There’s standup, and then there’s what Gabby offered the Washington Post’s Tarik El Bashir Wednesday morning — actually agreeing with Capitals management that it was time for a change behind the bench. He actually told General Manager George McPhee, “You’re doing what you have to do.” A company man in this sport if there ever was one. He’d just been terminated from his dream job, and still his thoughts were with what was best for the team.

On November 17 the Caps were in Winnipeg, and after they’d fallen behind 4-1 after 40 minutes, most listlessly, I sensed, really for the very first time, that we were watching the onset of destruction. The very next morning I took to Twitter and made explicit my concern: “The biggest indictment of this team was the final frame. Teams with pride and character make it 4-2 or 4-3, to build on for the next outing.”

I reference this moment because when Tarik yesterday morning asked Boudreau when he sensed that things might be slipping from his control the coach pointed to November 17 in Winnipeg.

Way back in January I published a highly unflattering, highly critical two-part read on the struggling, soft and identity-challenged Caps, calling them out for operating in a what I regarded as a “country club” atmosphere of luxury, comfort and precious little accountability that, from where I blogged, undermined an ethos of night-in, night-out hunger and drive — most particularly relative to the lunch pale Capitals rosters of 15-plus years ago. You know, the types of teams Dale Hunter played on here. And last season I also pulled no punches with respect to commenting on the increasing frequency with which Washington hockey fans were taking to social media to share photos and accounts of nightclub encounters with members of the team at troubling hours, and with troubling frequency. And so it was most interesting for me to take in the NHL Network’s coverage of Monday’s drama, Monday night, and hear Billy Jaffe suggest that under Dale Hunter there could be no serious commitment to winning when it mattered without the Caps mending their “clubbing” ways, while Joe Beninati not long later alluded to a “country club atmosphere” taking hold in recent years. The Washington Post’s Tom Boswell authored what I thought was the most severe indictment of the Boudreau era, but taking pains, to his credit, to also assign blame to upper management.

“During the offseason two ex-Capitals went public about the country club atmosphere that undermined discipline on the team. Once you’ve tolerated a star system for years, how can the same coach possibly reverse the trend?”

About a week ago, right as I began sensing that things were truly boiling over, I sent email to some reporters here suggesting that Jason Arnott would be in a unique position to comment on troubles that festered last season and perhaps metastasized this. Arnott had been afforded an inside look at the team last spring and then departed town — having arrived here with great fanfare at the trade deadline as a coveted leadership asset — with nary a word said about it, and having landed quite well in St. Louis this season. To his credit again, Tarik button-holed Arnott out at Kettler on Monday. You might say that in D.C. Arnott saw a loose ship being captained.

“It’s very hard. When you let guys do what they please, what they want [emphasis OFB's], then you come in and get hard on them, it’s pretty tough.”

But by no means should Bruce Boudreau alone be scapegoated for the country club atmosphere — and Boswell emphasizes this in his column. Boudreau wasn’t in D.C. when the Caps drafted Ovechkin and subsequently devised elaborate and clever and highly successive marketing campaigns for him his first two seasons. The coddling and deification of the extraordinary talent began from day one. With Alexander Ovechkin the Capitals, for the first time in their history, had an opportunity to create their Elvis (thin and fat), and they did.

There were no larger-than-life figures on that ’98 Capitals club, captained by the legend, that made it to the Stanley Cup finals, were there? Just food for thought.

So you know that my concerns with the Caps date back deep into last season and you should know too that I opened this season with a renewal of them — I titled my season preview ‘Questions for a Hockey Club at a Crossroads.’ In it I identified Bruce Boudreau as a figure who had to demonstrate marked improvement at his job: “Much as the Capitals’ core roster has experienced growing pains in its path toward legitimate contention, so too has Head Coach Bruce Boudreau. Put bluntly: he’s underwhelmed a lot of observers with his handling of the Capitals’ recent postseasons, and in fact in the judgment of many been out-coached by less experienced bench bosses of lower-seeded clubs.”

I didn’t write this sentiment for that preview file, but I did suggest to a few of my blogger chums here that it was not at all beyond the realm of possibility that the Caps could can Boudreau at about the 25-game mark. I specifically wondered how McPhee would react if, for instance, the Caps were behind Tampa Bay in the Southeast division then. Like I think everyone else, I had no idea we’d see what we have this season from the Panthers. Anyway, my hypothesis occasioned a torrent of email protest back from my chums: “No way; he’s years left on his deal; Ted’s too cheap.” (They really wrote me that.) The Moral: When a team goes bad any GM who values his job will pull the trigger, no matter (within reason) the financial fallout.

* * * * *

I’m closing this file with a very personal feel-good story. Last night the Buffalo Sabres recalled Joe Finley. In the summer of 2010 Fins kept a diary during Capitals’ Development Camp for OFB. It was a really fun project, and I enjoyed most that Big Joe had a lot of fun with it. Meeting him for that project remains one of the great rewards I’ve derived from this blogging gig. Big Joe is a true gentle giant, truly one of the friendliest people I’ve met in the sport.

During his development time with the Caps Fins suffered injury after injury, and finally, at the end of last season, the team did what most teams do after a first-round pick fails to show some durable glimmer that all of that development investment was paying off: they cut ties with him.

Buffalo invited Fins to training camp this fall, and he showed well enough to earn an AHL contract with the Sabres’ American League affiliate in Rochester. With the Amerks Fins has been what the Buffalo News this week termed “a revelation.” Through 18 games this season Big Joe has seriously thrown his weight around (57 PIMs), and played so strongly that he’s earned a shut-down designation with the top pairing on the Rochester blueline. His +10 is best on the team. It’s a terrific story, capped by his earning this week a three-year, two-way contract with the Sabres and last night’s callup. I sent him a congratulatory note the other day, in which I somewhat jokingly expressed remorse that the Caps hadn’t held on to him one year longer, given the arrival of the new sheriff in town. He agreed.

“Making the team here in Hershey was step one, and becoming an everyday player is step two,” Finley told Walton. “I think I’m making a good case for myself so far, and we’ve got a very talented veteran team here that won’t be an excuse by any means. It just gives me more fuel to go out and earn my spot.”

With the Bears having graduated Karl Alzner and John Carlson from their Calder Cup-winning blueline, Fins has a chance — if he can stay healthy — to finally put his pro career into serious development, and mentoring under Souray can only aid that cause.

We’re really looking forward to heading back up to Chocolatetown soon and catching up with our Development Camp diary keeper, and checking out his progress for ourselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I skated in the first practice of the day where we focused on offensive zone faceoff forechecking, power play, and penalty kill. Having everyone on the same page for tomorrow’s scrimmage should tighten things up for us and allow us to convert on the man advantage. We split up into two groups at the end of practice to do a shootout competition. The team I was on lost, as Holtby did a good job of shutting the door on us. For losing we did five full-ice sprints as the other team watched from the bench while sipping water and Gatorade.

Today more so than the rest of the week was the day where the rest of the guys and I were introduced to the heat that has been torching DC for the past few weeks. I don’t know exactly how hot it was, but I was rudely awoken when we headed to the track at a nearby high school to do some sled pull sprints and agility drills on the track and turf. I knew it would be hot by just looking at the other group as they walked around red faced and soaked in sweat. If you thought your commute to work on Friday morning was sticky, know that you had good company with your local hockey players in training.

It was a good experience for all of us to listen to Jack and Nemo talk about the importance of specific off-ice training. They showed us some pictures of how the first few strides of sprinting both on and off ice are nearly identical. We all will be able to use this for the rest of our careers to train efficiently.

The next thing on the agenda was for every player to have an exit meeting. Mine was positive, and from the sounds of it the rest of the guys had very similar meetings. This is a great opportunity for players, whether signed, draft picks, or free agents, to talk to important NHL staff and get quality feedback.

After some lunch we all headed on a tour of the U.S. Capitol building. I had seen most of it before, but our tour guide did a nice job of explaining a lot of interesting new things that I hadn’t heard before. We were led into a room that they called the “whisper room.” In this room the tour guide stepped all the way across the room and talked in a normal tone while all of us stood on the other side. With hundreds of people in the room we all were able to hear the guide talk from a far distance away. He later explained that the acoustics of the room were designed as a secret weapon to listen in on conversations from across the room. This secret wasn’t really a secret because within the first year most every knew about the secret . . .

I got back to the hotel about 6:00 and went for dinner with Bruiser, Hausworld, and Big Willie (John Williams), the current equipment manager for the South Carolina Stingrays. We did a number on PF Chang’s to say the least.

On a full stomach Bruiser and I headed back to our hotel room, where we watched Adam Sandler’s “Funny People,” and now it’s time for bed. The last two days have brought a lot of exposure to Washington in July heat, so we’ll sleep well.

Saturday is not only our final scrimmage and workout of camp but a chance afterward to interact with many of the fans who’ve come out to support us at Kettler this week. I’m really looking forward to that, as are a lot of the guys. My last post tomorrow will be sent from back home in Edina, Minnesota, since I fly out immediately following the scrimmage. Until tomorrow, good night.

-Fins

photo courtesy of Spike Parker

Day 5:

Today started with a 9 a.m. scrimmage at Kettler, which I believe is the earliest I have ever played since a Pee-Wee tournament back in Edina, Minn. Whatever the case the game went on. I think most of the guys would say the first period was a solid wake up call, and the last two periods provided for some solid 2-way hockey. Unfortunately my team, Group A, lost in a shootout, putting us in a must-win situation come Saturday.

I grabbed lunch back at the hotel after the loss and went up to the room to change into proper paintball attire (sweatpants and long sleeve shirt) before the battle began. A lot of the guys at camp this week were aware that the Capitals had a paintball outing as part of training camp last year, and a lot of guys have been looking forward to today’s off-ice warfare all week.

We all piled into a bus and drove nearly an hour up the road to Pev’s paintball. Most of the guys were sleeping on the drive up. I know I nearly nodded off a dozen times. We filled out release forms and decided to split the teams up to play USA vs the World. With special guest paintballer Brooks Laich in the mix it made the teams 21 to 20 in favor of the world, even though Marcus evened it out with his hide and hide tactics.

The first game of the day was elimination and ended in a tie as both teams were feeling the other out and guys seemed to stay back and not take enough risk. I on the other hand took a direct shot to the head from Garrett Mitchell. Game 2 was a USA win with Bruiser, Miele, Spinell, and Burt being standouts in capture the flag. The third game was also a tie in search and destroy, with a few great individual battles taking place between the Russian trio of Orlov, Stan and Gino against Burkey and Davis . . . Interesting how they were teaming up 3 on 2?? The fourth and fifth games were played on a fort course and split. The name of the game was Attack and Defend. I can’t explain how much more difficult it is to defend the fort because you’re completely surrounded with paint flying everywhere. deKastrozza and myself were the last two standing for the U.S. squad until Eakin came in and touched the center post.

Everyone took an extended break to replenish ourselves with as much water as possible and get our air tanks refilled with compressed air. It was a heck of a time as guys were covered head to toe in paint, dirt and soaked with sweat.

We moved to a lower course called “Town” and played two games, and I can’t recall who the winners were, but I know with all the different building and cover spaces it was nearly impossible to survive. The last game was Ironman, and all this means is you get the luxury of calling yourself “out” where as if you were hit before you had to return to the dead zone until the game was over. But in Ironman you can keep playing until you’re tired of getting hit. The big winners of this game were Brooks and Mitchell for Team World and Spinell and Miele on the USA side thanks to their gunslinger mentalities. I recall watching Brooks run down the middle of the course with two guns taking fire from all sides and Miele making two or three full runs down the middle taking heavy fire.

By the time we all made it back to the bus it was time to take a nap for most as we hit traffic coming back into town. I know that everyone had a great time playing paintball, but we’ll see how many guys are extra sore tomorrow, because it was a hidden workout.

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

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

[continuation of postcard text]

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

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

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

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

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

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

–Fins

The new media commitment of my new bloggermate, even weary from battle!

Anyway, about those photos Mike took — they’re museum-worthy! My kind of museum, anyway. OFB has fun producing a distinctive Christmas card each fall; with a Santa’s cap Photo-shopped in on a certain slugger here I think we may have stumbled upon our Yuletide greeting for 2010.

photo by Mike Rannells

photo by Mike Rannells

photo by Mike Rannells