On Frozen Blog

Ten years ago today Joe Juneau scored what many Washington hockey fans consider to be the most significant goal in Capitals’ history — a game and series-ending, Wales Trophy earning tally, one catapulting Capsdom into delirium, 6:24 into overtime, on the road, in the Eastern Conference Finals’ game 6, giving the Caps a 3-2 victory over the Buffalo Sabres and sending the Caps to their lone appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals.

It wasn’t a wicked wrister or a booming slapshot but rather a fortuitous tuck-in of a rebound from linemate Brian Bellows’ close-in jam attempt against Dominik Hasek. You remember the JOB line, don’t you — Juneau, Oates, and Bellows?

For those of us who go back a bit with this organization, those seconds immediately after seeing that little black disc cross the goal line — it just glided rather casually across the line, the net never budging behind Dominik Hasek — seeing Joe Juneau’s arms raised in elation behind Hasek’s cage, followed soon after by his being swarmed in the rink corner to Hasek’s right by a skating stampede of teammates, are forever seared in our memories. Steve Kolbe, then new to the Caps’ radio play-by-play duties, horror-movie-screamed a call of the winning goal so memorably that WTEM played it on a virtual loop in its expanded coverage of the Caps late that spring . . . and some of us used it as a voicemail greeting at home for a few weeks.

Good times. Good times indeed.

That ‘98 Caps team had a flair for the dramatic that postseason — they played seven overtime games, winning five of them. They played three extra session affairs against Boston in round 1 (going 2-1 in them), won all three OTs against Buffalo in the Eastern Conference finals, and lost one more against Detroit in the Stanley Cup Finals. Still to this day I say to myself, what if Kono hadn’t turned an ankle . . . did we let go of Killer one season too soon?

Any D.C. team that goes on a long postseason run is sure to capture the locals’ hearts, but in ‘98, Olie Kolzig’s brilliance, combined with the NHL’s sudden death overtime drama and the Caps’ regular immersion in it, seemed to coalesce our community around those Caps in a way that was distinctive and unprecedented beyond normal postseason bandwagon followings.

Proof of this would arrive about four hours after Juneau’s hero tally, in the middle of the night in the middle of Washington/Baltimore suburban nowhere.

Juneau was the the leading scorer for the Caps that postseason, with 7 goals and 10 assists in 21 games, and so his heroics in that game 6 OT were perfectly appropriate. On Tuesday afternoon, Capitals’ Director of Media Relations Nate Ewell arranged a conference call for a few of us who wanted to stroll down Memory Lane with Juneau in acknowledgement of the 10th anniversary of his historic score. He acknowledged that the goal was the biggest of his NHL career, but then he admitted something startling about it: He hadn’t seen a replay of it until this week.

“Just a couple days before Nate got in touch with me about doing this conference call a friend of mine sent a link to go on YouTube — I was able to see it that way. That was the first time since 10 years ago that I actually saw it,” he said.

Isn’t that amazing?

Next I asked Juneau what made that band of ‘98 Caps such a special team.

“It was a great mix. Late in the season the team added some experienced players . . . Esa Tikkanen and Brian Bellows and guys with experience. They just brought something special to the team. Although we did have an older team, we didn’t have guys that actually had won the Stanley Cup or had gone far in the playoffs. Those guys were able to transfer their knowledge and experience of winning and what it takes to win the Stanley Cup.”

After the overtime stunner in Buffalo, iconic Washington radio personality Ken Beatrice urged his listeners to race out to the team’s practice facility, Piney Orchard, in Odenton, Maryland, to meet the team bus that would be returning from BWI airport that remarkable night 10 years ago. Thousands took him up on the invitation. You could tell that something quite dramatic was unfolding a little before midnight in the Odenton area as parked cars packed tightly near one another on Piney Orchard Parkway some two miles from the rink. A facility that snuggily seats 750 for hockey would by some estimates cram 3,000, maybe more, in a weeknight of frenzied euphoria, where they patiently awaited the arrival of their heroes at 2:30 a.m. That following morning fatigue at work felt so f’in wonderful.

Ten years later, it’s difficult to convey to an Ovechkin-era fanbase just how powerful that night was for the devoted. It was preceded by a quarter century of rank incompetence, middling mediocity, and gut-wrenching shortcomings in the postseason as Patrick division favorites. Until Joe Juneau washed it all away 10 years ago today.

I remember folks standing literally six- and seven-deep all around the Piney rink glass that night 10 years ago, standing, cheering — stranger hugging stranger — screaming “Let’s Go Caps” maybe 750 times while awaiting their heroes. I asked Juneau what he remembered about the team bus turning onto Piney Orchard Parkway and seeing such sea of support in the middle of the night.

“I remember that very well — it almost seems like it was yesterday.

“We heard right away that there were some people waiting for us at the practice facility, and it was very special in the middle of the night to get there . . . it was just a dead area and we were just off to unpack our stuff and take our cars to drive home. Getting there that night and seeing that many fans waiting for us outside and inside the building — it was something else.

“It was obviously the high point of my time in Washington.

“I think it would be fair to say that it was obviously the high point of many guys that played in Washington for so many years, you know like the Dale Hunters and those guys, Kelly Miller.”

It was, without question, the high point of nearly 25 years of professional hockey in Washington.

Ten years ago today.

I’ll be toasting to it tonight.