hand testimonial of it, unhurried, over a couple of beers. Minneapolis native Paul Wallerius, in his youth an accomplished local scholastic hockey player, and today a successful businessman and the youth hockey coach to a team that includes his 10-year-old son (”been in skates for seven of his ten years,” he told me), gave me just that this week.

The first important Minnesota hockey history lesson Wallerius imparted to me was an appreciation for the rivalry that Minneapolis has with twin town St. Paul. St. Paul, he told me, has purposely and strategically used hockey to better its prestige in the rivalry. Minneapolis is home to the Twins, Vikings, and Timberwolves. It’s fairly horded the pro sports teams over the years. But the North Stars, Wallerius pointed out, left the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, and since 2000, St. Paul has been home to the Wild, where every game they’ve ever played has been sold out at the Xcel Energy Center. St. Paul and Xcel are also home to the state’s famous high school hockey tournament. St. Paul made an aggressive attempt to lure the Twins out of Minneapolis and into a new outdoor baseball stadium slated to open in 2010, but ultimately Minneapolis won the siting.

Minnesota I learned is home to some fifteen thousand lakes. Glaciers which visited the upper Midwest region tens of thousand of years ago are responsible for many of them. It seems fitting that an Ice Age would prove to be the wellspring of the terrain for the State of Hockey.

Wallerius wanted me to make a stop at Tom Reid’s Hockey City Pub, also in St. Paul. Just two blocks from the Xcel Center, it’s a modest museum for Minnesota hockey. On the day I walked over to it from the arena the high temperature in the two cities was 67 degrees, under an indigo blue sky. Very hockey weather for early September. Tom Reid was a defenseman for the North Stars back in the day. He also works radio broadcasts for Wild games. His hockey pub is home to fairly forgettable pub food but worth the visit just to admire the breadth of memorabilia smartly scattered over the pub’s brick walls.

About Xcel Center: it’s a world-class hockey venue, but it’s also home to its own museum celebrating Minnesota hockey. Its most distinctive feature for me was the Jersey Wall: the sweaters of nearly 200 Minnesota high school teams showcased on a club level. They are like individual flags forming a very United Hockey Nation. They are beautiful to behold — the moreso as no Reebok uniform systems are found among them. The arena also showcases exhibits from the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, and high-profile hockey headlines published decades ago in the St. Paul Pioneer Press are plastered on arena pillars.

A fairly significant moment occurred late last year when Sports Illustrated conferred the title of ‘Hockeytown’ on St. Paul, in response to Detroit’s tepid attendance at games for a great Wings’ team. The Minneapolis Star Tribune, in covering the development, noted that while St. Paul’s claims to the title are impressive, it may only be the second-best Minnesota community for the designation. Warroad, Minnesota, 400 miles to the north, is another well-credentialed claimant. Still, the major magazine’s designation of St. Paul is no trivial matter in the State of Hockey. Hockeytown, State of Hockey, would be a very cool postal address to have. I could retire there.

I pointed out to my new hockey friend that I was greatly anticipating the screening of ‘Pond Hockey,’ the new documentary crafted by Minnesotans Tommy Haines and Andrew Sherbrune. He hadn’t seen it, but he wasn’t surprised by its production by two Hockey Staters.

‘Pond Hockey’ chronicles the formation of the first annual U.S. Pond Hockey Championships, and while set in Minneapolis, it has fast become a state-wide source of enormous pride, Wallerius told me. “It’s only a couple of years old,” he noted, “but it draws teams literally from around the world.”

My new hockey friend asked me what likelihood there was that I could make a return visit to his city for the big party on the big frozen lake.

“Strong,” I replied.

He smiled. He wants to host me for it. I can’t wait for the season’s ice age to return.

Filed in American Hockey, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hockey, Hockey Towns, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, Old Time Hockey, Pond Hockey, Print, Shinny, Sports Illustrated| Permalink| Comments (1)

The Potential for Reformed Government: Hockey for Everyone

By pucksandbooks
Saturday, August 30, 2008

I don’t know about you, but I’m both startled and delighted at the frequency with which we’re seeing hockey included in American’s contemporary political dialogue. Up until the very end of the veep selection process, there was a widespread belief that Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty could get the nod from nominee McCain. Ultimately, he chose a governor from another hockey-mad state, Sarah Palin of Alaska.

Back in 2004, presidential candidate John Kerry carried off a photo-op at a rink, but it didn’t carry the impact that hockey has in this election year. Kerry’s embrace of hockey then, much like that of his wind surfing voyage that campaign season, I think struck voters as something half-hearted and politically opportunistic.

But in 2008, we’ve seen political candidates in full-on and long-standing embraces of Bauers. What if during the vice presidential debates this autumn, when national political newcomer Palin is asked to relate some biography to American television viewers, she identifies ‘Mystery, Alaska’ as her favorite movie?

It’s a shame that Vice Presidents can’t issue Executive Orders, because  Governor Palin might, like Pawlenty, be inclined in office to proclaim some hockey-related initiatives human rights and high priorities in her first 100 days as veep! The right to bear Bauers . . . floor hockey in all public school phys-ed programs . . . cabinet meetings conducted within shinny skated on the Reflecting Pool (with under-performing department heads placed in goal) (Accountability in government!).

Notice the subtitle of her biography: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down.

Pawlenty of course could still serve in a McCain administration (Secretary of the Frozen Interior). According to the New Republic, Pawlenty “plays lots of hockey.” According to Newsweek, the Minnesota governor “has been known to use his reception-room fireplace as a hockey goal.” (Can you see yet why we love him?) On the Minnesota governor’s own web site, visitors are informed that he still finds time to play the occasional game of pickup hockey.

Were it constitutionally permissible, Pawlenty-Gretzky would be the hockey fan’s dream ticket. Or perhaps in 2012, or 2016, we’ll see the first-ever All-Shinny ticket: Palin and Pawlenty.

Filed in American Hockey, Floor Hockey, Frivolous Summer File, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hockey, Hockey Moms, Hockey Movies, Pond Hockey, Shinny| Permalink| Comments (22)

Great TV

By pucksandbooks
Thursday, August 7, 2008

As one who criticized the NHL Network for a meagerness of programming this summer, I need to be quick on the draw to commend the outlet for what it did for hockey fans last night. Wednesday night’s documentary on the 1988 trade of Wayne Gretzky from Edmonton to LA, labeled ‘A Day that Changed the Game Forever,’ may end up serving as the segment that changed the network forever.

For puckheads, this was must-see TV. For 60 minutes it was compelling and riveting and thought-provoking. It offered assessments from the most important players in that August drama of 20 years ago — and not mere soundbites or cliches but rather heartfelt, pull-no-punches post mortems. The program seemed premised on an outlandish claim — that the movement of one superstar, admittedly hockey’s greatest-ever talent, in his prime — forever altered the landscape of hockey. And yet its 60 minute-argument offered up a darned persuasive case.

On August 9, 1988, Gretzky was the centerpiece of a deal that required two press conferences — one in Edmonton and the other in LA. At his morning presser in Edmonton, an hour before its start, Oilers’ GM Glen Sather approached #99 with an offer to block the trade. After it had already been made. Obviously the decision to make the trade came from Oilers’ owner Peter Pocklington. Blocking the deal would certainly have cost Sather his job, and yet he told Gretzky that’d he’d resign rather than carry out the deal if the move would be the source of unbearable anguish for his star.

Which, last night’s documentary richly illustrated, it initially was. But Gretzky was willing to endure the personal pain of being traded from the team and city he adored out of a sense of needing to grow the game’s economics — especially for smaller market teams. His headed-for-the-Hall-of-Fame teammates in Edmonton were inked to contracts for about a quarter of a million bucks while lesser names in big cities in the U.S. were earning four times as much. The Great One was aware, too, of the Kings’ struggles. It is hardly overstatement to suggest that Gretzky’s greatness was matched as much off the ice as on.

Sather alone during that August’s heady moments seemed to possess a sense of the hockey-world-altering moment. His reflections in last night’s documentary carried a searing quality of personal anguish that he appears to carry to this day. Pocklington comes off as a business guy just cutting a deal. Mark Messier lost a best friend, a buddy who was “like a brother,” and their brief reunion in New York as Ranger teammates years later now seems fitting but far too fleeting.

There was particular poignancy in the program’s snippets of Edmontonians offering their reactions to the deal. Young and old, male and female, they articulated heart-felt outrage and shock. “I can never think of the Oilers in the same way,” one lamented. Gretzky has spoken of his concern for the fans he left behind that August day; his concern, this program illustrates, was well-founded.

As the program drew to a close I was left with two powerful impressions. First, isn’t it remarkable that while American hockey was indeed profoundly changed by Gretzky’s trade to LA — both the volume and accomplishments of youths playing hockey in California today are stunning — in the totality of the Kings’ existence, the deal proved to offer only a fleeting improvement for the organization. Second, with this program, the NHL and its network demonstrated that it can conceive and produce a special product befitting a distinguished occasion and rejuvinate a slumbering offseason fanbase.

May it be the first of many more.

Filed in Canada, Edmonton Oilers, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hockey, Hockey Legends, Los Angeles Kings, Morning cup-a-joe, NHL Trades, National Hockey League, Wayne Gretzky| Permalink| Comments (0)

Morning Cup-a-Spirit: This Bigotry Against Babes, I Won’t Stand for It!

By pucksandbooks
Monday, July 14, 2008

To read the reactions left only here related to the Caps’ plans, announced over the weekend, to introduce SpiritBabes to the team’s home games next season, you’d think management announced that Verizon Center was hosting 41 brothels next winter.

It’s too warm in there for brothels anyway.

Would that the peasants took up pitchforks and torches in these numbers when the league bleep-canned hockey jerseys for Reebok’s tuxedo vests a year ago.

Count me among those with a more inclusive spirit — one who will approach the scheme with an open mind. I take the owner at his word (”I am a family man with a wife and daughter“).

I was all prepared to write about my first one-on-one chat with Hershey Bears’ head coach Bob Woods on Saturday when this fracas broke out later that day. No wonder Washington is consistently regarded as a sex-appeal-less city.

In reality, though, all the NHL is doing is catching up — modestly, I might add — with football’s spirited sidelines. Or Fox News. In a culture of seriously foxy FoxNews, is this really anything to get all that worked up about?

But by late yesterday we’d received pointed clarification from the Capitals on the matter: “The squad won’t be ice girls in the traditional sense . . . It’s also not a dance squad, a la the NBA. It’s more of an evolution of the entertainment team we have had in the past” [the one that most in the stands thought was remarkably annoying -- I'm all for evolving that].

Still, I found it riotously funny to learn that Bruce Cassidy had contacted the team’s sales department Sunday seeking a full plan for next season. And Smoken Al Koken — has he been revived since Saturday’s news?

Actually, you can make a compelling argument I think that hockey, particularly in markets like Washington, is much more in need of some sultry spirit than is the NFL. Mr. Leonsis, in defending the move on Sunday, noted that it was with new revenue in mind that the team pursued the idea. In case you hadn’t noticed, television ain’t exactly throwing mad dough at the NHL’s 30 clubs these days. Meanwhile, the league’s salary cap has mushroom-clouded by more than $15 million in just the three seasons since the lockout.

It’s swell that we’re all in love with this rockin’ garage band called hockey, but the band still has to be paid, and if Hooters-Lite (not Hustler) wants to underwrite the Friday night jam session, I think the beer will still taste cold. Count me as one who wants a hockey team’s practices, scrimmages, and camps to remain free and open to the public, year round.

Anyone remember the millions the NHL spent on its post-lockout relaunch television advertisements — you remember the ones, the “My NHL” spots featuring the hockey locker room beefcake, rather shirtless, massage-motivated by a Fox News anchor in the pre-game? I remember thinking the first time I watched it, ‘My, how shirtless this hockey player is, and my, how little I now want lunch.’ Now that was profane, and brought to you by Bettman & Co. I’m confident that Ted doesn’t have quite that in mind.

I’m not sure what revenue the Washington Redskins’ cheerleaders bring in to the team, but whenever they make community appearances you seldom hear of Puritanical protests accompanying them or of anyone having a real lousy time at them. In fact, once in a while, the tight end marries the babe. Maybe the SpiritBabe will marry the bachelor blogger.

The Capitals, and hockey in Washington, need increased exposure (if you’ll pardon my word choice). If the Caps’ SpiritBabes are going to be out and about town during and after seasons hence, perhaps toting along a few congenial players with them, it’s bound to improve the team’s visibility, as well as that of the sport.

And in our recessionary times, where is the acknowledgment of the idea’s job creation ???

There’s been all manner of hyperbole associated with this past weekend’s high-pitched hue and cry reaction. For instance, some have alleged that the aisle ladies in their shimmer and shake will distract from the play on the ice. On nights when the Caps lay an egg, I agree — and let’s hope so. On those nights especially I’ll be glad for Verizon Center’s new state-of-the-art, high-rise, high definition, center ice scoreboard. But really, if the Alexanders are barreling down the ice on a two-on-one scoring chance, how many men’s and women’s eyes will be fixated on tight fannies in the stands?

And what of the selectivity of outrage in this instance? When it’s Mites on Ice, all are quiet, despite the fact that with that exhibition the laughter is generated at the expense of really, really short people. But raise the specter of pretty girls prettying up the District’s rink, and all hell breaks loose.

The only genuine harm that can come from this scheme is if, to quote the wit of one of the few in this town with a sense of humor, who imparted it in the maelstrom of message board madness yesterday, “they come down to the Johnny Walker Club after the game and are attracted to out-of-shape middle-aged men.”

When Messrs. Vogel, Parker, Rucki and I were taking in the World Championships in Moscow in the spring of 2007, we had no shortage of aisle-jiggling accompanying our blogging endeavors (see photo above). I think I can speak for the four of us in saying that we got our work done just dandy. In point of fact, the real distraction in terms of Moscow hotties diverting our gaze came with the middle-of-the-night trollop parade through our hotel’s lobby (where we were blog drafting), aided and abetted by bellhops on the cash take.

Baltic beauties in boas and hip-high black boots. Naughty, naughty Nikitas! Sorry, that was the indulgence of reverie.

Anyway, over in Moscow, we learned that NHL scouts were in favor of off-ice girls.

!

Perhaps since Alexander Ovechkin has to spend the next 13 seasons skating here we should let him be the arbiter in the matter.

Filed in Football, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hockey Art, Hockey Rituals, Ice Girls, Mike Vogel, OFB in Russia, Other Sports, Puck Bunnies, Redskins, Spike Parker, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (22)

A Bear Cub on IR

By The OFB Team
Friday, July 11, 2008

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.

Filed in American Hockey League, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hershey Bears, John Walton| Permalink| Comments (1)

Postcards from Development Camp, Day 2

By The OFB Team
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Ted - We hope you’re enjoying your summer vacation, and knowing that you’re out of town, we thought we’d send you a postcard from Development Camp to give you a flavor of what’s transpiring back at Ballston.

We went to camp today with two questions we wanted to pose to Capitals’ campers: (1) “At what age did you fall in love with hockey, and what specifically about the sport made you fall in love with it?” And, (2) “Hockey fans miss hockey most particularly, and most terribly, in the dead of summer. As an elite hockey talent, do you, like your sport’s fans, miss hockey in summer, or do you enjoy keeping your feet out of stiff skate boots, avoiding the bumps and bruises of the season, and avoiding hockey’s long travels and instead staying put in one warm place (home) in the offseason?”

They weren’t your conventional media kind of questions, which is why we asked them.

We got to pose them to three really exciting and promising Capitals’ prospects — Jay Beagle, Andrew Gordon, and Mathieu Perreault. We think you’ll enjoy reading their responses — they all gave us fantastically thoughtful and enthusiastic replies.

It just now occurs to us that we’ll need to pass along a few postcards to convey the entirety of their reactions to you, but you’ve got the reading time — you’re on vacation!

Here’s hoping the beach drinks are potent and the island views curvacious.

OFB
Ted Leonsis
1998 Lincoln Holdings St.
Great Falls, VA
22006
USA
Jay Beagle, on discovering his passion for hockey: “I was 2 years old. My dad always had hockey games on [TV] while I was a kid, and I was watching hockey — I’d sit down with him after work. They put me in skates when I was 2 years old and I just kind of stood there — they have a picture of me standing on skates with a puck in front of me. From there I just wanted to be on the ice every day.

My mom would take me skating every day she could. First time I was on the ice was when I was 2. I don’t remember it ’cause I was 2, but my mom says all I would say is “Hockey!Hockey!Hockey!” And then, later, I’d be ripping pucks down in the basement all day long . . .

OFB: Doing damage?

Beagle: “Yea, yea.”

On summer and missing hockey or savoring the break: “It’s a combination of both. There’s a part of you that’s missing hockey like crazy and wants to get back on the ice and get working hard again and get the legs going. And there’s another side of you that loves to go to the beach and just relax and kind of get away from stuff, just to take time for yourself. But I’m always missing hockey [in summer]. I love coming out, every time, every chance I can get to skate and work on stuff.”
Ted Leonsis
1998 Lincoln Holdings St.
Great Falls, VA
22006
USA
Andrew Gordon, on discovering his passion for hockey: “I was probably about 3 or 4 years old, and there was a documentary on TV, the ‘72 Series, the Canada-Russia series — my dad was big into it. We used to sit there and watch it — we’d recorded it. Instead of watching cartoons I’d come home and watch that ‘72 tape about four or five times a day. The ‘72 series, there’s so much passion in it. I remember being 5 or 6 years old and just glued to it.

OFB: You still watch it today?

AG: “I get new documentaries on DVD and stuff like that at Christmas every year, and every now and then I watch it — you can’t deny the passion that those guys played with back then.

“My dad’s favorite team was Montreal growing up, so I got into that, and they won the Cup in ‘93, when I was still young enough to get excited about what it was all about. There are all kinds of factors [influencing passion], but that ‘72 series is what really turned my passion.”

On summer and missing hockey or savoring the break: “The first couple of weeks are nice when you can just relax and are enjoying time with your friends and stuff, but for me the itch comes back pretty quickly. I miss gamedays more than anything. You know you wake up and you don’t think about anything but the game that day. You’re not going out and paying bills, you’re not running around town, you go to the rink, you go home, you go to sleep, you think about the game.

“Whatever you do that day is solely focused on game time. All you focus on is 7:00, and in the summer, I don’t wake up with that focus for the full day. I’ll wake up and focus for two hours, three hours in the weight room and then . . . I’m just daydreaming all day. I miss gamedays the most.”
Ted Leonsis
1998 Lincoln Holdings St.
Great Falls, VA
22006
USA
Mathieu Perreault, on discovering his passion for hockey: “I was 2 years old and I had a stick in my hand and I already start to love hockey. Since I was born I love hockey! [Emphasis Perreault's] When I was 4 years old I was loving the game and playing it every day.”

OFB: At 2 years old, were you even on the ice then, when you were in love with the game?

MP: “No, just home with the stick in my hand. Since I was born I, I love hockey! [MP eyes glimmer]

On summer and missing hockey or savoring the break: “It’s good to come here every year — it’s my third year here. You train at home, you don’t see so much ice; it’s more like off-ice training and it’s good for skating.

“It’s a fun week, too. You see all of the guys that I’ve met since I was drafted here. We’ve all become good friends. It’s fun to see them, too.”
Ted Leonsis
1998 Lincoln Holdings St.
Great Falls, VA
22006
USA
Filed in Andrew Gordon, Development Camp, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hockey Rituals, Jay Beagle, Kettler Capitals Iceplex, Mathieu Perreault, Prospects, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (3)

Ten Top Storylines for Development Camp 2008

By pucksandbooks
Monday, July 7, 2008

This morning the Capitals welcome 21 skaters and 4 goaltenders to their 2008 Development Camp. Almost all of the campers are recent Caps’ draft picks, and first-rounders from each of the the team’s past four drafts are present (Alzner, Varlamov, Carlson, Pokulok).

Camp will culminate with a 10:00 scrimmage on Saturday. Hockey is back! Herewith, 10 top storylines to follow at this July’s camp:

(10) All Eyes on Alzner. 2007 first round pick Karl Alzner impressed observers of Development Camp last July, and then he went on to captain the gold medal winning Canadians at the World Junior Championships in December and earn WHL Defenseman of the Year and Player of the Year honors with the Calgary Hitmen. Not a bad season, huh? As soon as his season in Calgary was completed he was called up by Hershey, but the Bears didn’t advance out of the American League postseason’s first round, so he’s yet to get a taste of pro hockey. He’ll get a chance at training camp in September to crack the Caps’ opening night roster, but he can make a real strong impression on and off the ice this week.

(9) Souring on Sasha? No team got screwed more by Gary Bettman’s inane Entry Draft scheme during the summer lockout of 2005 than the Caps. The league all but came out and said that by virtue of having had the first pick in 2004, the Caps shouldn’t have a reasonable shot at it again. But outside the top 10? A pre-lockout cellar dwellar, the Caps drew the 14th pick in the first round in the ‘05 draft. A lot of quality was already off the table by then, including Sidney Crosby, Carey Price, Anze Kopitar, and Jack Johnson. The Caps took a gamble on Cornell defenseman Sasha Pokulok. He hasn’t impressed. This could be a make-or-break year for him. He’d do well to have a solid week.

(8) College Hockey’s Biggest Weekend Isn’t that Far Away. Washington will host its first-ever Frozen Four next spring, and the Frozen Four Organizing Committee will visit Kettler on Wednesday, conduct a meeting there, and take in that day’s scrimmage. I have plenty of questions I’d like to put to them.

(7) The Big Finn with the Big Game. Oskar Osala had a big year in 2007-08 with 18 goals and 35 points in 53 games with the Espoo Blues in Finland’s top pro league. The 6 ‘4, 217-lb. left wing was named the Finnish League’s Rookie of the Year. He also shined at the 2007 World Junior Championships, where he shared the lead in goal scoring with 5 goals in 6 games. A lot of folks from Hershey are excited to see him.

(6) Not that Carlson, but John’s Big and Physical Too. No relation to Jack, but John Carlson may well make a name for himself in pro hockey, too. The Caps may have landed another late first-round blueline gem last month with Carlson, who’s already blessed with a pro physique. His coach with the Indiana Ice of the USHL said of his defenseman, “without a doubt, he’s going to be a star in the NHL.”

(5) Media Matters. All of HockeyWashington was stunned by the breadth, depth, and overall quality of media coverage of the Caps this past spring. This week at Kettler — where there will be stories to tell — is an opportunity to see if that was anomalous. After all, the Redskins don’t report to training camp for another two weeks. Bloggers will be out at Kettler covering, and we hope to reprise our coalition from Entry Draft Friday and live blog this Saturday’s camp-concluding scrimmage.

(4) Where’s Big Joe? Joe Finley, Hurting Force, isn’t in town this week. The 2005 first-rounder showed a lot of promise at last summer’s Development Camp, and he also shook a lot of plexiglass with his corner work. The Capitals are going to great lengths to make this week appealing to Washington youths, and Finley’s instincts for violence may not have been a good fit for that agenda. He’ll be returning to North Dakota for his senior season with the Fighting Sioux this fall.

(3) They Harken from a Scorer’s League. The leading scorers from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League each of the past two seasons, Francois Bouchard and Mathieu Perreault, will be present. Perreault in particular, with his dazzling stickwork-in-a-phone-booth and world-class agility and hockey sense, ought to be a fan favorite this week.

(2) Prior a Priority. Capitals’ Goaltender Coach Dave Prior has spent 11 seasons in Washington. He may not have a more important one than the one ahead. He will break in yet another no. 1 goalie in Jose Theodore — the team’s third in just the last six months — and perhaps just as importantly, in Simeon Varlamov and Michal Neuvirth tutor two of the organization’s finest goaltending prospects in 15 years. That work begins this week.

(1) Speaking of Goalies . . . It would be comforting for Capitals’ fans to see both Varlamov and Neuvirth stop every shot that each faces the entirety of this week.

Filed in American Hockey League, College Hockey, Development Camp, Francois Bouchard, Frozen Four, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hershey Bears, Hockey Rituals, Joe Finley, John Carlson, Karl Alzner, Kettler Capitals Iceplex, Mathieu Perreault, Michal Neuvirth, Prospects, Sasha Pokulok, Simeon Varlamov, WJC, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (10)

Street Crime in Canada

By pucksandbooks
Friday, July 4, 2008

We love this story out of Kingston, Ontario, delivered this week by The Empty Netter: the Kingston town fathers decreed that children there were limited to a single hour’s play at street hockey during any four-hour block of time between 9:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., in a city bylaw known as the Street Hockey Policy and Code of Conduct.

The ’streeters, to their genetic credit, aren’t taking the matter lightly, or quietly. This is in Canada, for puck’s sake!  

Some Kingston sixth-graders initiated an essay writing effort in opposition to the heavy and misguided hand of government. A strong majority of the ’streeters not only opposes the time restriction but, as if to make me personally swoon with swollen hockey heart, the wearing of helmets too! “Helmets can block side vision, many wrote, and they can cost a lot, too,” Kingstonthisweek.com noted of the anti-headwear sentiment expressed by students in the site’s coverage of the concrete contretemps.

“If you are going to get run over by a car, I don’t think helmets are going to protect you much,” sixth grader Madeline Katz says. She sounds like the enforcer in the Katz family.

Colin Schobel, a school classmate of Katz’s, added that helmets are “silly” and “a waste of time because you are not going to hurt yourself running.”

Who else wants the Kingston sixth graders replacing the entirety of the City Council?

“Kids are becoming fat and fatter,” Schobel added. “So how are kids going to stay fit (when they are only) able to play for one hour? Think about it, you are wasting your time and your kids’ childhood.

“This is the lazy generation.”

Not among Kingston ’streeters, it isn’t. On a day when we below the 49th parallel remember the American Revolution, let’s salute too one every bit as principled by those who just want their game back.   

Filed in Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hockey Heroes, Hockey Rituals, Hockey Towns, Incompetent Referees| Permalink| Comments (2)

Origins of a DraftGeek

By pucksandbooks
Wednesday, June 18, 2008

For those who live with hockey residing in the soul, every day carries some manner of frozen celebration, even in the dead of summer, but some days are better refrigerated than others. For me there are three or four genuinely dry-ice moments in the hockey calendar that are a given every year: the morning of day one of training camp in September; the morning of the season opener about a month later; and the moment that the NHL commissioner places the team drafting first at June’s Entry Draft on the clock. With those first two events, no doubt I’m joined in celebration by thousands of puckheads across the continent. But the latter?

Welcome to my world, that of the DraftGeek.

I can trace my addiction back to, of all things, a George Michael sportscast on WRC-TV in 1981. That was the Bobby Carpenter draft. Michael that evening led his sportscast with word of the Caps drafting Carpenter third overall that summer. Obviously pre-Internet, pre-anything hockey coverage then in the offseason, the broadcast news gatekeepers had to apprise us of anything significant transpiring for the pro hockey team here. Carpenter had appeared on Sports Illustrated’s cover in March of ‘81, making his selection by the Caps in that draft a lead story affair for local media. And of course, the ‘81 draft was just a year removed from the Miracle on Ice, and so the Caps selecting what was then regarded as the finest American hockey prospect perhaps since Hobey Baker made a formative impression on your blogger.

In the spring of ‘81 there was a rather public game of cat and mouse between the Caps and General Manager Emile Francis’ Hartford Whalers. Hartford drafted immediately after the Caps at no. 4, and the Whale was trying to decide between Carpenter and another center prospect, Ron Francis. The Caps went with the Can’t Miss Kid from Massachusetts. The Whale made out all right, though.

Fast forward to 1994. Peter Bondra, a relative unknown in the larger hockey world, barnstorms to the top of the NHL goal scoring title in the labor strife abbreviated ‘94-95 season. The very next season he’d score 52 goals. Bondra was drafted 156th by the Capitals, in the eighth round, of the remarkable 1990 draft. I remember watching Bondra in ‘94 and thinking, how the hell did we land this guy, so late? Bondra’s discovery by then Caps’ scout Jack Button is the stuff of Entry Draft lore. Bonzai was the proverbial backwoods prospect, completely off of everybody’s radar, until Button got a tip and somehow found the slick-skating Slovak without a GPS. It was, hands down, Button’s greatest and most important scouting work for the Caps.

There’s no such thing as a Peter Bondra in a round eight of the NFL or NBA drafts (heck, the NBA doesn’t even have a round four anymore). I love that about hockey’s.

In our lifetime we may never see the likes of the ‘90 class again. Owen Nolan, Jaromir Jagr, Martin Brodeur, Petr Nedved, Doug Weight — gracious, Sergei Zubov went in round 5 that summer! After the Caps selected Bondra in round 8 they did ok in round 9, too: Ken Klee.

Fast forward to 1996. The leadup buzz with that draft surrounded a big-bodied, ungodly talented Russian power forward named Alexander Volchkov. (Our good friend JP exercises his inner DraftGeek with this update of Volchkov, one of the all-time Entry Draft marvels.) Without question there were scores of questions surrounding Volchkov’s commitment and heart — in hindsight, magnificently inpsired and well-placed ones — but there was no denying that in ‘96, Volchkov’s talent stood head and shoulders above his draft classmates. He was that tantalizing, once-in-decade-or-two talent that makes scouts and GMs drool. That he landed in Washington seemed a stunner of massive fortune to a franchise that by then had endured an unhealthy share of postseason misfortune. Volchkov and his dazzling skill set were worth taking a flyer on.

Some flyer. More like an airplane with icy wings and an engine that wouldn’t. But it’s hit-or-miss intrigue like Volchkov that adds additional flavor to the draft.

That ‘96 draft further tormented the Capitals and their fans with one Jaroslav Svejkovsky — he the scorer of four goals in 1997’s final regular season game in Buffalo. Who who watched that vintage performance would have thought that the apex of Yogi’s career? Alas, it was, but early that offseason more than a few DraftGeeks experienced irrational exuberance imagining the Caps the draft winners of ‘96 coming away with both Volchkov and Svejkovsky.

If 1990 was the NHL’s vintage year for prospects, 1996 was its white zinfandel — from a box.

2002’s draft was also supposed to be a lemon. That draft, conducted in Toronto, was the first I attended. Actually being in the building for a draft affords you a powerful and lasting sense of how much of a family celebration the draft is, parents and siblings by the thousands dressed in their Sunday finest, with camera flashes illuminating Air Canada Centre like cigarette lighters at a rock concert. On TV the draft is all about the players and the draft floor mass of scouts and managers on telephones and talking heads second guessing. In the stands it’s all about the biggest day in the lives of five thousand families.

‘02 was really panned for its lack of depth. And yet the Caps came away with Steve Eminger, Alexander Semin, Boyd Gordon, even Tomas Fleischmann eventually. The worst drafts still manage to produce players; ‘96 for instance delivered Dainius Zubrus.

By Draft 2003 — billed by insiders as a fair rival in talent to ‘90 — we’d evolved with technology to the point where DraftGeeks were well linked from Canada, Europe, and America with message board madness related to the draft. Hockeysfuture was exploding into the consciousness of future-minded puckheads. In the early spring of ‘03, Friday and Saturday nights for your blogger were laden with bottled beer and HF boards immersion. I was never happier.

Hockeysfuture has been a godsend for DraftGeeks, but there are enough of us that its server regularly crashes around 10:00 a.m. on draft mornings. I remember that agony, too. A religious rite at Hockeysfuture is the posting of serious-minded mock drafts. There is a stable of Tier I DraftGeek there who annually offer near pro scout quality stuff with their mocks. And there are genuine scouts who both read and post there, regularly.

It was only recently that we in the States began seeing the draft on TV. And now the draft has become enough of an event for the league that it receives prime time TV coverage, on Friday nights, with the NHL Network even picking up Saturday morning’s post-first round action. Heaven.

My favorite draft moment? A funny thing happened one super sunny April day in the District in 2004, not long after the Caps had basically bottomed out in the league standings: a ping pong ball bounced their way in the league’s New York office, awarding them a coveted Russian prospect who’d already made a name for himself as an organization-altering talent. I’ll remember the fortune of that day ’til they toss dirt over my casket. (And likely I’ll be buried clutching a mock draft for that year.)

The NHL Draft is about families who’ve dedicated so much of their lives to the cultivation of elite hockey talent, driving the family car through amazingly harsh northern winters — pre-dawn black ice and frozen door locks and ice-crusted windows for pre-school skates and homework over hot chocolate and other ice rink nutrition. It’s about an end-of-every-round dynamo Detroit confounding 29 other clubs with diamond-in-the-rough picks guiding them to annual contention and, every few years, Lord Stanley. It’s about a “weak” draft delivering, in round six, a pint-sized MVP from the Quebec League. It’s about the CHL versus U.S. college hockey. It’s about wheeling and dealing.

No wonder I’m addicted.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, DraftGeek, Entry Draft, George Michael, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Internet, Mathieu Perreault, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Peter Bondra, Prospects, TV, Training Camp, WRC, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (12)

On Beaches, Backyard Grilling, Deck Beers, and the Pre-Eminent Value of the THN Draft Guide

By pucksandbooks
Monday, May 26, 2008

There’s wide variety to the recreation we employ on summer’s first (and long) weekend. Families pack the car and head for the beach. Those remaining at home often host the season’s opening backyard barbeque. Still others take in a ballgame with the kids or garden or dive into summer reading in a hammock. My time-honored tradition associated with this holiday weekend combines the anticipation of Christmas morning with the devoted labor of study for final exams in graduate school: Memorial weekend inaugurates my Season of DraftGeekdom, and on its kickoff Friday I stroll excitedly to a District bookstore near my office to secure the newly arrived Hockey News NHL Entry Draft Preview. With it I will whittle away the long weekend hours, come rain or shine, intoxicated by three-paragraph summaries of eighteen-year-olds who are the hoped-to-be future of hockey.

THN’s not the most informative or important of my Entry Draft resources, but over the years it’s tended to arrive on newsstands in Washington quite near the holiday weekend, and so its procurement serves as the spiritual kickoff to my holiday weekend. It’s true: during one of the calender’s most powerful symbols of summer my thoughts and doings remain lodged in winter.

Once I possess the cherished Guide, I make like Sandy Berger leaving the National Archives.

I was business traveling from the American Southwest during the end of this past week, and so my trip to a Washington-area Borders or Barnes & Noble for the Guide was delayed until Saturday morning. This caused sleeplessness in me only Tuesday through Friday nights. My Draft addiction is such that I actually entered all the newsstands in my airline’s gates in both the Vegas and Phoenix airports this week hoping to find the Guide.

As if. I may as well have been searching for Vermont Maple syrup there.

Returned home and being out in the Maryland suburbs added some drama to my Guide search Saturday morning: typically, I couldn’t be certain of finding this or any other edition of THN there. Initially I struck out at the Borders at Bethesda’s White Flint Mall, but at my next stop, at the Barnes & Noble just up the road on Rockville Pike, I discovered the Guide prominently showcased with two or three other special edition sports magazines. 10:25 Saturday morning was a Christmas morning moment for me.

Of course I could subscribe to THN or even order the Guide on line and be assured of securing a copy in time for Memorial weekend, but I actually savor the shopping search for it. It’s just become a highly personal routine that delivers a highly personal reward for this DraftGeek.

Whether at the beach or in a mountain chalet or simply relaxing hard by my retired father’s pool, I make a fair portion of summer’s first weekend a devoted study of the Entry Draft eligibles. A lot of Washingtonians remember boardwalk dalliances or Bayside flirtations from Memorial weekends past; I remember first learning of Joe Finley’s USHL thuggery under a cloudless Ocean City sky in May 2004.

Pre OFB, my devotion to the Draft knew no limitation of season, no rival for my affection, and rather was a year-round pursuit. But blog feeding has marginalized my single-minded immersion in the devotion. So Memorial weekend, arriving almost a month to the day before the Draft, has for the past couple of Mays for me carried a heightened sense of homework. I have a lot of catching up to do.

My studying typically includes the THN Guide; all 245-plus pages of Central Scouting’s Draft guide (I print that out in the office after hours); TSN’s thoughts draft; and at least three well-regarded mock drafts posted at hockeysfuture from “insiders” whose forecasting over the years has proven to be reliable. Beer-bellied family men struggle to deliver refreshments-laden coolers to the family beach blanket across acres of sun-baked sand on May’s final Saturday; I grunt from the backpack weight of my literature pertaining to 18-year-old hockey players hailing from towns I’ll never visit in this lifetime.

There are estimates that on Memorial weekend Saturday an excess of 100,000 sunbathers convene on the Maryland and Delaware beaches. Among them, beach towel reading is commonly comprised of lurid paperbacks, newspapers, and various categories of best-sellers. Lugging my beach-bound backpack teeming with reams of Entry Draft drivel, I was — and am — aware of my idiosyncratic subject matter reading. I figured that no more than 5,000 of Ocean City’s 100,000 sand-studying in shades could be joining me in wondering whether the WHL’s class of prospects in a given year was superior to the Q’s.

Part of my devotion-addiction in this weekend’s pursuit is premised on the novelty of the whole thing. I just really like knowing where a Moose Jaw Warriors’ third-liner — who bears a fiery streak of viscousness, mind you — ought to be selected according to a plurality of draft prognostications. I admit, with pride, that I am a card-carrying member of sports’ equivalent to a Star Trek conventioner.

Memorial Weekend 2008 in Washington will be remembered for its beauty. How could it not — according to THN, still available on the draft board when the Caps pick in round one should be one Anton Gustafsson.

Filed in DraftGeek, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hockey, Hockey Reading, National Hockey League, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (4)

There Was No Boxed Wine at This Blogger’s Holiday Weekend Picnic

By Gustafsson
Sunday, May 25, 2008

Filed in Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hockey Wit, OFB, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (1)

Our Peeps

By The OFB Team
Tuesday, May 20, 2008

We are protecting the screen name, the message board url, and everything else that could lead to the identity of the author of this sentiment, posted about the arrival of the Stanley Cup finals this weekend.

“I will be using my 8-month-old son (and his bed time) as an excuse to leave a wedding reception for one of my wife’s cousins early so that I can get back to my hotel room in time for the opening faceoff on Saturday.

“I have already informed my wife of my decision. She supports it. God, I love that woman.”

2008 Stanley Cup Final Schedule
Date Time Match-up TV
Sat, May 24 8 pm (ET) Pittsburgh at Detroit VERSUS
Mon, May 26 8 pm (ET) Pittsburgh at Detroit VERSUS
Wed, May 28 8 pm (ET) Detroit at Pittsburgh NBC
Sat, May 31 8 pm (ET) Detroit at Pittsburgh NBC
* Mon, June 2 8 pm (ET) Pittsburgh at Detroit NBC
* Wed, June 4 8 pm (ET) Detroit at Pittsburgh NBC
* Sat, June 7 8 pm (ET) Pittsburgh at Detroit NBC
* if necessary
Filed in Detroit Red Wings, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hockey, Hockey Rituals, National Hockey League, Pittsburgh Penguins, Stanley Cup Playoffs| Permalink| Comments (1)

Does Hockey Really Need TV?

By pucksandbooks
Tuesday, May 20, 2008

By now, you’ve probably read accounts of hockey enjoying a significant spike in the sport’s television ratings recently. No doubt you also know of (and admire) hockey’s embrace of alternative media. That union has been a fusion of opportunism, technology, and desperation. Generally, it seems to be working.

Still, we’re three years into the Crosby-Ovechkin Era, and even with the promise of hockey benefitting dramatically — perhaps moreso than any other sport — from high definition television, there are durable limitations posing a serious ceiling on Television America’s embrace of our frozen game.

One is geography. Climate, while not metaphysically determinative in the matter, nonetheless plays a lead role in forging many puckheads’ attachments to the game. The other is the physical parameters and pacing at play. Football with its rectangular field, allowing many varying camera angles, and regular stops in the action, doesn’t merely allow television a foothold in its event but actually, in its modern incarnation, is determined by it. Or perhaps you’ve missed the past twenty Super Bowls.

But think about the hockey rink, which necessarily with its dasher boards shields three-and-a-half feet of action from the camera eye and many spectators seated low-in-the-bowl. Its oval, walled- and netted-in configuration just isn’t super fan friendly, relative to the playing fields and surfaces of other sports. It ever has to be so.

This week, freshly considering this reality, aware of a new and fabulous North American fascination with the untelevised World Championships, and aware of film increasingly relying on viral marketing, I wondered: just how much does hockey really need TV?

Can hockey go Cloverfield?

Something fantastically viral transpired with these Worlds. True, North American hockey hearts could welcome them into their lives as not before because of their arrival in Canada, and their being contested in North American time zones. But in Washington at least, it seemed to me that many, many more followed this tournament than in recent years past.

They were able to because of the arrival of the World Championship Sports Network. You plunked down $5 and you got about 50 world-class hockey games broadcast on your computer. On demand, too. Folks like me on regular business travel could carry our laptops along on trips and catch the Worlds in our world of airport terminals, bars Wi-Fi, or hotel rooms.

We in D.C. didn’t want to surrender high-level hockey when we were forced to last month, and when in prelude exhibition play for the Worlds word filtered out (virally) that Russia’s top line was comprised entirely of Washington Capitals, a fair number of folks in this region found a storyline they wanted to follow a bit.

In years past, I don’t recall hockey fans clogging my in-box with reactions to the Worlds they were unable to view. They couldn’t. Also in years past, if I wanted some reaction forum on the tournament I was pretty much confined to the tournament message board at hockeysfuture. This spring there was vibrant commentary on the Worlds on the Caps’ official message boards; in comments left here and on other Washington hockey blogs; and perhaps most tellingly, on the media blogs of the Caps’ beat reporters in town.

Now consider, too, the behemoth ESPN’s role in hockey’s rather robust return from its labor stoppage of a few years back. Which is: nothing. People still snicker at the agreement the NHL has with Versus, but the league’s revenues keep on growing. Somehow word is getting out about great hockey being played these days.

Moreover, hockey’s roots in the broadcast medium are with iconic, culture-defining radio personalities (Foster Hewitt) as opposed to John Madden- or Howard Cosell-type mega personalities on TV. I find that charming. And telling.

I’m still fascinated by the X-Files-like thought of Comcast one day rising up and challenging ESPN’s dominance. But if that never happens, if hockey is never accorded a seat at the broadcast dining room table by the usual suspects, is that so bad? It will always have regionalized television coverage. The league’s dedicated channel is a hit with its fans. Its universe of supporters on line grows by the week — and it appears to be broadening internationally, too — and they’re distinctly engaged. And I’m sure the league and its visionary, new media marketers like Leonsis are by no means exhausted of their ideas for broadening further sports’ fans interest in hockey.

Still, what a lovely virus we have at the moment.

Filed in ESPN, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hockey Night in Canada, Hockey Rinks, IIHF, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Radio, TV, World Championships| Permalink| Comments (3)

A Uniform of One Color for an Army’s Offseason

By pucksandbooks
Sunday, April 27, 2008

The Capitals unveiled their new uniform look early last summer, but it’s this offseason that will fully showcase just how successful the makeover was.

Saturday afternoon I stopped by the Kettler-Capitals’ pro shop to see a buddy there working a weekend shift sharpening skates and moving merchandise, and the movement of goods this spring, he reported, has been brisk.

“It’s been a zoo in here the last few weeks,” he told me.

Fans seemed to appreciate the new look just two or three games into the preseason last September. Until then, they’d seen only photographs of the fashion upgrade in action-less stills. Once vivid, high-def-in-digital game imagery of the new threads was published on line, praise for the makeover was widespread. The team modernized its on-ice look, but not lavishly or outlandishly or, most importantly, faddishly, and there were clear but subtle acknowledgements back to the original threads. It was a look that appeared to be the best of the old blended with a hip new.

More fans wearing more of the new color and look became apparent at Verizon Center after the end-of-the-year holidays in 2007, and as the team turned its season around by late winter in 2008, even more of the red, white and blue filled the home rink. The new look was fast becoming a smash hit.

When the stretch-run became white-red-hot, so too did the look of the nation’s capital. The team declared “Red Outs” for the final week of regular season play, and the fans responded fanatically. The uni-color solidarity within the Phone Booth continued into the postseason. Comcast’s Lisa Hillary told me during one home postseason game that Verizon Center looked distinctly like Calgary’s Red Mile of playoffs past.

Planned or unplanned, the team’s return to its original colors has afforded an opportunity to market the old with the new. On my visit to the Kettler shop Saturday I saw rack after rack of red, but the names and numbers on the t-shirts were both old and new. Semin, Clark, and Ovechkin were joined by Hunter and Langway. My father, who wore his red senior’s hockey sweater to two postseason home games, will later this week be receiving an old-school, old-logo-ed red t-shirt bearing Rod Langway’s nameplate and number on its back, along with instructions to wear it both while mowing his massive yard and barbequing for Saturday night houseguests. He loved Langway.

I have plans for some heavy-duty recreating this summer. I’ll be sweating a lot in red.

Saturday was gorgeous in D.C., and the moreso to be navigating the route back from Kettler-Capitals toward Maryland on the GW Parkway. The first Saturday of being eliminated from hockey’s postseason is always a painful one for me, but under that Chamber of Commerce sky Saturday, with my sack of red as companion, I felt immense pride instead of pain, and I began thinking about Washington’s hockey hardcore as well as the new converts this spring showcasing their pride in the hockey team this offseason. There is so much to be proud of.

Our Army should be arriving at neighborhood pools this offseason covered up in red. Yard work should be conducted in a ‘Rock the Red’ tee. Jogging, rollerblading, dog walking — all of it should be completed while identified as Ovie, Olie, Huntsy, or Langway. We should attend rock concerts at Nissan and Merriweather and Rock the Red there as well.

Let’s Red-out the region this summer. The Washington Post is watching.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Chris Clark, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hockey Rituals, Kettler Capitals Iceplex, Lisa Hillary, Media, Olaf Kolzig, Print, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Washington Capitals, Washington Post, Washington the Hockey Town| Permalink| Comments (3)

Fight Cancer with Hockey, Cake, The Zambonis, and More

By Gustafsson
Friday, April 18, 2008

My friend Jay not only has a cool job, he knows cool people, too. He recently introduced me to Dave Zamboni who is described by Jay as “the free-skating guitar-man / defenseman for the ultra hip hockey rockers The Zambonis.” Speaking with Dave, he told me about a great event coming to our area in May.

The Zambonis will be performing at a one-day “fun filled extravaganza” to raise money to fight cancer. In addition to The Zambonis playing live, there will be a hockey game, skate-a-thon, skills competition, broom ball, rides, carnival games, vendors, food and Duff “Ace of Cakes” Goldman from Charm City Cakes. Oh…. and to help everyone fight cancer… a special appearance by the Hanson Brothers.

Here are the particulars:
Hockey Fights Cancer Maryland, Sunday, 4 May, 2008 - Ice World in Harford County, Maryland

We’ll have more details as the event draws closer and perhaps even have a special OFB/Zambonis promotion. Until then, check out this brilliant commercial promoting the event.

YouTube Preview Image
Filed in Charity, Fighting, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hockey Movies, Music, Philadelphia Flyers, Washington Capitals, Zambonis| Permalink| Comments (3)

The GeriHatricks: Very Young at Hockey Heart

By pucksandbooks
Monday, March 31, 2008

When it comes to recreational hockey, boys will be boys — even if they’re 72 years old. That’s the theme enveloping the GeriHatricks’ Annual Senior Hockey Tournament, contested each March at the Gardens Ice House in Laurel, Md.

This past weekend marked the 5th anniversary of the invitational tourney “for senior hockey players more than 50 years young.” Five years ago, a half dozen teams of AARPers made up the first gathering: four teams of 60-and-over rosters and two in the 70-and-over set. This past weekend, 19 teams, comprised in three age brackets — 50s, 60s recreational and 60s competitive, and 70s — delivered a truly national flavor to an event rapidly gaining in popularity and significance. Among the entries: the New York Golden Apples; the Central Massachusetts Rusty Blades; the Minnesota Old Timers; the Lancaster (Pa.) Regency O’Timers.

Saturday morning I arrived at the Ice House early enough to see the Skipjacks’ 50-something entry, featuring ex-Caps Yvon Labre, Blair Stewart, Gary Rissling, Nelson Burton, and Alan Hangsleben. They put a cane-whacking on Lancaster, 9-1. No wonder — talk about a ringer lineup! And Rod Langway was rostered with the Skipjacks, but some late-arriving conflicts for the weekend prevented him from participating.

The tournament is a particular recreational hockey highlight for me, as I’ve a 65-year-old father who competed in it in its first year and was returning to action this year after a two-year stint on IR with a bum knee. When I learned of the participation by all those ex-Caps this year, I asked Dad if he was nervous.

“I won’t see them,” he replied, “They’re in the kiddie division.”

The GeriHatricks started as an effort to create a seniors hockey team to compete in the National Senior Games Association Winter Olympics held in Lake Placid nearly 10 years ago. They formed and sent a team to the Games in 1999, and won a gold medal the following year. There no longer are Senior Olympics for hockey, but the idea of “seasoned skating” has taken off in greater D.C.

Today, the GeriHatricks are comprised of three separate seniors’ teams (all entered in this March tournament), two 60-something squads divided into the “recreational” and the “Gold” (more competitive) outfits, and a 70-something unit. They skate recreationally for 90 minutes every Wednesday morning at the Laurel rink, and recent growth in interest among the grey-set in skates is leading the organization to acquire additional ice time on Mondays. In the summer, they’ll skate early on Saturday nights. There’ll be a full-fledged, four-team league housed out of Laurel this autumn. The Golden Guys.

The leadership behind the GeriHatricks is a 72-year-old named John Buchleitner — known as “Lightning” among his teammates. His rookie year in hockey arrived a bit later than most in this tournament: age 65.

“I used to run [for fitness], then I couldn’t run anymore,” he told me. “My two boys played hockey, and one was over here [at Laurel], and he said to me, ‘Dad, there’s a bunch of old geezers here playing hockey, maybe you should do something with them.’

“I’d watched thousands of games because of my boys playing, and I read some books,” he added. Is it fair to say he became hooked on hockey while silver-haired?

“Oh my goodness yes!” he beamed. “The best part of it is being in the room with the guys. You see guys from all walks of life — doctors and lawyers and guys that work in marinas, it’s such a funny group of people. They all have one common interest, and no one cares where you’re from or what you do.”

This was Labre’s first GeriHatricks tournament. The 58-year-old former Caps’ great was being recruited hard all weekend by the competitive 60-something entries, but he’ll have to wait for the 2010 tourney to “graduate.” His more immediate concern, however, was readying himself for a second game late Saturday afternoon, as the 2-0 Skipjacks entered elimination play, and his NHL-battered knee was already acting up on him.

“I gotta go ice myself down,” he said wearily. “Four games in two days . . . this is more tiring than my old [NHL] days.”

While chatting with Labre Saturday morning, I had a chance to ask him for his impressions of the Bruce Boudreau-led Caps.

“The puck movement is the thing I notice, the big difference in the team,” he told me. “They don’t hang on to the puck like they used to. The quicker you move it the more the other team has to adjust. That’s what I find creates a lot of openings for them.”

Lancaster’s lone goal Saturday morning against the Skipjacks was scored with one second left in the game — with Labre defending.

“You had a nice plus-minus going until that,” I chided.

“Oh the goalie was mad, too,” he replied. “Would have been his first shutout since he started playing in this.”

Speaking of goalies, I wondered about the men who put the pads on between the pipes in a seniors tournament. Earlier this season, I listened in as Olie Kolzig detailed for the media the morning stretching routine he now has to execute to ready himself for games. He’s not a young man anymore, you know. But Kolzig is half the age of some GeriHatricks. Turns out, goalies in this tournament are allowed to be as young as 45, but “most of them are of age,” meaning, contemporaries of their teammates, according to Buckleitner.

It isn’t all about old timers hockey here. It’s also about free beer in between and after games. Bill Oliver of the GeriHatricks’ Gold squad is the owner and proprietor of Oliver Ales and Stouts, which was on tap all tournament long in the Gardens lounge above the playing surfaces. Seniors making the trek across country to Laurel for the weekend know that a few tasty cold ones are ever at their disposal.

The tournament utilizes modified USA Hockey rules. Minor penalties banish offenders to the penalty box for just one-and-a-half minutes — in life’s later skating laps, after all, time’s too precious to be long holed up in a sin bin. Correspondingly, majors (of which there are few) require just four minutes in the box. Imagine if Donald Brashear puts down roots here and joins Labre’s alumni team. There’s no body checking, of course. Delayed offsides are in effect — “once all offending players have cleared the attacking zone, play may continue” — and I asked Dad how long it takes 70-somethings to clear the zone.

“Sometimes minutes,” he replied.

The player conversations one overhears in and near locker rooms at the Ice House are a bit different with this tournament as well:

“I need knee replacement [surgey].”

“I’m slated for a new hip.”

“How are the great grandkids?”

I also learned that requests for player interviews after games require a bit of patience on the part of the reporter. This is partly due to players’ diminished dexterity in getting out of gear. Post-game refreshments, which among the early morning skaters may have included Bloody Marys, also prolong the delays.

A modern advance in hockey comforts is especially helpful in a tournament such as this: equipment bags with wheels.

My father’s team lost its first two games on Friday and entered Saturday morning’s matchup on the brink of winless elimination. They pulled out to a 1-0 lead and clung to it precariously until there were about 4 minutes to go in the game. Then Dad potted an insurance marker during a scrum in the crease. The comeback, at 65, complete.

Seated in the stands among a dozen or so proud sons, relatives, and friends of other players, I made a point of letting them know of the heroics.

“That was my old man,” I yelled with glee.

Filed in Area Youth Hockey, Former Coaches & Players, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hockey Heroes, Old Time Hockey| Permalink| Comments (7)

A Noteworthy Addition to the Home of the Brave