were already in third, by virtue of playing fewer games and being tied at 92 points with the ‘Canes, but Saturday night’s game against Florida was the team’s final exam on the season — worth 90 percent of its grade.

Red OutIf Friday night was a sudden shockwave to the league standings, Tuesday night at Verizon Center was a sonic boom and a one-color kaleidoscope of unity delivered by a region ignited by an amazing sports story. One sensed within a rapidly enlargening hockey supporting community here a collective hunger to get behind a buzz-generating team. The Redskins lost more than they won under Joe Gibbs II. There’s a pedestrian quality to the Wizards — no longer really bad, but never really good, either. The ‘Nats are rebuilding and years away from contending. On Tuesday night in Verizon Center sports Washington was represented in unprecedented volume and unified uniform.

The home crowds for hockey have been growing and large for a couple of months now, but Tuesday’s ranked in another supportive realm. It was so startling to see the Sea of Red precisely because so many enemy sweaters had long filled so many home seats. If there were 18,000 fannies in the seats Tuesday night, 17,500 of them were Caps’ supporters.

“That was the best [home] crowd I’ve ever seen,” Mike Vogel told me over the weekend.

Better than the white-out postseason crowds of the powerful late ’80s Caps’ clubs at Capital Center?

“Those crowds weren’t loud like Tuesday’s,” Vogs added.

All we knew when the team returned home from its spectacularly successful six-game road trip was that it would play before large crowds here — likely, sellouts. We had no idea that the stands-shaking Redskins crowds of raucous old RFK would at last get a run for their rancor on F St.

For hockey.

Late on Wednesday afternoon the Caps’ communications staff, struggling perhaps like the fanbase to keep up with the speed of the hockey’s team’s ascent, announced the continuation of home Red Outs. The modest delay may have played a role in Thursday night’s home environment for Tampa: quite good, but not nearly as Red, not nearly as ear-splitting. The Caps’ nerves on ice that night, too, had a hand in quieting the mood a bit.

For some among HockeyWashington, Saturday’s first eighteen hours were a painful crawl toward a determinative destiny, while for others, savoring suddenly arrived at salvation, time couldn’t stand still enough. After all, morning paper reading, home cleaning, and car oil changing were all performed in third place. I imagined a Saturday morning Sea of Caps’ caps at Costco, among Saturday household chore performing the Red Army wearing the Capitals’ relic Old School look of a failure past now transformed in mere hours’ time into something fresh, vibrant, honor-bestowing, and most especially hip.

Chinatown was Red with anticipation at 4:05. I saw it.

Arriving early in Verizon Center’s press lounge, I surveyed beat media to see where Saturday night ranked in their list of most significant sporting events they’d personally covered. For the Washington Times’ Corey Masisak, only two events — the ACC basketball tournament won by underdog Maryland a few years back and his first Army-Navy football game rivaled the hockey he’d chronicled this March and April and most especially this past week.

“Maryland was like the 6 seed and they went down beat the numbers one, two, and three [seeds],” he told me.

WTOP’s Jonathon Warner has been involved in professional sports journalism for more than 30 years. For him, Saturday night had only George Mason’s Cinderella run in the NCAAs two years back as a rival to the Revival in Red.

“This is huge — this run they’re on, it’s actually given me chills of late,” Warner told me.

“You can feel the buzz,” Steve Kolbe told me. “Washington, D.C., as a whole has grown as a hockey town. That puck drops tonight, we’ll all have goosebumps.”

The Times’ Thom Loverro told me that in his 16 years at the paper Saturday night’s game “ranked right up there” among all regular season games he’d followed in Washington.

Next I asked the Washington Post’s Tarik El Bashir.

“I think you heard me down in the press room earlier tonight ask, has there been another comeback this dramatic in Washington pro sports history?”

“This team was left for dead on Thanksgiving day,” he added.

Tarik’s covered the Indy 500, “where you have 350,000 people,” he noted. But when he considered the lead-up to Saturday night, all of the must-wins the Caps had to have, Saturday raced to the top of his biggest games list.

“We awoke a sleeping giant here,” owner Leonsis, clad again in red, observed late Saturday night. That was a most pleasant observation to encounter Sunday morning, confirming that last week really wasn’t just a dream.

Filed in Carolina Hurricanes, Corey Masisak, Eastern Conference, Florida Panthers, Hockey Rinks, Jonathan Warner, Media, Mike Vogel, Print, Puck Sodas, Radio, Schadenfreude, Stanley Cup Playoffs, TV, Tampa Bay Lightning, Tarik El-Bashir, Washington Capitals, Washington the Hockey Town| Permalink| Comments (6)

Must-Consume Media This Weekend

By pucksandbooks
Friday, March 7, 2008

Jonathon Warner’s “Saturday Night Caps” program on 3WT tomorrow will feature the first-ever appearance by our good friend Dmitry Chesnokov of SovetskySport, who’ll appear to discuss the Russian players on the Caps and Russia’s hockey culture more generally. With the early 1:00 start tomorrow afternoon, Warner will conduct an extended post-game on 3WT that will roll straight into “Saturday Night Caps.”

Having spoken with both program host and featured guest this week, I know they’re both eager to learn of specific topics to address late tomorrow afternoon and into the early evening with listeners. We’d be happy to pass along to them specific questions you may have. Send ‘em along in comments here or in email to us.

3WT can be found at 1500 and 820 on your AM dial, 107.7 on FM, and streaming on line here.

And on Sunday, beginning at 5:00 p.m., the NHL Network will air its first-ever “Ovechkin Ovation” — a symphony of AO’s 5-pt. games this season, one after another, intermission-free. The extravaganza will start with a look back to Ovechkin’s rookie season in the 30-minute program “Top 10 Alexander Ovechkin Goals of 2005-06.â€? Included in that list is his incredible, sprawling-on-the-ice, no-look, backhand goal against the Phoenix Coyotes that is still a favorite moment among fans.

Next up will be Ovie’s outburst in Ottawa on December 29 (4 goals, 1 assist); followed by his January 31 surreal slaughter of the Habs (4 goals, 1 assist); and the evening will conclude with this past Monday’s massacre of the Bs (3 goals, 2 assists).

There are obviously two important matinée hockey games to follow this weekend, but thanks to local radio and the NHL Network, we’re also being afforded a terrific opportunity to supplement our puck addiction and appreciate more a faraway land that has delivered to D.C. some exceptionally special athletes.

No need for NetFlix this weekend.

Filed in 3WT, Jonathan Warner, Media, Radio, Sovetsky Sport, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (3)

A Grade of C+ on the Crucial Road Swing through the South

By pucksandbooks
Sunday, February 17, 2008

I’m sticking to my prediction: on game days, it’s antacid through early April for Caps’ fans. Jonathon Warner of 3WT asked me last night to predict the Southeast division’s resolution, so of course I told him I’d get back to him around April 5. Near that evening’s end.

Of a possible six points among this week’s three divisional road games I thought three the baseline for a passing grade. Insomuch as Alexander Ovechkin was magnificently neutralized by both Florida Friday night and Tampa last evening, and the team displayed great gumption in salvaging regulation-time victory from the jaws of an infuriating overtime Saturday (and more Tums and Pepto for Washingtonians), I’m grading the gang out at C+.

I fielded calls and email from out-on-the-ledgers after Friday night’s loss in Florida. That was a game determined by a miscue (a Mike Green whiff) and a bad bounce (on BJ’s left post). But generally speaking, the Caps would rather face Detroit or Ottawa than the Florida Panthers. Since the lockout, the teams have faced each other 22 times. The Caps have won a grand total of six of those games. Six. It doesn’t seem much to matter that Roberto Luongo is no longer in South Florida — it’s a mean moon rising for the Caps in Sunrise.

At least three compelling storylines emerged from this roadtrip. The most obvious, in light of his first-star effort last night, is Olie Kolzig’s revitalization. The Washington Times’ Corey Masisak this morning notes that the 37-year-old netminder “is now 11-3-2 since Christmas. [He] has allowed a total of 10 goals in his past five games.” He’s in a groove for sure, and the consistency and game-stealing he’s displaying gives one ample evidence to believe that the rotation with BJ that Bruce Boudreau has insisted on in 2008 is paying big-time dividends. Yes the Caps would have liked more than three points from this trip, but if they arrive in mid-March with a fit and sharp no. 1 netminder — all things injuries being somewhat equal — you have to like their chances in the race for the division crown.

Sami Lepisto made his NHL debut last night, and his 14 minutes of ice time seemed in their impact more like 24. He displayed the poise and mobility and deft puck distribution that had Hershey Bears’ officials and fans raving about him. It was only one game, but it was a very good one on a must-win night, and Lepisto’s resume in his first season of North American pro hockey is stellar. He skated a +27 with the Bears and put up almost a point per game (32 points in 38 games, good for 4th on the team in scoring) as a rookie rearguard — much of those numbers accumulated while Hershey’s blueline was decimated by injuries.

A third-round selection in the 2004 bumper crop of Caps’ Entry Draft picks, Lepisto represents one of the more intriguing prospects in the entire Caps’ organization. For whatever reason the Caps have seldom selected Finns, in an era when that small, Scandanavian, hockey-mad outpost has delivered scores of smart, sturdy defenders, reliable two-way forwards, and the odd stud goalie to the NHL. Prior to coming over to North America, Lepisto had three full seasons of experience in Finland’s top pro league with Helsinki Jokerit. (The team, incidentally, that beginning next season will be coached by Glen Hanlon.) Contending NHL teams need not only to select well in round one each June but to pick up serviceable players intermittently in later rounds. As a young pro hockey player Sami Lepisto already looks a good deal more than serviceable.

Another non-first-rounder, Tomas Fleischmann, may have announced his comfort zone arrival as a productive top-6 NHL forward on the road trip. The owner of a new two-year contract, Flash had 2 goals and an assist in the three games and looked a lot like his did in the AHL the past two seasons — among the best players on the ice each night. So many hockey fans render etched-in-stone verdicts on players’ value and potential from an opening 50 or 100 NHL games. Alexander Semin, for instance, had 10 goals in his first 50-plus games as a rookie. Fleischmann is from the same draft class, and now has 8 goals in 56 games on the season. Flash is particularly important to the Caps as a skilled winger on the left side should the unthinkable in terms of injury take place. The Caps didn’t give him a new two-year, one-way deal out of a sense of charity.

So the old and new came through on an important road swing through the South. On the radio last night studio host Jonathon Warner a few times used the word “separation” as Caps’ fans hoped it would relate to the team’s fortunes on this road trip. Mike Vogel, calling in from Tampa, was quick to dispel us all from such a silly notion. New data arrived this week further confirming that this will be the springtime of our disquiet.

Filed in 3WT, Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Atlanta Thrashers, Eastern Conference, Florida Panthers, Jonathan Warner, Media, National Hockey League, Olaf Kolzig, Radio, Sami Lepisto, Southeast Division, Tampa Bay Lightning, Tomas Fleischmann, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (6)

Bloggers Hit the Saturday Night Airwaves, Again

By pucksandbooks
Saturday, February 16, 2008

I’ll join Jonathon Warner and my pal Eric McErlain of Off Wing Opinion on “Saturday Night Caps” this evening at 6:00 on Talk Radio 3WT. For the second time this hockey season Jonathon is opening up his studio microphones to a couple of commentators from the blogosphere. We’d hoped to have Jon Press join us but he had a conflict.

This will be our first appearance with Jonathon since Bruce Boudreau took over behind the Caps’ bench, so we’ll have a lot of good vibes to sort through and discuss.

3WT can be found at 1500 and 820 on your AM dial, 107.7 on FM and streaming online at www.3wtradio.com.

Filed in 3WT, Jonathan Warner, Media, Radio, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (0)

First-Place Filing on a Friday Night

By pucksandbooks
Friday, February 8, 2008

The coverage theme for this blogger tonight is being in the building of a first-place club on a Friday night in February. Rarefied air, that’s called. And we have a columnist in the house to cover it: Thom Loverro of the Washington Times. Thom has covered the Caps as well as any columnist in this city the past 10 years, so I’m not surprised he’s here. Gonna try and chat him a up a bit during an intermission.

What does that say under Tom Poti's picture?The mission tonight is plain: a little bit of separation.

From 275 feet above the ice it’s still quite easy to see that all classification of birds likely has nests in Mike Commodore’s ‘fro. There’s a new Will Ferrell flick coming out, “Semi-Pro,” featuring the hero as an owner-player-coach of an ABA team in an era of heavy, airplane-ensnaring hairdos, and Commodore could double for Farrell in the film’s poster art.

Jonathon Warner of 3WT was mentioning to me how the Caps were 13 points back of Carolina on November 23, the Caps of course last in the Southeast that day and Carolina in first, and how since then the Caps have accumulated 44 points to the Canes’ 29. Then Mike Vogel pointed out how the Caps had lost a week into the Boudreau tenure in Carolina, meaning that that ground actually started to be made up in earnest around December 1.

The Caps are 13-4-4 in one-goal games under Gabby.

Another mightily healthy home crowd on hand.

Seven seconds in, Scott Walker and Matt Bradley seemed to behave in a manner of some longstanding animosity between these clubs.

Just before the four-minute mark, Eric Cole goes shootout showoff on Brent Johnson, one-handing a dazzling deke by BJ to put the ‘Canes up 1-0. A stunner, and while Milan Jurcina may have looked radiation burned on the play, that outside speed by Cole is replicated by few in this league.

Not yet midway through the first, it’s abundantly clear that these ‘Canes brought their hard-hats for some heavy duty hitting. They are plastering the Caps’ puck possessors at almost every turn.

The Caps are about to go on almost consecutive power plays, but otherwise, it’s been Carolina’s period through the opening 12 minutes. This is the ‘Canes club I think many of us thought we’d see all winter — and haven’t.

Another strong effort at getting the puck to the Caps’ net results in it’s getting behind BJ again. Shots are 8-3 Caps, but where it counts, 2-0 ‘Canes. Carolina looks fresh and determined, and it’s perhaps worth nothing, they last played on Tuesday night, while for the Caps this is their third game in four nights.

Near the end of the first period, the Phone Booth is, save for the usual spottiness of the Club level, good and crammed full of hockey fans. If the team keeps winning, there will be nights I think when walkups are stunned to learn of there being no tickets available at the gate.

It’s ugly after one: 2-0 visitors.

More anon. Continue reading ›

Filed in 3WT, Carolina Hurricanes, Eastern Conference, Jonathan Warner, Media, National Hockey League, Print, Radio, Southeast Division, Washington Capitals, Washington Times| Permalink| Comments (1)

Radio Somewhere, Special, on a Special Saturday Night

By pucksandbooks
Sunday, December 30, 2007

Morning Cup-A-JoeHoliday partying during Saturday’s you’re-a-dolt-if-you-missed-that-one in Ottawa, I managed to catch Jonathon Warner’s post-game ebullience on 3WT making my way home, and thereby felt as if I hadn’t missed a thing. Confession: I’ve done a terribly poor job of touting Jonathon’s talents, both with his “Saturday Night Caps” program and his superb post-game roundup. This is all the more unforgivable in light of the fact that Jonathon was gracious enough to invite Eric McErlain and me on his Saturday show earlier in the season.

At one point during the post-game show last night Jonathon had Nicklas Backstrom on the phone from the Scotiabank visitor’s room, and at the end of the exchange Jonathon told his listeners, “You could just hear Backstrom’s smile [on the call].” Great radio personalities showcase an empathy with their guests and listeners, and this Jonathon regularly does, most particularly with his callers.  

A game like last night’s makes fans want to reach out and connect with the rest of the supporting community, in something more personal than message boards, and a program like Jonathon’s allows precisely that. Perhaps a figure like Jonathon suffers from commerical radio’s larger decline the past decade-plus, but if the Caps make a notable push in the standings in the season’s second half, Caps’ fans are going to want to hitch a ride on this radio program. Bruce Springsteen has a catchy little diddy out these days titled, ‘Radio Nowhere,’ but last night, listening to Jonathon’s program, I felt like I was lodged in Radio Somewhere Warm, Informative, and Fun.

I was Blackberried during the Saturday night family holiday gathering, and the required 36 or 38 third-period updates I could have done without. But once home, I was able to have every goal, and some other notable plays, replayed for me by visiting the Caps’ home page and streaming the video highlights found in the game recap box. I hadn’t been in a position this season to need that before, but now I appreciate it.

Donald Brashear’s now legendary maiming of Chris Neil, however, was not included in the package. I’m going to have to ask the Caps’ communications folks about either the oversight or some more sinister reason for excluding it. I mean, it’s Christmas time.

From my chum Marleen this morning I received not only a faithful blow-by-blow summary of the slow dance — “Brash uncorked 18 straight haymakers on Neil’s head . . . the announcers claimed just 15, but I counted, rewound the Tivo and slow-motion counted, and it was 18 glorious noggin-knockers” — but a powerful sense of my needing to make the YouTube retrieval of this medieval deathmatch my Sunday obligation. It took a bit of digging, but oh was it ever worth the effort, and now it’s recorded, as it should be, forever for posterity at OFB.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYb5BBpH0OU

 

JoeB, previously noted appropriately for his astute call of Alex the Gr8’s greatest-ever goal in Phoenix his rookie year, rises again to the occasion in Scotiabank Saturday night.

“Oh my goodness . . . gracious . . . Chris [Neil] go down already.

“Chris Neil ate about 15 [Donald Brashear] lefts.”

We can forgive JoeB, during all that excitement, for not fact-checking the fist-throw count with Marleen in real time.  

Tarik’s lead this morning, I thought, was letter-perfect:

“If Alex Ovechkin was less than 100 percent because of stitches in his thigh, it wasn’t evident Saturday night against the Ottawa Senators.”

One might have attributed last month’s 4-1 triumph in Ottawa to the Sens taking the then victory-starved Caps lightly, but what now? Tuesday’s third matchup of the season between the teams will tell us a lot, I think, about the sort of mettle Bruce Boudreau’s players will take into the season’s second half, for they’ll host one ornery Sens’ squad in a late matinee then. But win or lose Tuesday, the Caps have already delivered an interesting potential storyline between these clubs. If — if — the Caps could somehow scratch and claw their way into the East’s eighth spot at season’s end, they’d very likely face the Sens in the postseason’s first round. And regular season MoJo between clubs often influences playoff karma. An interesting, thought, no?    

I could get used to these kind of winter-time Sunday mornings.

 

 

Filed in 3WT, Donald Brashear, Fighting, Jonathan Warner, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, Old Time Hockey, Ottawa Senators, Radio, Tarik El-Bashir, Video Clips, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (7)

Clarity in Simplicity

By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)
Wednesday, November 21, 2007

The second caller into Jonathan Warner’s post-game radio show asked a concise and insightful question. Paraphrasing in my own words, here it is:

The Capitals are in last place. If the Capitals don’t have the personnel to make the playoffs after the extensive Rebuild, then the fault lies with GM George McPhee. If the team does have the personnel but the players aren’t executing, then it’s the fault of the coach. It’s one or the other. Which is it?

Understandably, Warner and guest Ken Sabourin waffled on the answer, since clearly they are not in positions to indict either McPhee or Hanlon. But it is, in my estimation, a valid question. Now the answer may be “both,” of course, but at the least it’s one or the otherâ€â€and since another fire sale would potentially kill the team’s fans (I know it would shorten my life expectancy), a coaching or general manager change seems to be in the cards.

Glen Hanlon did an admirable job in his first few years. Cleaning up after the roster-gutting and the Butch Cassidy disaster, he forged a hard-working if under-talented team into a tough group. George McPhee has had his share of blunders (e.g., questionable draft picks; Trevor Linden; Robert Lang) and his share of coups (e.g., Oates to Philly for way more than he was worth; Milan Jurcina).

So who, OFB readers, is the source of the team’s current woes: the Coach, the GM, or both?

Filed in 3WT, George McPhee, Glen Hanlon, Jonathan Warner, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (19)

OFB to the Airwaves

By pucksandbooks
Thursday, October 11, 2007

Talk Radio 3WTI’ll be joining Eric McErlain of Off Wing Opinion this Saturday night at 6:00, right before the Caps-Sabres’ game, on talk radio 3WT, with studio host Jonathan Warner. We’ll be discussing the Caps’ quick start and the state of the Nation’s Capital of Hockey Blogging. 3WT is found on 107.7 FM, 1500 AM, and 820 AM on your radio dial and streaming online at 3WTRadio.com.

Filed in 3WT, Blogs, Internet, Jonathan Warner, Media, National Hockey League, Radio, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (5)