On Frozen Blog

On Sunday, February 22, 2009, the Capitals matinee-host the Pittsburgh Penguins at Verizon Center. That day will commemorate the 29th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice, the greatest day in the history of hockey and the greatest day in the history of sports. Summertime question for you: what do you think of the idea of the Caps doing something radically different with their sweaters that day — like, say, wearing re-issues of the Lake Placid heroes’ sweaters? Before you dismiss the idea out of hand, let’s first have a little chat among patriots about the matter.

First, let’s acknowledge the Caps’ unique qualifications for potentially pursuing such a scheme. In representing the nation’s capital, Washington’s hockey team is different from 29 others in the NHL. They aren’t a generic animal of prey (Panther, Bruin) or an abstract circumstance of nature (Lightning, Hurricane, Avalanche, Star); they are named as a signifier, of something nationally unifying and laudatory. Millions of Americans each year flock to Washington to experience what our city represents. In return I say a sports team named for the entirety of that experience can well represent one of this nation’s finest moments. If ever there were a pro hockey team compelled to don the ‘80 Miracle look for a commemorative occasion, it ought to be Washington’s Red, White and Blue Capitals.

Over the past three decades, the NHL has been curiously uninvolved in acknowledging Lake Placid’s Miracle. Why? Thirteen of the 20 rostered miraculous Americans went on to NHL careers — and five of them earned more than 500 games in the league. On the Miracle’s anniversary, is there any possible downside to the league associating itself with the feat? Understand that I’m not calling for some extended exploitation of the team and event, just a single day’s acknowledgment, which arrives at the heart of each hockey season.

Perhaps, it could be argued, each NHL team should wear a commemorative patch for that week’s play. I’m fine with that. But the game of hockey changed forever that night in upstate New York. Boys dreamed. Men wept. Traveling strangers pulled over their cars on interstate highways and hugged. A downtrodden culture rejuvenated itself. To this day some very learned minds suggest that geopolitical affairs were irrevocably altered by those 60 minutes of hockey. (Imagine.) And so from the NHL I’m looking for something larger as display and remembrance. Why not have a team wear the actual sweater, for one day? And who better to do that than our boys?

OFB readers this week will have noticed our humble efforts at offering up a third jersey design for the Capitals to consider down the road. Its color scheme — wholly unintended — bears a striking similarity to the sweater worn on February 24, 1980, when the Americans earned gold at Lake Placid against Finland. I find that interesting.

The next obstacle to address would be a purported “forced nationalism” on a contemporary NHL club necessarily comprised of nationals from a half dozen or more foreign nations. Specifically, wouldn’t there be awkward irony in an Alexander Ovechkin and his Russian teammates wearing “USA” across their chests the third Sunday of next February?

It’s irrefutable that the achievement of 2/22/80 was distinctly sovereign, distinctly — I would argue — American. But as it’s aged, hasn’t it acquired an EveryNation sheen of admirable heroism, a universally acknowledged sense of David slaying Goliath, and thereby broadened the general appeal of our now very global game? Isn’t there something in the Miracle for every hockey player from every nation to delight in, and celebrate? Isn’t it part of the Miracle’s lore that even the shocked and stunned Russians, standing forlorn on their own blueline, looked down the Lake Placid ice at their collegian vanquishers and admired? And if not, if that’s overstatement, couldn’t we next rationalize the commemoration merely on these grounds: at the highest level of hockey, for just one day, let’s simply and distinctly acknowledge the greatest hockey game ever played.

It would be close to a franchise-best moment to have the Capitals debut a new, very patriotic-looking third sweater next February 22, but the NHL requires that teams identify in advance all sweaters to be worn during the season. The Capitals aren’t adopting a third sweater this season. What I’m advocating is a league-issued waiver from the uniform regulations for a very special Sunday that just happens to showcase the two greatest hockey players on the planet.

This is a very, very, secondary consideration, but talk about a marketable television event! The game between Ovechkin’s Capitals and Crosby’s Penguins is already slated for national television (I say this not because I’ve confirmed it with NBC but from a sense of how could it not be?). What aura in the Phone Booth then if this unprecedented uniforming were to take place. What might tickets sell for out on the District’s streets that morning? What if one or four members of the Miracle team were in the house?

I have another compelling and deeply personal reason for pursuing this idea. During their home games the Capitals like to seat me next to SovetskySport’s Dmitry Chesnokov. Dmitry, newly sworn in as an American citizen, is younger than I am and by virtue of his age forgiveably unaware of the immediate impact of the Miracle. After next February 22nd’s game I’d like my friend to accompany me down to the Capitals’ locker room and interview his countryman Ovechkin, who’d be wearing a sweater whose style will never go out of fashion, and one which changed the world.