In Glacialis Blog

Plures, comprehendo nostrum own pucksandbooks, erant ex urbs quod a suum computers per feriae ut magnus novus ledo. Iuvo reprehendo vos sursum in weeks’ vices, weve’ congero nonnullus links ut a numerus of articles. Erant’ reus habeo requiro nonnullus, sic sentio solvo dimitto nos a ineo per a link ut absentis article.

• A Visum ex Vilis Sessio: Hanlon Sicco, Boudreau In
• A Visum ex Vilis Sessio: Tersus Slate
• Bleacher Opinio: Caps’ Skid Sumptus Hanlon Suus Officium
• Canada.com: Caput Incendia Caput capitis Cogo Hanlon
• Caput Insider: Hanlon Incendia
• Dump quod Fugo: Ex Archives
• In Cella: Cogo Hanlon Incendia
• Hockey Novus: NHL Gig diu Coming pro Boudreau
• FanHouse: Glacies Ovis: Bruce Omnipotens
• Globe quod Mail: Populus Hanlon has run ex refero
• Lancaster Online: Gero’ cogo proveho ut Caput
• James Mirtle: Terminus pro Hanlon
• Pium- Novus: Boudreau Takes Super Caps
• Pium- Novus: Boudreau A Victor
• Incomparabilis Prognosticator: Change
• Lusum Novus: Caput incendia Hanlon, proveho AHL cogo
• Lusum Novus: Vicis runs sicco in Caps’ Hanlon
• Sol solis Herald: E- Mare Wolves cogo protelo Caput
• Tribune-Democrat: Iugum of e-Johnstown ludio ludius ascend coaching ladder
• Iugum Rector: Boudreau gets suus chance
• Walton, Wired & Unwired: An Patefacio Tabellae ut Caput Populus
• WashingtonCaps.com: Caput Restituo Hanlon
• WashingtonCaps.com: Postgame Notebook
• Lavatio Stipes: Hanlon Sicco ut Cogo
• Lavatio Stipes: Boudreau est Laurifer in Suus Debut
• Lavatio Vicis: Boudreau Nomen Caps Cogo
• Lavatio Vicis: Nixor Caput licentio Hanlon
• Lavatio Vicis: Backstrom’s Vir Buoy Caps
• Winnipeg Sol solis: NHL Imbuo

An rudimentum ut suggero a voluntas of aer EGO congressus in quod super Quin Center orsa tardus Imbuo meridianus:

445: p.m.: Nos operor non have quisquam appositus hockey tempestas. Verum, pedes down 6th St. sub a aestuo sol solis, Im’ incommoditas in mereo bluejeans quod a res shirt. Tamen Im’ melior off quam six fans EGO obduco quisnam es outfitted in novus rutilus Reebok Caps’ sudo; they es collapsed quod obduco sicco obviam Quin Center moenia, sudo fluo off suum templum. Plaga Excolo recro lemma per amotio novus sudo quod restituo lemma per vetus CCMs. Fere instantly fans revoco.

Serio, EGO saw a mediocris numerus of fans in illa rib-huggers sicco in estus, quod nullus of lemma videor ut exsisto moving 9 sentio ocius quam mihi.

Caps have a numerus of tener, venustas baculus scurrying super 6th quod RESURRECTIO Vicus in Segways dispensatio sinus schedules.

505:: Ille Forma’ Caps’ quod Veneficus’ apparatus repono, quod nemo videor scio est nomen quis iam, facile has 60 vel 70 shoppers in is duos hora pro venatus. Suus’ vere per difficilis moveo inter in, suus’ sic congested. Illic est torqueo secundum torqueo of novus colo colui cultum quod logo caps, quod they es evanidus velox. versus procul duos subcriptio es convenienter six vel septem populus profundus. teams’ novus vultus has been fabrica in a vulgus array of formo huic shop, quod suus’ videlicet populus per fans in oris nox noctis domi.

Tergum foris en iter itineris ut press porta, EGO occupo super an prodigiosus os: a manus manus of super 25 vel 30 men quod women — plerumque men — congregated in 7th St. taedium fervens rutilus wigs, rutilusindutus, quod rutilus athletic shoes. Is est haud vulgaris oris nox noctis of hockey domi, EGO reputo.

520:: Predictably, suus’ novitas- nox noctis turba in press lounge. Comcast inter alius broadcast exitus est effectus a longinquus foris rink, tractus multus of interventus alio whod’ secus exsisto in lounge. EGO supervenio in lounge per a absentis lustro varius interventus pro suum veneratio slottings of Caps in Oriens is season. Hic’ quis EGO perficio:

Mike Vogel: 3rd (obviously, is has Caps victor Inferus)

Ron Weber: 10th (ouch!)

Eric McErlain: 7th

Corey Masisak: 7th

Dmitry Chesnokov: 6th

600:: In press arca archa Im’ sessio inter Eric McErlain quod Dmitry Chesnokov. Voluntas, meus hockey erudio ero provectus tonight, quod Peius’ quoque have statim vexillum of bonus amicitia. Ut vox of Eric est a Vox vocis of America opinio exemplar ex Czech Res publica. A iugo of opinio in nostrum row profero ut Caps have reservo a press arca archa opus tractus — totus season porro — pro mortuus Dave Fay. EGO profero ut VOA guy ut meus recordatio eram ut Mr. Leonsis statutum tempus ut excolo intus a dies vel duos Daves’ decessio nos. Incidentally, solum of page 1 of Caps’ 2007 Interventus Rector portatus a dedication ut Fay.

615:: Im’ in levamen area of press arca archa, quod est partially vas in, quod questio quietis illic quoniam Tim Lemke of Lavatio Vicis est interviewing mihi super blogging quod suus labefactum in Caps. Is emailed mihi a week vel sic abhinc quod edoctus mihi ut hed’ iam orator per Eric McErlain ( bonus informatio, ut) quod Jon Press.

spatium permaneo diutius quam EGO sententia is would simplex quoniam Tim quod EGO have a verus interesting quod securus verto, quod is asks bonus questions. Quoque, quoniam EGO diligo sermo super is thema. Lemke profero suus infigo ut quattuor nostrum loco multus of opus in OFB. EGO dont’ per teneo quam ut respondeo; objectively vos could positus ut nos devoveo a sanus numerus of hora sulum week ut site, tamen vel ut Im’ stilus procul 200: vel 300: in oriens, gnarus Peius’ exsisto dragging in muneris tunc dies per mane meridianus, EGO nunquam visum nisus ut opus.

Plenus promptum ( quasi): three vicis EGO scisco Lemke verto off suus recorder ut nos can chat off record. Volo ut suggero him ut plenus a voluntas ut possible of quis has venio nobis super preteritus annus, quod varius members of hockey defero have partis me, per aliquantum of libertas, quis they sentio civitas of res interventus in D.C. futurus. Mike Vogel quondam told mihi ut 80 sentio of quis audit in suus hockey eo necesse has ut terminus sursum in talea cella solum. “suus’ a bonus via servo amicitia” is told mihi. (persevero)

Apprised of Comcasts’ commitment ut Caps is week, EGO verto in Comcast SportsNet moment EGO supervenio domus ex opus Monday nox noctis, quod left is illic. Quis EGO vigilo super tunc quattuor hora attonitus mihi.

EGO saw novus Comcast Caps’ pello pepulli pulsum opinio Lisa Tumulosus bulla populus a season praevius alongside Joe Nidor. EGO saw iustus super totus of Alexander Ovechkins’ primoris- umquam NHL venatus (Id’ forgotten ut is eram a flubbed breakaway ex a hat furta ut nox noctis). Tunc EGO saw JoeB quod Craig populus alius bulla dimidium hora, “Caps Narro” proalius team praevius. Spondeo pro Comcasts’ “SportsNight” ut secuutus pollicitus vel magis Caps’ occulto.

Is eram “Monday Nox noctis Hockey in Washington,” nimirum.

Caput capitis Cogo Glen Hanlon eram interviewed in depth per Tumulosus. GMGM eram thoughtfully interviewed, tandem, quod is dummodo suus usitas thoughtful restituo. Key alio — Sarcalogos Expedio, Olie Kolzig, Tom Venenum, Nicklas Backstrom, Michael Nylander — totus took volvit pro Comcasts’ venit. Tarik El Vercundus’ segment per Joe quod Craig EGO sententia eram a highlight of universus nox noctis. (Tarik, verus effingo, dedi a siccus quod mediocris assessment amid vallum bene engulfing norma mane is autumn. Caps, is said, could perago usquam “ ex sedecim ut decimus” in Orientales placitum)

Broadcast Susurro super pro hockey in D.C. illa dies? Umm, etiam — tantum si vos contemplor totus- perussi, singulus- thema pietas per locus lusum television exitus ut urbs’ rutilus- caput capitis stepchild of pro teams “ susurro”- testimonium. Promptus suus’ iens ut exsisto amo is reliquum of week sulum vesper in Comcast.

Procul unus cuspis per prime vicis proceedings EGO saw Joe quod Craig mico in screen multiple-screen listings of Caps’ prospicio. EGO saw nomen Michal Neuvirth, Simeon Varlamov, Karl Alzner, Joe Finley, Mathieu Perreault, Suffragium Bouchard, Dave Steckel, quod Sarcalogos Bourque, totus broadcast in an exitus ut nunquam in suus vita held an muneris fantasy hockey lacus. Ne multus, is eram amo a effrego exhockeysfuture, quod duos DraftGeeks pensio sicco Comcast bulla quod condita amo Wayne quod Garth in locus cable obvius.

Wayne, er, JoeB: “inviso totus is talentum in pipeline, Dude!”

Garth, er, Craig ( caput capitis gallo): “Praeclarus!”

Is est quis importo unus Canuck can operor ut an exitus!

Magis serio, Tumulosus eram hired accerso suus NHL occulto usus ut Comcast. in- domus hockey talentum eram significant, si sub-appreciated quod grossly sub- utilitas, tamen had exitus umquam jactito a dedicated opinio in pello pepulli pulsum? Tunc Im’ iens ut refer ut occulto sententia amo Comcasts’ huic week havent’ res in a vacuum, quod ut theyre’ a prenuncius of melior occulto advenio, procer quod broadcast, institutio quod alternative. Ut an ambitus, suus’ fashionable, nimirum: Caps may non planto is ut postseason is annus, tamen they mos non exsisto plumbeus.

Tamen nimirum Im’ a subscriber ut ratio ut a interventus revolution huic team quod suus lusum est puteus sub illa dies, in illa secui.

Im’ quoque, procul weeks’ terminus, ut is tentatio run in Comcast terminatio, planning in decens a subscriber ut CapsTV.

Suus’ a dies of sileo non tantum pro Lavatio Caput’ ludio ludius quod cogo — puteus, ludio ludius utique — tamen pro teams’ fanaticus communications baculus pariter. Res sicco procul Kettler quantus quantus EGO have been preteritus 10 dies, EGO lucrum a profundus appreciation pro commitment of Nate Ewell, Julie Petri, Paul Rovnak, quod Mike Vogel, inter alius. Suum dies per castra suscipio mane quod terminus tardus, quod nunc of annus theyre’ non tantum facilitating unus of graviter interventus flows subsequens castra in annus tamen quoque putting una in-season communications uber, talis ut Interventus Rector. Suus’ forecast futurus a attonitus tardus September Sunday hodie, quod Spero theyre’ totus sicco having fun in fun quod recharging suum batteries.

pause in in- glacies factum est a bonus vicis sumo prosapia of quis Caps have perficio eatenus in quis EGO puto est plurrimi maximus palaestra castra in norma’ history. EGO no punctum per meus saluto lustro hockey-savvy caput capitis quoque captus in cotidie effectus procul Kettler, ex procer quod broadcast opinio ut socius bloggers ut fans in sto, quod herewith Im’ misceo suum plumbum storylines of castra ut balanus per meus own.

• Superbus Papa. Ive’ ordine seen Erus Leonsis ut palaestra castra testis per preteritus 10 dies, quod dum suus’ verus hes’ haud diutius involved per dies- ut- dies operations of AOL, is somes a districtus communications vir. EGO reputo quis’ venio per suus palaestra castra penitus campester speculum ut of ceterus nostrum: species quod depth of norma in propono est sic infigo vos es iuste subigo facio trinus sicco illic quod simplex ostendo sum in verto angulus of teams’ competitiveness.

• Nylander ut versus 2. Duos annus abhinc Michael Nylander left Lavatio ut a valde bonus hockey ludio ludius. Is cado hes’ reverto tamen perfectus sic videor ut exsisto magis a astrum. Hes’ a dynamic playmaker, in confuto valetudo. Quod dum fere sulum in hockey is estas forecasted an Ovechkin-Nylander caput capitis- versus iugum, via tergum in July Caput capitis Cogo Glen Hanlon valde palam civitas suus intention of experimenting per caput capitis-6 porro iunctura, quod eatenus in castra, emineo chemistry videor habeo melded inter Alexander Semin, Michael Nylander, quod Nicklas Backstrom ut Hanlons’ secundus iunctum.

• Lubricus Swede Secui II. Narro of Backstrom, sit irrefutably questus levamentum in North American- amplitudo ovis of glacies — condita progressio “ in a cotidie basis,” ut laudo meus amicus Mike Vogel. Procul orbis terrarum Championships in Moscow in May, quondam Solio quod Swedish Populus Team Caput capitis Cogo Bengt Gustafsson told nos ut Backstrom would planto ut transitus successfully quod rationabiliter celeriter, quod is eram vox. Tim Leone sursum in Ipsa reputo is in Backstroms’, quod Caps’, optimus penitus pro him habeo a vas of capulus per Gero is season. Aint’ venio.

• Suus’ meus puck, quod Im’ servo is. Caps dont’ ( etiamnunc) have a dominor shut-down tutaminis, sic Glen Hanlons’ ars pro amplio defensabiliter lascivio is season sileo per suus stipes suscipio possessio of puck magis sepius quam in preteritus duos seasons, ut sepius they fugo is inter rink in futile formo. Si vos have puck magis sepius quam vestri contradictio, vestri calx isnt’ adepto apt ut visio 40 vel 50 offa sulum nox noctis, quod trado quinque vel six calx plurimus nox noctis. Eatenus, is ars videor futurus captus habitum. In palaestra castra’ scrimmages quod per Caps’ primoris three preseason venatus, vos can animadverto magis puck possessio quod fewer netminders collapsing ex fatigo.

• Caput, Meus Caput/ Filius of Kono-Dahlen-Halpern. Ive’ changed meus visum in cloning, propter Sarcalogos Expedio. Voluntas haud irreverens ut Dale quod suus secretum sudo, tamen should Expedio caput Caps ut a Sto Vas titulus una of tunc three seasons, is mos have futurus contemplor ut optimus quod plurimus maximus caput in team history, having rector team ex sterilis of an unprecedented solum sicco ut pollicitus terra. Quod sitting hic in September 2007, EGO wouldnt’ sto in versus ut beneficium obviam is. (animadverto Carolina ‘05-06, Tampa ‘03-04.)

Is est Sarcalogos Expedio’ team- primoris, duos- via versatility ut has Glen Hanlon fantasizing super a duos- via, labefactum tertius versus per versus of valde Steve Konowalchuk, Jeff Halpern, Ulf Dahlen trio of pauci annus abhinc. Ut versus, youll’ repeto, eram sic dominor ut Ron Wilson patefacio iustus super sulum venatus per is. Is eram quoque unus ut eram a lynchpin ut Caps’ postseason participation. cogo has told interventus ut hes’ vultus pro 60 calx ex suus tertius versus is season, quod donatus defensabiliter acumen of Expedio quod Boyd Gordon, quod Res Pettingers’ obscoena pop, suus’ rectus ut precor KDH comparison.

Im’ quoque non wagering in Expedio’ obscoena uber stringo, dramatically, per rectum of suus dropping tenus versus 3. Ut is innotesco sui in Interventus Dies, hes’ prodigo preteritus duos seasons captus amoveo obviam amo of Zdeno Tutela quod caput capitis defensabiliter pairings. Minor sic, is would videor, orsa is season.

• Profundus Depth. Caps is weekend have 35 ludio ludius pugna pro macula in oris nox noctis roster. Suus’ rationabiliter securus ut forecast alius quinque cuts, tamen insulto ex super 30 ut 23 est alius res. Ut loco is charitably, Caps’ es in uncharted tractus, stipes- obfirmo, in terms of skater species theyll’ exsisto showcasing sicco procul Kettler in week duos of castra. Is est plurrimi basic quod foveo subcribo of super prosperitas of redivivus.

• Three venatus, three plumbum. Per three pre se ferre venatus, Caps have tantum quondam agri a iuste veteran versus — permaneo Thursday nox noctis in Ottawa. They patefacio in Carolina, obviam a comparatively veteran Turbo’ versus, vestio tantum John Erskine quod Mike Viridis in blueline ut guys per significant NHL usus ex permaneo season ( quod per BJ in net). In totus three venatus Caps have ludio ludius significant contentus per a plumbum ( bis per duos- calx plumbum). Illic subsisto erroris (poena) quod sollicitudo (poena) aplenty, tamen nos shouldnt’ perdo os of quod Cogo Hanlons’ ars of lascivio a magis puck possessio venatus est uberte perspicuus. Gratia lucror magis sepius, a team must primoris fundo competitiveness, tunc perficio plumbum in venatus. Caps have artificiosus utriusque mane huic preseason.

tunc step est occludo paciscor quondam vos have plumbum.

• Ut did Torontos’ procer interventus adeo opus in Lavatio? Semel in meus hockey vita, EGO excito sulum dies gnarus ut per meus oriens capulus EGO postulo ut saluto textus sites pro utriusque of Washingtons’ magnus newspapers gratia insisto occulto illic of Caps’ palaestra castra. Illic es lima illic basically cotidie. Quod bonus ones. Additionally, blog lima illic. Is est ut is should exsisto, tamen ut nostrum procer guys — quod plurimus singulariter Vicis’ Corey Masisak, cuius’ tantum captus in pello pepulli pulsum of a mortuus legend — bonus in vos.

• Acer- indutus men. Suus’ non usquam near ut maximus ut talentum upgrade, tamen huic autumn of similitudo mischief, Caps have showcased optimus- vultus novus threads in universus league. Quod suus’ non vel propinquus. Peius’ exsisto proprie memor ut illud snazzy niveus similitudo ratio tops es rightfully reverto ut taedium in domus glacies.

Confession: prior to Monday, I’d never watched ‘Washington Post Live.’ I don’t have a friend or acquaintance who’d admit to the act. I never heard any “must-see” buzz surrounding it, or even any “see it while you’re ironing” buzz, and I’ve been busy this spring doing the work those associated with that program should have been regarding one of the region’s pro sports teams. But Monday brought us a significant photo-op/presser at Kettler Capitals, and I was curious to inventory the MSM coverage of it and dutifully report my findings to OFB readers. So I tuned in.

A knee-jerk reflection about ‘WaPost Live’s’ production values: three guys sitting around a non-descript studio bloviating for 90 minutes about sports. How avant garde . . . how cutting edge.

Sorry I missed its first three months. Anybody Tivo’d them?

The program is recorded and aired initially at some point in the afternoon, for 90 minutes, every day, and then subsequently re-aired seven or nine times on Comcast, and the cumulative tally of viewers then is alleged to exceed the tailgating population of Hershey Bears’ fans in the Giant Center Center parking lot on a May Sunday afternoon. Anyway, I watched the 8:30 p.m. re-airing Monday, and was shocked, shocked, to see the opening roundtable discussion focus the program’s opening 10 minutes on Michael Vick’s breeding of fighting dogs.

Vick, after all, is QB for the Atlanta Falcons.

For all I know, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is really upset with Michael Vick these days. But ‘WaPost Live’ is really, really upset with him. Ten minutes, uninterrupted, worth of upset.

Fighting dogs.

Just so I’m not misinterpreted: the daily television program on sports for the newspaper ‘of record’ in town opened Monday with a prolonged discussion of a running (and ever armed) QB’s penchant for breeding fighting dogs.

(The irony of former WaPost Caps’ beat guy Jason LaCanfora adding to the Comcast kennel chat wasn’t lost on me.)

Washington isn’t a sports town, you know, because of the transient quality of the region’s residents; certainly not because its MSM have warped news values.

A quarter of an an hour into the program host Russ Thaler paused for oxygen and in a cutaway to commercial alluded to a breaking roster development out at Kettler. At OFB we call that progress for puckheads.

I was able to survery the rush-hour sports segments for both WJLA and WRC. Tim Brandt’s coverage was predictably pedestrian. I can’t get worked up about the old linebacker’s middling musings about hockey. And it’s just WJLA, after all.

But Lindsay Czarniak’s 6:00 sportscast, my readers will be shocked to learn, garnered my admiration. She opened her sports report with the 24 hours-old highlights of Sunday’s Nats-O’s game, but then she used Sunday RFK to transition into Capsdom. Backstrom threw out Sunday’s first pitch there, and she was impressed by the Swede’s courage and control in the endeavor.

Her coverage of Monday at Kettler included interviews with Mr. Leonsis, the team’s general manager, Backstrom’s new coach, and the star goalie. And we saw snippets from all of them. I felt almost as if I were watching an evening sportscast in Winnipeg.

WRC grade: A

I also was able to catch Comcast Sportnight’s coverage of the Backstrom presser. It lasted all of about 40 seconds. Same outlet covering the frothing canines caper. Ten minutes on the four-leggers, 40 seconds on the two-legged SuperSwede.

Grade: F

WaPost this morning bumped hockey all the way up to E3, out of its usual perch below the obits. Tarik’s account is fine I suppose. No pic of the newest Cap, which struck me as odd, from an event designed mostly for photo ops. But smack in the middle of E1 Washingtonians are confronted by Steve Goff’s account (with accompanying color photo) of a Maryland pro soccer team no one in the history of the world has ever heard about.

Grade: D+

As mentioned on Friday, one of our readers alerted us that Tony Kornheiser actually talked about hockey on his morning show on Washington Post Radio, WTWP.

“One of our readers informed us yesterday that on his radio show Thursday morning no less than Tony Kornheiser complained of WaPost’s lack of NHL postseason coverage! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.“

Tony did complain about the WaPost’s lack of postseason coverage, but he also took wacks at the NHL’s television contract and ratings. His guest was the Capitals’ beat reporter for the Washington Post, Tarik El-Bashir.

Have a listen:

Edit: Audio link is now fixed. I usually upload by hand but tried via WordPress and had problems.

This statement, blogged yesterday by beat guy Tarik El-Bashir, made me curious:

“it’s another slow day on the Caps’ beat.”

Having spent a fair portion of this spring inside the team’s offices and thought processes, I can assure, there is no dearth of activity or ideas in CapsLand. The transaction wire tells but one tale.

It’s the offseason for some of hockey’s beat reporters, but for the sport’s fans, there is none. Nor for its bloggers. (Most of them, anyway.) And this dynamic may, partly, be undergirding the media realignment we are witnessing within hockey’s coverage.

Both newspapers yesterday chronicled the “news” of Nicklas Backstrom’s impending arrival in Washington, but both accounts, predictably, were pro forma, cut-and-paste jobs from a press release. Meanwhile, Washington hockey bloggerdom was aware of the Swede’s arrival last weekend (some, earlier) and had spent much of May speculating about the young pivot’s winger pairings. Anyway, with present and past as a guide, I’m not sure we can expect any better from the beats.

But the purpose of this post isn’t to play a game of who scooped who (who cares?); the much larger and deeply troubling issue is that at the height of the NHL playoffs the hockey MSM here don’t think there’s anything hockey worth writing about. We also have a certain farm club just up the road making more notable postseason noise.

One of our readers informed us yesterday that on his radio show Thursday morning no less than Tony Kornheiser complained of WaPost’s lack of NHL postseason coverage! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Some months ago an OFB colleague expressed to me his concern about our site’s content come summer. A darkness over the ice necessarily meant lights out on writing ideas, no? I had to laugh. The entire month of June is Christmas Eve for Draftgeeks. Anything worth monitoring come July 1? A week or so later, the reigning MVP of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League will arrive in Washington to take part in the Caps’ summer rookie camp. And he will be joined by that league’s leading scorer from this past season as well as numerous, newly signed collegians of promise. I’m actually thinking of enrolling in Berlitz classes for French.

We have interviews scheduled for the summer that are simply impossible to carry off in-season.

More basically, aren’t the most inspired love letters composed in the absence of the beloved? Soldiers to their girls back home, campus sweethearts separated by summer jobs and vexing geography. The summer, when we’re separated from our mistress the ice, is the birthchild of a renewed yearning. Ironically, the oven-oppressive heat and humidity that plagues our region throughout July and August insulates me in inspiring thoughts of better, colder hours more pleasantly passed. I actually walk to my Metro station, dripping, on those mornings and imagine myself training for the Iditarod.

What manner of lover’s note do we in Hockey D.C. receive from 15th St. and its ilk in summer?

A Dear John.

The Dave Steckel I watched in Atlanta last night looked identical to the one I followed up in New Hampshire and Maine last month — a force in two ends of the rink, but with one key distinction: he occasionally left the ice in his Bears’ sweater for line changes. But last night for Coach Hanlon, I’m not sure I saw him leave the ice in the third period.

It was only one game, but in the season within a season, the one where many guys are making statements to management about jobs for the autumn, Dave Steckel last night announced rather loudly that he’s likely to make a serious run at a roster spot with the parent club come training camp.

Late-round draft gems are my favorite hockey personnel stories, but right behind them are the castoffs who eventually land in outposts of wide open opportunity and defy their previous doubters and develop into impact big-leaguers. We don’t know quite yet if he’s one of those, but to look at the game Dave Steckel is showcasing this year, packaged in a perfect hockey body, is to wonder instantly what in the world the LA Kings were thinking in letting this guy go at the age of 21 or 22. That same organization, perhaps not coincidentally, let go of Bruce Boudreau the same summer.

I’ve never understood traditional media’s general refusal to chronicle the developmental side of pro hockey. You don’t have to be a DraftGeek to recognize that prospects are the lifeblood of NHL teams. But traditional media’s coverage for as long as I can remember has consisted of the names of the drafted and their junior club affiliation each June and between then and their arrival in the NHL years later one vast black hole of white space. It’s certainly no coincidence that the planet’s finest source for pro hockey’s development data and narratives is electronic (hockeysfuture).

Last spring, Tarik traveled to Hershey to cover a Bears’ playoff game, and if I recall correctly, he admitted at the time that it had been his first AHL game in about three years. His file might have been the first of its kind in his paper. Not all that long ago, the Caps had an American League affiliate in Baltimore: the Skipjacks. Those teams, whose alumni included Steve Konowalchuck and Sergei Gonchar, may as well have skated in Siberia as far as the Post was concerned. Check out the four goalies who saw action for the Skipjacks in the 1991-’92 season: Don Beaupre, Jim Hrivnak, Byron Dafoe, Olie Kolzig.

In the print edition of yesterday’s Washington Times, Corey Masisak delivered terrific detail about the feats of Matheiu Perreault, Francois Bouchard, and Steckel. Earlier this year he profiled Kings’ rookie Anze Kopitar, the first NHLer produced by Slovenia. I’m hoping he stays on the beat of the off-the-beaten path of hockey player development.

Hockey players take such varied and soul-challenging routes chasing their big league dreams. Brutal busrides through blizzards over years on $25 a day per diems. Only hockey has the billet family. Players’ development journeys are instant and iconic (Ovechkin), circuitous and anonymous (Steckel), and against-all-odds defying (Cheechoo). They are anything but routine and as such the stuff of terrific story telling.

I’m acutely aware that most Caps’ fans who tuned in to last night’s win in Atlanta had no idea who Dave Steckel was or how he got there. That’s not their fault. But that’s part of the reason why we’re here.

In his blog today, WaPost Caps reporter Tarik El Bashir claims that the Caps will be switching to Red, White, and Blue beginning next season.

The stench of this season’s concluding quarter is eerily reminiscent to ‘03-’04, when the Halpern-Battaglia-Jean Luc Grand-Pierre Caps made gamedays mornings and evenings of ennui. The two sets of conclusions are united in aesthetics: they aren’t very pretty. My blogger colleague Empty Maybe calls it “playing out the string,” but it’s actually something worse: doing so with defeat inevitable. This morning, as with those three springs back, one cannot find much fault with the roster’s effort; it is now nightly matched against superior talent. But it hasn’t quit on its coach.

Fifteen games remain, delivering 15 instances of underdog status. This morning it is difficult imagining the Caps meeting or slightly exceeding last season’s 70 points. The Flyers aren’t quite as Philthy as they were at the end of ‘06; it isn’t inconceivable that the Caps easily qualify for the entry draft lottery . . . and draft ahead of Philly.

Quite simply, this dour denouement can never happen again.

Ahead looms, from my vantage, the most important offseason in at least 20 years for this organization. Going forward, General Manager George McPhee must ensure that no manner of injuries and “business decision” selloffs ever again render the Washington Capitals non-competitive on a nightly basis. Quality depth must be accumulated, the duration of important contracts must be adequately staggered, Plan Bs and Cs must contain quality and chemistry. To put it bluntly: what has been asked of Caps’ fans by management for the past four calendar years has pushed what is plausibly and reasonably sports-humane to the brink.

If management doesn’t believe me, perhaps it will listen to its star player. In this morning’s edition, Alexander Ovechkin told the Toronto Sun “We have to sign good players and I hope we do . . . I want to play on a good team.”

Yesterday Ted told the Washington Post that attendant to offseason personnel investments certain “financial losses” will be incurred. The fanbase backlash on line was swift and strident, and this morning I side with them. Now is especially not the time to be talking dollars and cents. Ours is a fanbase fatigued by the team’s forgotten child status, battered by years of local media hostility and indifference.

Now is the time to talk exclusively of a single subject: the architecture of winning . . . buttress columns for which, we should be told, will be moved into place this summer.

The ways with Washington media are weird. Ted is in the unenviable position of needing to mainstream his message of “Better days are coming” but ever confronted by an MSM dismissive of his endeavor. Last week a ludicrously self-absorbed George Michael (was/is there any other kind?) purchased a half-page space in WaPost congratulating himself on his career. He’d never do it, but when Ted’s rebuild is complete, I’d love to see his full-page ad there illustrate him in his customarily nattily attired style, holding a copy of the daily fraud that yearly hemorrhages tens of thousands of readers, bearing the concise accomanying text “F You . . . Thanks for nothing.” Hmm, maybe a blogger’s coalition can carry that off.

From Ted’s chat with Tarik published yesterday to GMGM’s open letter to fans on the team web site last week, it’s clear that management senses the arrival of a critical juncture in its existence. Both communications, however, struck me as fulfilling approximately two-thirds of the needed mission. Management, it seems to me, has to be bold, even creative, in its communications as another harsh reality settles in on springtime hockey in D.C. The fanbase so desperately wants to hear it. It needs to hear management say something on the order of “Our Alexanders are traveling to the Worlds next month, for the last time.”

Remember this remarkable WaPost sports section front from December 15, 2006? We told our readers that day to go out and purchase the Post as a way of acknowledging the paper’s spasm of balanced sports coverage.

Next question for you: Have you seen its likeness in the paper since? Me neither. The Caps in mid-December were the talk of the early NHL season, playing above-.500 hockey and fueling flights of playoff fancy among the city’s hockey fans. I had my doubts about claims (mostly of the message board variety) of a general improvement at WaPost in its coverage of hockey, and this morning I’m reporting no progress there. When it comes to covering hockey, this season the Post has proven once again that it’ll only back a front-runner.

For one day.

We hockey fans in this town this season have been thrown a few online chat and blog bones by the paper’s .com edition. Hard copy requires hard decisions of inclusion and exclusion, but just about anyone with something to say and a half hour’s time can, with a techie nearby, host a chat.

The principal WaPost product still stinks. And it’s not Tarik’s fault. Much higher up, there’s still entrenched editorial bigotry against the sport and the Caps.

And only winning will produce more false faces to mask it.

Tarik spoke with Bengt Gustafsson, former Washington Capital and current Swedish National Coach, who had this to say bout Nicklas Bäckström, the fourth overall pick in the draft last year.

“He is an intelligent player with great, great hands. He finds those passes and those holes in small, small [places] the way like [Wayne] Gretzky did.”

Bäckström was a member of Sweden’s World Junior Championship team last year coached by Gustafsson.

Just my humble opinion, but from 2002 through 2006 there is an exceptionally impressive body of scouting and drafting work accomplished by George McPhee and his team of scouts. Having said that, my sense is that they seldom look back on the 2001 Entry Draft — much anticipated, highly lauded for its overal quality and depth — with much fondness. In their defense, the Caps were without a first-round pick that year. Their first selection came 58th overall, which they used to select Nathan Paetsch. In the third round, they tabbed Owen Fussey with the 90th pick. In the fourth round, Jeff Lucky at no. 125. None are with the organization today.

I’ve long been of the opinion that a healthy, playoff-viable NHL club cannot strike out with its selections at any draft; the compensation required for it is too implausible in succeeding drafts. Even with 2002’s success (Semin, Gordon, Eminger, Max II, and through trades Fleischmann and Klepis), there’s a price to be paid for 2001’s failure, and to some extent I think we’re seeing that this season. A lot of the league strengthened itself with that terrific ‘01 class, and the Caps did not.

Jiri Novotny’s acquisition from Buffalo yesterday can be viewed within the prism of belatedly addressing the Caps’ ‘01 shortcomings. An ‘01 draftee, 22nd overall by the Sabres, Novotny now joins new teammate Shaone Morrisonn (Bruins, no. 19 overall) from that class. The Caps at long last have somewhat filled the gaping hole left by summer ’01’s poor drafting.

Speaking of entry drafts, the fax ink from yesterday’s deal with Buffalo wasn’t dry before visitors to the Caps’ message boards could download seemingly dozens of pages of protest from the glass-is-not-only-half-empty, it’s-got-a-chipped-edge-to-meet-your-mouth crowd. At OFB, we’ve long referred to them as the Doom and Gloom set. Their chief point of outrage, it seemed, was a collective sense that the ‘07 Entry Draft was “weak,” and so the Buffalo first rounder, late as it was certain be, wasn’t anything to be happy over. Interesting. 2002, I remember vividly, was alleged to be among the worst pool of talent ever. Even 1996’s draft, which genuinely can be labeled atrocious, eventually delivered Dainius Zubrus to D.C. My point is, every NHL draft possesses talented young hockey players; the job of McPhee and his scouts is to find it.

I’ve another bone to pick with the message board GMs: for years we’ve had to endure their claims that when it comes to Dainius Zubrus, he was a hopelessly misplaced, “non-finishing” top-line center. Let’s all agree that he’s not a no. 1 pivot on a playoff club. But doesn’t it stand to reason that were he more the checking line kind of guy, he most assuredly wouldn’t fetch a no. 1 pick . . . let alone two? And yet, when that’s what Buffalo returned yesterday, these same naysayers wrung their hands over the “poor” return. Hypocrites.

Yesterday was a frenzy of attempted fact gathering by fans and media related to player movement, all of it more or less pursued on line. TSN and the NHL Network were broadcasting breathless accounts of the transactions all day long. One GM recently told Sports Illustrated that deadline day “ought to be a holiday in Canada.” Locally, we in the Capitals’ community are indebted to the committed labor of Tarik El-Bashir, who was lodged all morning, afternoon, and evening at Verizon Center, regularly updating his blog with trade intelligence, and Mike Vogel, who for a period of time yesterday afternoon was brought into the Caps’ hockey operations’ inner circle. The efforts of both men made for a marvelously compelling afternoon. If you weren’t convinced before about the revolution taking place in hockey news coverage — most particularly this season — yesterday ought to have ushered in a fresh reconsideration for you.

Tarik is on it.

An ‘07 first rounder and young, former first-round center Jiri Novotny are coming back.

Pierre McGuire, on TSN this afternoon: “We have to take the robber’s mask off of George McPhee’s face.”

2:45 update: Mike Vogel has been invited into the Caps’ “war room” this afternoon by George McPhee and is reporting that “more irons are in the fire.” Cool stuff.

He picks up scraps of information
He’s adept at adaptation
Because for strangers and arrangers
Constant change is here to stay

He’s got a force field and a flexible plan
He’s got a date with fate in a black sedan
He plays fast forward for as long as he can
But he won’t need a bed
He’s a digital man

—”Digital Man,” Neil Peart

Bloggers’ row for Wednesday night’s game against San Jose included my good friend Eric from Off Wing Opinion and two new ones, Rebecca (aka Caps Chick) of A View from the Cheap Seats, and Rob of Random Reality Thoughts. Rebecca is a graduate of world-famous McGill University in Montreal. This made me nearly insanely jealous; I briefly asked her about the prevalence of hockey on campus and then assigned her the impossible fantasy honor of skating from class to class over the course of her four years there.

I was immersed in a quasi-crowded press box with these distinguished bloggers and print and broadcast press, and an ongoing discussion among us New-Age media folk was the pace and surety of change that Bloggerdom was leading. Rob was especially animated by and assured of this revolution.

“They (the Old media) still don’t get it,” he told me. “They’re merely adding layers of copy and paying lip service to the heart of the revolution.” I knew exactly what he meant. While there’s a vital common ground between the Old and New media with say professional standards of journalism — judicious fact-checking; getting quoted reflections accurately conveyed; exercising discerning news value judgments — that common ground swiftly disappears in vapor trails as the digital age demolishes conventional notions of beat coverage.

Principally with its edgy electronics and its passion prose.

Where Old Media has Dragnet’s Jack Webb seeking “Just the facts, ma’am,” the New is dealing in DNA evidence.

Rob then informed me of a startling bit of data: the planet apparently has 57 million registered bloggers. He asked me how many of them I thought had formal journalism training.

“At least 45 million would be without, I’d guess,” I replied. Interesting, though, that when I took a quick survey among us, three of the four had B.A.s in journalism and or real pro journalism experience in our pre-blogging careers. The unsupervised and untrained in their basements and in their pajamas with laptops libel didn’t quite apply in Blogger’s row this night.

The elder statesmen of Blogger’s row Wednesday, Eric and I chuckled at our Paleozic Era-like era of copy layout labor with “rulers and wax.”

Earlier, down in the press lounge, the four of us were lucky enough to share a dining table with an extremely hockey knowledgeable reporter from Sports Illustrated. He regaled us with his insider’s knowledge of some of the game’s leading personalities, but then he began a grilling of Eric and the Off Wing Opinion enterprise, and I was struck by the basic nature of his inquiries. SI of course has SI.com, which includes sports blogging, and the two entities share reporter staffing and copy. SI is Old Media, and this was an Old Media reporter, and even with the New brought inside the Old, and lodged there for some years, the culture of the change was still somewhat alien to him. As I thought about this I saw a parallel with the Washington Post’s recent efforts at playing blogging catch-up. (Continued)

Comcast Sportsnight last night became a veritable rainbow of All-Star Game coverage. I thought their cameras would follow AO to his first-ever All Star appearance, of course, but this was fully two days before the show, and Comcast’s crew was on site in Dallas chit-chatting with players and coaches and sharing it all with viewers back in Washington. The Washington Post has even sent Tarik, and he, too, is already on site. This represents a welcome and fresh reconsideration by local sports media of its longstanding disdain of all things puck. Recall that just last June Tarik was barred by his editors from traveling to Vancouver to cover the NHL Draft, in which the rebuilding Caps owned two first-round picks and three more in the second . . . and which with each passing week begins to adopt the appearance of the team’s most successful and important draft in team history. Of course, the irony of local media abuzz this week about a meaningless hockey game isn’t lost on me.

And something about breaking fashion news reminiscent of New Coke’s success has something to do with the buzz emanating from Texas, certainly.

(Comcast, incidentally, and shockingly, dispatched Al Koken to the Vancouver Draft to guide the formation of a 30-minute, behind-the-scenes look at GMGM and the work of his scouting team throughout draft weekend. It’s a terrific piece that aired late last summer — parts of it are positively riveting, even for the non-DraftGeek. Anyway, that kind of coverage is the exception to the Washington mainstream sports media rule; and furthermore, it smashes any myth that the draft carries all the news value of a basement fantasy hockey league player selection party.)

Being the world’s loudest yawner at all things All Star, I find myself generally lamenting the 5-day shutdown of hockey that means something. Having said that, I can well imagine, I think, the present state of about 85 percent of the players’ bodies in late January; they surely deserve some R&R at this stage. The league’s selection of a southern climate site for the game, joined with our local media’s early arrival for it, makes me wonder if this annual event ought not follow the NFL’s far less defensible scheme of going warm for a big game and thereby more likely attracting national and international media.

Don’t get me started on the wussification and culture schlock of the Super Bowl. I get a lot of reading done in those nine hours. But for hockey reporters, even Sunbelt ones