23 July, 2008

Category Archives: WRC

Origins of a DraftGeek

By pucksandbooks
Wednesday, June 18, 2008

For those who live with hockey residing in the soul, every day carries some manner of frozen celebration, even in the dead of summer, but some days are better refrigerated than others. For me there are three or four genuinely dry-ice moments in the hockey calendar that are a given every year: the morning of day one of training camp in September; the morning of the season opener about a month later; and the moment that the NHL commissioner places the team drafting first at June’s Entry Draft on the clock. With those first two events, no doubt I’m joined in celebration by thousands of puckheads across the continent. But the latter?

Welcome to my world, that of the DraftGeek.

I can trace my addiction back to, of all things, a George Michael sportscast on WRC-TV in 1981. That was the Bobby Carpenter draft. Michael that evening led his sportscast with word of the Caps drafting Carpenter third overall that summer. Obviously pre-Internet, pre-anything hockey coverage then in the offseason, the broadcast news gatekeepers had to apprise us of anything significant transpiring for the pro hockey team here. Carpenter had appeared on Sports Illustrated’s cover in March of ‘81, making his selection by the Caps in that draft a lead story affair for local media. And of course, the ‘81 draft was just a year removed from the Miracle on Ice, and so the Caps selecting what was then regarded as the finest American hockey prospect perhaps since Hobey Baker made a formative impression on your blogger.

In the spring of ‘81 there was a rather public game of cat and mouse between the Caps and General Manager Emile Francis’ Hartford Whalers. Hartford drafted immediately after the Caps at no. 4, and the Whale was trying to decide between Carpenter and another center prospect, Ron Francis. The Caps went with the Can’t Miss Kid from Massachusetts. The Whale made out all right, though.

Fast forward to 1994. Peter Bondra, a relative unknown in the larger hockey world, barnstorms to the top of the NHL goal scoring title in the labor strife abbreviated ‘94-95 season. The very next season he’d score 52 goals. Bondra was drafted 156th by the Capitals, in the eighth round, of the remarkable 1990 draft. I remember watching Bondra in ‘94 and thinking, how the hell did we land this guy, so late? Bondra’s discovery by then Caps’ scout Jack Button is the stuff of Entry Draft lore. Bonzai was the proverbial backwoods prospect, completely off of everybody’s radar, until Button got a tip and somehow found the slick-skating Slovak without a GPS. It was, hands down, Button’s greatest and most important scouting work for the Caps.

There’s no such thing as a Peter Bondra in a round eight of the NFL or NBA drafts (heck, the NBA doesn’t even have a round four anymore). I love that about hockey’s.

In our lifetime we may never see the likes of the ‘90 class again. Owen Nolan, Jaromir Jagr, Martin Brodeur, Petr Nedved, Doug Weight — gracious, Sergei Zubov went in round 5 that summer! After the Caps selected Bondra in round 8 they did ok in round 9, too: Ken Klee.

Fast forward to 1996. The leadup buzz with that draft surrounded a big-bodied, ungodly talented Russian power forward named Alexander Volchkov. (Our good friend JP exercises his inner DraftGeek with this update of Volchkov, one of the all-time Entry Draft marvels.) Without question there were scores of questions surrounding Volchkov’s commitment and heart — in hindsight, magnificently inpsired and well-placed ones — but there was no denying that in ‘96, Volchkov’s talent stood head and shoulders above his draft classmates. He was that tantalizing, once-in-decade-or-two talent that makes scouts and GMs drool. That he landed in Washington seemed a stunner of massive fortune to a franchise that by then had endured an unhealthy share of postseason misfortune. Volchkov and his dazzling skill set were worth taking a flyer on.

Some flyer. More like an airplane with icy wings and an engine that wouldn’t. But it’s hit-or-miss intrigue like Volchkov that adds additional flavor to the draft.

That ‘96 draft further tormented the Capitals and their fans with one Jaroslav Svejkovsky — he the scorer of four goals in 1997’s final regular season game in Buffalo. Who who watched that vintage performance would have thought that the apex of Yogi’s career? Alas, it was, but early that offseason more than a few DraftGeeks experienced irrational exuberance imagining the Caps the draft winners of ‘96 coming away with both Volchkov and Svejkovsky.

If 1990 was the NHL’s vintage year for prospects, 1996 was its white zinfandel — from a box.

2002’s draft was also supposed to be a lemon. That draft, conducted in Toronto, was the first I attended. Actually being in the building for a draft affords you a powerful and lasting sense of how much of a family celebration the draft is, parents and siblings by the thousands dressed in their Sunday finest, with camera flashes illuminating Air Canada Centre like cigarette lighters at a rock concert. On TV the draft is all about the players and the draft floor mass of scouts and managers on telephones and talking heads second guessing. In the stands it’s all about the biggest day in the lives of five thousand families.

‘02 was really panned for its lack of depth. And yet the Caps came away with Steve Eminger, Alexander Semin, Boyd Gordon, even Tomas Fleischmann eventually. The worst drafts still manage to produce players; ‘96 for instance delivered Dainius Zubrus.

By Draft 2003 — billed by insiders as a fair rival in talent to ‘90 — we’d evolved with technology to the point where DraftGeeks were well linked from Canada, Europe, and America with message board madness related to the draft. Hockeysfuture was exploding into the consciousness of future-minded puckheads. In the early spring of ‘03, Friday and Saturday nights for your blogger were laden with bottled beer and HF boards immersion. I was never happier.

Hockeysfuture has been a godsend for DraftGeeks, but there are enough of us that its server regularly crashes around 10:00 a.m. on draft mornings. I remember that agony, too. A religious rite at Hockeysfuture is the posting of serious-minded mock drafts. There is a stable of Tier I DraftGeek there who annually offer near pro scout quality stuff with their mocks. And there are genuine scouts who both read and post there, regularly.

It was only recently that we in the States began seeing the draft on TV. And now the draft has become enough of an event for the league that it receives prime time TV coverage, on Friday nights, with the NHL Network even picking up Saturday morning’s post-first round action. Heaven.

My favorite draft moment? A funny thing happened one super sunny April day in the District in 2004, not long after the Caps had basically bottomed out in the league standings: a ping pong ball bounced their way in the league’s New York office, awarding them a coveted Russian prospect who’d already made a name for himself as an organization-altering talent. I’ll remember the fortune of that day ’til they toss dirt over my casket. (And likely I’ll be buried clutching a mock draft for that year.)

The NHL Draft is about families who’ve dedicated so much of their lives to the cultivation of elite hockey talent, driving the family car through amazingly harsh northern winters — pre-dawn black ice and frozen door locks and ice-crusted windows for pre-school skates and homework over hot chocolate and other ice rink nutrition. It’s about an end-of-every-round dynamo Detroit confounding 29 other clubs with diamond-in-the-rough picks guiding them to annual contention and, every few years, Lord Stanley. It’s about a “weak” draft delivering, in round six, a pint-sized MVP from the Quebec League. It’s about the CHL versus U.S. college hockey. It’s about wheeling and dealing.

No wonder I’m addicted.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, DraftGeek, Entry Draft, George Michael, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Internet, Mathieu Perreault, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Peter Bondra, Prospects, TV, Training Camp, WRC, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (12)

The Color of Success

By pucksandbooks
Wednesday, April 2, 2008

My good friend Eric McErlain didn’t pick a good night to play hookie from the hockey rink. But he doesn’t have much red in his wardrobe anyway.

But first thing’s first. I asked for one WaPost columnist to attend Tuesday night and George Solomon sent two, including himself. There were enough Post reporters in attendance last night to fairly fill the media elevator. I messaged Dan Steinberg after the game, explaining to him my need now to call out the Post for ‘dissing the Wizards and Redskins in its Caps’ slant. Hah.

(Reader Dave: did you really deliver my letter to the Post yesterday?)

Every Caps’ player in the post game commented on the home crowd. The Caps Tuesday night established their bona fides as an aspiring playoff team to be reckoned with; their supporters in the stands likewise auditioned magnificently for the role of postseason noisemakers of distinction. Both are new to the endeavor — both seem very ready.

Those of us in the hockey blogging community wondered what would happen to our privileged perch in the Verizon Center press box when our sweet secret about this hockey team got out, and a tsunami of bandwagoning old media came a calling. Tuesday night, we learned. To accommodate all of the press demand for the big game the Caps’ media maven Nate Ewell filled every press box seat, two rows deep, on both sides of the sixth floor, and managed to fulfill every media request he fielded, new and old. That impressed me. I’m not going to suggest that should the team make a deep run in the playoffs we in new media will all be there to cover it . . . just maybe reminding Mr. Leonsis of his pledge to ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ to host us in his box should press credentials run short. Hah.

Wow but it was red in the rink. During the national anthem, with the lights dimmed, the three levels of red managed to cast a powerfully pervasive haze of hometown unity. Mr. Leonsis was beaming in the post-game locker room adorned in his red Caps’ sweater. Channel 4’s Lindsay Czarniak looked fetching in a stylish red sweater. (”Fetching”? That’s awful writing. The woman could fill a cathedral of male worshippers wearing a potato sack and mud mask.) Lisa Hillary was red literally from neckline to toe — eager to show off a new red paint job on her toes. Sportscasters Michael Jenkins and Dave Feldman brought their naturally red hair. I wore a smart looking red necktie.

You know who looked reddest of all? Peter Laviolette.

Our good friends from the Hershey Bears sure picked the right night for a visit. John Walton was blogging in-game and delightfully distracted from all those Bears’ injuries by the electric atmosphere in the rink. Tim Leone of the Patriot News was sharing with me his anticipation for next week’s Frozen Four, with the upstart, Cinderella Fighting Irish of Notre Dame having captured his former USC Trojan heart. Chris Poisal summed up the feelings of all from the farm: he came away impressed with this hockey team’s “swagger.” He told me during the second intermission that what he was seeing out on the ice Tuesday night reminded him a lot of the swagger the Hershey Bears had en route to their Calder Cup in 2006.

“This team is going to make the playoffs,” Poisal told me, “and once there, they are going to do damage.”

The game atmospheres feverish hockey fans fantastically improve correspond intimately to the magic their eyes consume. This new Red Army in town seemed Tuesday night unleashed as a fixture battalion on F Street. At times Tuesday, most especially when the home team delivered a glass-rattling check, they ascended to alarming realms of raucousness: with clenched fists they’d turn and pound on the glass partition separating them from the game’s media. It was, initially, somewhat scary — but scary good.

Chalk it up to excessive Red Hook.

Thursday night — and thirty months from now — I can envision the earth-toned-clad hockey fan arriving at the Phone Booth to looks of disdain from his impassioned puck peer in scarlet. Even Gang Green has gone red.

Let’s designate this Wednesday — mercifully for our panic-attack hockeyhearts a gameless day for the home team — a Code Red: meaning, ours is the team and sport white-hot in town, we its supporters now send screams of “Let’s Go Caps!” cascading through Metro tunnels and Green Turtles. Let’s bask in this red glow of victory all day and evening long, get dinner out of the way early and settle in before the TVs for a fresh set of Eastern conference showdowns. And even in our temporary, domestic R&R, dress for battle.

Filed in 2 Points, American Hockey League, Blogs, Carolina Hurricanes, Comcast SportsNet, Dan Steinberg, Hershey Bears, Hockey Night in Canada, Internet, John Walton, Lindsay Czarniak, Lisa Hillary, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, Print, Stanley Cup Playoffs, TV, Tarik El-Bashir, WRC, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (11)

Buzz Trades, a Big Game, a Big-Buzz Atmosphere Stream of Consciousness

By pucksandbooks
Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Was in the then MCI Center the night of March 13, 2001 — also deadline day — when earlier in the day GMGM dealt Zednik and Bulis and a pick to Montreal for Zubrus and Linden, and the mood in last night’s rink felt larger and more significant . . . that dealmaking carried a component of risk; this was pure aggression with minimal assets heading out . . . the better comparison may be with March 1997, carried out not in a single day but over the course of a couple of weeks, when McPhee, in his first season on the job, added Brian Belllows and Esa Tikkanen . . . Enjoyed most of all throughout the late Tuesday afternoon and evening messages from friends and strangers who were busy with business throughout the day and wholly unaware of the deadline day madness that enveloped the Caps, who arrived at the news late and lavished it (in my email inbox) with happy obscenities and exclamation points . . . Mike Vogel, looking terrifically telegenic, rinkside on Comcast in the 5:00 hour to help analyze the breaking big news, me comparing his polished appearance before TV DC with his pre-sunrise, blogging-through-the-Moscow-night, comrade shagginess with me during last year’s Worlds . . . big bonus: dinner with Ron Weber in the press room on such a big day . . . look at all the media big wigs who show up when hockey creates the day’s sports buzz: George Solomon of the Post, three Times’ reporters, the one-time Queen of OFB even, I think I may have even seen Arch Campbell in Bruce Boudreau’s post-game presser . . . Ted’s box is filled as I hadn’t seen it since perhaps opening night . . . Commissioner Bettman, in his pre-game presser: “This is a team that has been built on prospects and for the future” . . . He’s in town for some chit-chat on the Hill about drugs and athletes, and he mentions “players as role models” and a clear concern that his sport not be painted with a broad brush of they-all-do-it cynicism: “What goes on in one sport doesn’t [necessarily] go on in others” . . . “We’ve had one player in two-and-a-half years caught [for performance enhancing drugs],” and he references the tough remedies that face the offenders — a quarter-of-a-season suspension, three-quarter-of-a-season, three strikes and you’re out . . . and I think, Bud Selig he ain’t, but it’s also true that this sport has a much different relationship with its players union than all the rest . . . He is also asked about the prevalence of players exercising the “No” in their no-trade clauses: “Nobody makes a club give a player a no-trade clause” . . . I ask the commissioner about Ted’s expressed wish to take the team on a goodwill tour of Russia, “sooner rather than later,” and he expresses cautious support. When he references what a “big deal” it’s going to be for Jagr to return to Prague next season, I think I have my answer about the likelihood of Ovechkin’s returning to Moscow . . . He also acknowledges that the league today doesn’t have the relationship with the Russian Hockey Federation it once did . . . Even the arena’s game night personnel working in catering and as ushers seem buoyed by the day’s big news — they are all chipper and wide smiling in every encounter. . . On a day like today I appreciate the professionalism and the quasi-renaissance of renewed hockey coverage by our town’s two print beat reporters, both of whom blogged and filed on Tuesday until their fingers were sore, giving Washington hockey fans timely and superb breaking news; following Corey’s blog a bit during the game, I chuckled at his reflection “at some point I’ll eat” . . . Midway through the game I have a minimial amount of notes and reactions recorded, as friendly folks keep bending my ear for reaction and basic “Can you believe all this?” empathy, vanquishing my between-periods composition, and I relish it . . . Peter Bondra is back in the press box tonight, and on the ice sheet below the young prospect he was traded for, Brooks Laich, is having a career night, and I just sorta like the symmetry of that . . . in the second row of the press box, where the Caps’ communications staff works each game, I see each and every one of them, no one missing, and I think there’s so much work for them to do on a day like this they all have to be here, but it’s probably also the case that such a day makes a Caps’ staffer proud to have the careers they do, and they want to be in the rink, well dressed, helpful, and full of good cheer . . . very loud rock music typically greets bloggers and press in the post-game locker room after victories, but tonight it’s quiet, and I infer that the day’s drama has drained the entire team, that they want as efficient an encounter with media as possible, hot showers, and a race home to crash in bed . . . the circle of cameras and microphones and scribes around Kolzig is unlike anything I have seen in two years — it’s five-deep at turns, and Tarik has to make like a gymnast to get his recorder squeezed into some open space around Kolzig’s locker . . . no one much asks Olie the Goalie about the game, instead, The Trade . . . question after question on the trade: was he shocked? was he upset? how can it possibly work with three netminders? did the team approach him about a trade? . . . he says, among other things, “The thing that surprises me is that there’s three goalies here” . . . Coach Boudreau acknowledges the challenge of managing three netminders, but he dismisses a contention that the day’s developments insult the greatest goalie in Caps’ history; he maintains that the consumate professional will rise to meet the new challenge . . . Here’s hoping Fedorov this spring is Bellows of ‘98, Matt Cooke that year’s Esa Tikkanen, Olie Kolzig . . . Olie Kolzig.

Filed in Brooks Laich, Bruce Boudreau, Corey Masisak, Dainius Zubrus, Gary Bettman, George McPhee, Lindsay Czarniak, Mike Vogel, Morning cup-a-joe, NHL Trades, Olaf Kolzig, Peter Bondra, Print, Tarik El-Bashir, WRC, Washington Capitals, Washington Post, Washington Times| Permalink| Comments (8)

Lindsay A Covergirl

By The OFB Team
Friday, November 23, 2007

Congrats to NBC4’s Lindsay Czarniak who shares the December cover of Washingtonian magazine with WJLA’s Alison Starling for an article on happy hours.

Washingtonian Cover - December 2007

A slideshow of the photo soot can be viewed on NBC4’s web site.

Filed in Lindsay Czarniak, WJLA, WRC, Washingtonian| Permalink| Comments (1)

Put me in, Coach- I’m ready to play

By DC Sports Chick
Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Well, hi there! It’s good to be back.

When I ended my blog last month, I had no intention of returning to blogging any time soon. Recent life changes for me and my husband, Chanuck– including a DC Sports Chicklet on the way– made me realize that I couldn’t maintain my own blog on a regular basis without sacrificing quality. Plus, I needed the break. Then OFB came calling, and I couldn’t resist; the guys are awesome and I didn’t want to pass up a chance to collaborate with them.

I know that there’s no way I could ever take EmptyMaybe’s place, not that anyone expects that, though that’s not my goal. Rather, I hope to provide a point of view that was previously missing from OFB (save for MrsGustafsson’s excellent post about Hockey in Heels). For the readers who don’t know me, I’m not the type to go all puckbunny and drool over the players. On the other hand, someone has to counter the boys’ official Lindsay Czarniak love on behalf of some of the female readers of the site. (It gets a little out of control at times, though I know they would disagree.)

The boys told me that they would pick up their dirty clothes, put the toilet seat down, and generally keep the blog in good order. If I could only get my own husband to do that…but just like in marriage, I know it doesn’t work that way. I don’t expect anything here to change. It will be business as usual, with perhaps a few subtle nuances. No worries!

Now, back to your regularly scheduled hockey blog…

Filed in Blogs, Lindsay Czarniak, OFB| Permalink| Comments (14)

Just Hand Us the Cup

By pucksandbooks
Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Cup'pa JoeHockey luminaries Gary Bettman and 2007-08 Jack Adams Award winner Glen Hanlon loom large these days. Knowing the commissioner as I do, it’s virtually certain he’ll insist on senseless redundancy, and not cancel the remainder of the NHL season and instead mandate that the Caps complete the remaining 79 games on their schedule. Insanity is famously defined as the repetition of the same act while expecting a different outcome. At least in the absence of competitive drama this hockey season the Caps can showcase their impressive new threads in arenas across the continent.

How am I supposed to work up any hatred of the Caps’ opposition when they can’t even score?

Here’s one directive I do expect out of the league office, perhaps as early as today: the Caps will be required to wear thermal versions of Reebok’s uniform systems, ones made of Northern Ireland sheep wool, for they are unable to work up a sweat in their current garb. Especially the goalies. I am an admirer of the team’s first television ad of the new season, one featuring a sultry brunette being tattooed with the new logo. But I’d modify the ad’s slogan to: “Perimeter kicksaves by yawning netminders, in True Colors.”

Hanlon, few would have guessed a month ago, is today on the short list for Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year Award — at least if it’s bestowed for exemplary acts of good sportsmanship. Knowing he had all the weakspots from recent years filled on his roster coming into this season, he’s chosen to sit Alexander Semin in two of the season’s opening three games, affording the appearance of competitiveness in the games. I know Semin’s ankle is sore, but I also know that he’d be playing were we in April instead of October. Or if there was any doubt as to the outcomes.

Approximately two-thirds of the Caps’ top line is in synch, the power play isn’t, and a stud is missing from the lineup, and so far no one in the East can compete. Speaking of tattoos, long ago I made a promise to my hockey chums that when Lord Stanley is hoisted here by my guys I’d permanently etch the occasion on my hind quarters. Herewith, I’m accepting estimates from the region’s parlors, with quivering buttocks.

Imagine the disquiet that must be settling in on the team’s general manager and scouts, knowing that soon, by virtue of a hostile NHL Board of Governors decree, they will be restricted to drafting hockey players only from Maryland and Virginia. You don’t really think the league is going to give Ross Mahoney et al a crack at another Mathieu Perreault — (he’s not allowed to play as many games as other forwards in the QMJHL, to keep the scoring race competitive) — do you?

Lindsay Czarniak sure didn’t pick the right hockey season to go to the dark (Burgundy) side, did she?

We have a Roll Call of the Rocks-in-Their-Heads to conduct. First up, ESPN’s John Buccigross, who pegged the Caps for 14th in the Eastern Conference this season. That was with Alexander Semin in the lineup he prognosticated so. Another last-place-in-the-Southeast forecast came from Sports Illustrated’s Sarah Kwak. “Their offseason moves failed to address the defensive shortcomings that led to their surrendering 3.35 goals a game,” she opined. The Caps have defensive “shortcomings” only if the barometer was holding all 82 opponents scoreless for the entire season. Let’s see if we can get Eric Staal and Erik Cole and Ryan Whitney to get the shot counter above 5 midway through a game against the Caps before we wring our hands over “defensive shortcomings.”

Here’s what Kwak should have written: “Ditched in D.C. this summer: Kris Beech. Standings value? Five slots, minimum.”

This dynasty-audition by the Caps is breeding in me rational but nonetheless exuberant sentiments. Check out the exchange I had tonight with the shepherd of both lonely and swelling hearts on radio each evening, Delilah, on FM WASH:

Delilah: “On the love line, pucksandbooks . . . that’s a distinctive name. So you want to dedicate Paul McCartney’s ‘Silly Love Songs.’ Tell me Pucks, who’s stolen your heart this Monday night?”

Me: “Don Koharski.”

Filed in ESPN, Gary Bettman, John Buccigross, Lindsay Czarniak, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Print, Stanley Cup, TV, WRC, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (4)

Hockey Mole at WRC at It Again

By The OFB Team
Thursday, May 31, 2007

Lindsay Czarniak - Photo from WRCHer WRC colleagues last evening were startled by the segment, occurring as it did in late May, with the Redskins mere weeks away from the start of training camp, but OFB Queen of Local Sports Media Lindsay Czarniak remained undaunted and committed to her puck calling, devoting 56 minutes of last evening’s 60-minute 5:00 WRC newscast to a profile of local college hockey player James “Bubba” Sixsmith. (OK, the segment wasn’t quite that long, but it seemed so to our puck-starved eyes and ears in Washington this spring.) We’d embed the segment for you if we could. But check out the WRC video link.

Sixsmith, a native of Alexandria, Va., recently graduated from Holy Cross College and captained the hockey team there the past two seasons. He was also a Hobey Baker finalist this past season.

Dave Fay may not be the only local hockey beat reporter fated for Hall of Fame enshrinement as a hockey media standout.

Filed in College Hockey, Hobey Baker Award, Lindsay Czarniak, Media, TV, WRC| Permalink| Comments (0)

Softer Spoken Than Nick Backstrom: the Washington MSM on a Big Hockey Signing Day

By pucksandbooks
Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Cup'pa JoeConfession: 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.

Czarniak Interviews Backstrom

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+

Filed in Comcast SportsNet, Lindsay Czarniak, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, Nicklas Backstrom, Print, TV, Tarik El-Bashir, WRC, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (13)

Happy, Happy, Happy: College Playoff Puck on Local Cable TV This Weekend

By The OFB Team
Friday, March 23, 2007

TelevisionWonderful news: the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) will be airing the first of three NCAA hockey playoff games this weekend beginning at 8:30 this evening, with the Midwest Regional’s second game between BU and Michigan State. Tomorrow MASN will cover the East Regional Final at 6:00 p.m. followed immediately by the Midwest Regional Final at 8:30.

All three games will air live.

As if that wasn’t good enough news for local hockey fans, USA Today this morning is reporting that recently departed but not really departed WRC sports anchor George Michael and his “SportsMachine” program will air for the final time this Sunday evening. Where will we go for our NASCAR and rodeo footage??? USA Today acknowledges Michael’s fetish for the sporting fringe in its lead:

“Before NASCAR and bull-riding became cool, Michael gave them national exposure even on his earliest shows.”

Michael, we are told, will be found covering NASCAR races for DirecTV this summer.

Filed in College Hockey, George Michael, Puck Sodas, WRC| Permalink| Comments (10)

Knee-jerks: Practice, 3/20/07

By Gustafsson
Tuesday, March 20, 2007

With an alternate work schedule today, I was able to attend my first Caps practice since training camp and first visit to Kettler Capitals Iceplex since the ribbon cutting press conference. I took a few notes and will present them in typical OFB Knee-Jerk style.

  • I’d estimate the attendance at about 50-75 fans. A practice at high-noon can’t hurt and it makes me wish I worked closer to Ballston. It’s probably just as well because an “extended lunch” would probably become a bad habit.
  • Attendance from the MSM included Lindsay Czarniak. Here’s hoping her non-game day visit means improved quantity and quality of Caps’ coverage on News4.
  • Team mood seemed to be quite good. Amazing what winning — and winning big — can do.
  • Through most of the practice, the top two stars of Sunday’s game were skating on the same line. Semin on the right wing and Fleishmann on the left. Beech centered them.
  • Ovechkin was sporting a fish tank off his helmet, courtesy of Dan Boyle.
  • With the hand injury, Pettinger was still practicing, albeit he was the lone man wearing red.
  • At some point during drills, both Ovechkin and Semin each tried to complete a “Wheeler goal.”
  • The last 5 minutes of the “official” practice icluded a shootout competition. Chris Clark’s team, clad in black, pitted against the Russians & Co., donning white. The cheers grew louder with each goal scored by the Men in Black. I soon found out the reason for the commotion. The losing team in white, upon their loss, took to the ice, laid down on their backs, and began a series of crunches. I didn’t notice if Brent Johnson had to endure the punishment of loss.
  • An impromptu unofficial drill took place after practice with Brent Johnson in net surrounded by Brashear, Clark, Laich, Eminger and others as a shot was taken from the top of the circle. BJ would leave a rebound for one of the masses to pick up the sluff and try to score. I did not keep track.
  • I was able to thank Lindsay for dramatic reduction of News4 sports replays that include slowed down action and cheesy sound effects. The SportsMachine style of replay, mercifully, seems to be headed to pasture with its trainer.
  • When asked if WRC had named a replacement for the top sports anchor, Lindsay told me that she and Dan Hellie will split those duties. Congrats to both. With split responsibilities, all sports not owned by Dan Snyder should get increased coverage.
Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Brent Johnson, Brooks Laich, Chris Clark, Donald Brashear, Knee-Jerk, Lindsay Czarniak, Shootouts, Steve Eminger, WRC, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (1)

The Imperative of Communicating a Commitment to Winning

By pucksandbooks
Wednesday, March 7, 2007

cupajoe.jpegThe 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.”

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, George McPhee, George Michael, Morning cup-a-joe, Tarik El-Bashir, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals, Washington Post Express| Permalink| Comments (4)

Skeletor Has Left the Building

By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)
Friday, March 2, 2007

Bye ByeGeorge Michael, after many, many years, has left NBC-4 — his final broadcast as sports anchor on NBC-4 was Thursday’s 11 PM news (the last episode of his syndicated The Sports Machine airs March 25).

He is a polarizing figure in the sports world. Some will miss him; he was undeniably a sports broadcasting pioneer in the early 1980s, mixing gimmicks and entertainment into his sports coverage. ESPN clearly took cues from Michael in its early days as the station developed its identity. Steve Levy, currently a SportsCenter anchor, even admits stealing footage from Michael when Levy worked at SUNY Oswego.

Others feel he overstayed his welcome and should have retired long, long ago — his increasingly self-congratulatory and cantankerous attitude wore on many people’s nerves, as did his glad-handing, back-slapping interviews with Redskins coaches and the like. OFB is firmly in the latter camp.

However, let us take a brief but fond look back at the good ol’ days. In 1984, George Michael’s Sports Final (Sports Machine precursor) covered the NHL Playoffs. This clip has everything: classic Capitals footage, cheesy props, a playoff sweep of the Flyers, and Olivia Newton-John.

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

Here, The Great One reminisces — again, though, he’s looking back fondly on the early 80s . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lDBmpMKwC4

Sadly, as Michael became a sports broadcasting “personality,” he increasingly treated the NHL as red-headed stepchildren. Too often his hockey coverage — on both NBC and his own show — was a mention of the score and perhaps a brief highlight clip. Coverage of high school sports, boxing, and rodeo got more air time than hockey.

Rumors that the equestrian-loving broadcaster decided to retire so he could mourn Barbaro full time appear to be unfounded.

In truth, it seems that his decision to leave his post was born of loyalty to his staff, the victims of layoffs at the station. Michael told the Washington Post, “If I have to lay somebody off . . . I have to take the first bullet. It’s that simple.” In this regard, we salute him (a lesson many CEOs could take to heart). Not that Michael is hurting for money, of course — if one can afford a half-page ad in the Washington Post saluting one’s own career, one is not a pauper — but it was the right thing to do.

Regardless of his financial situation: as fans of hockey and of quality sports broadcasting, we will not miss him.

OFB hopes that Lindsay Czarniak, Michael’s Sports Machine co-host and NBC-4 anchor/reporter, embraces hockey more than her predecessor did. Regardless, she is certainly a bit easier on the eyes:

George Michaellindsay3.jpg

Lest readers accuse OFB of being age discriminators, Michael was never exactly of model-quality. In fact, some would say he has a face for radio; he may also be a Vulcan:

DJ Michael

Those who remember Michael fondly from his early career may look on his departure as the end of an era. But to those who have watched the past decade of his increasingly poor broadcasting, that era ended a long time ago.

But it’s not over… as Michael told WJFK-FM’s Don and Mike on Thursday, “If you’ve got the money, I’ve got the time.” Those inspiring words accompanied his announcement that he will begin covering NASCAR for Fox Sports.

So his career follows a Strom Thurmond-like trajectory — it just doesn’t end. But NASCAR can have him, and hockey fans are well rid of him. George Michael isn’t really retiring; we’re just glad that Skeletor will no longer be the face of DC sports.

Filed in George Michael, Lindsay Czarniak, NBC, TV, Video Clips, WRC, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (8)

Diversity in Valentines

By pucksandbooks
Saturday, February 10, 2007

This week we saw JP designate his would-be Valentine (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

gordon-boyd.GIF
Boyd Gordon

This would be mine:

Lindsay Czarniak - Photo from WRC
Lindsay Czarniak
Filed in Boyd Gordon, Hockey Heartthrobs, Lindsay Czarniak, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (3)

Morning cup-a-joe (1/9/07)

By pucksandbooks
Tuesday, January 9, 2007

cupajoe.jpegFresh proof that there are slices of Heaven on Earth: if you’re an Ontario resident and hockey fan, you have access to LeafsTV, a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week, 365-days-a-year broadcast outlet covering the local NHL team and its sport. No Argonauts. No Blue Jays. No Raptors. All Leafs, All the Time. Imagine. Don’t take my word for it; check out the station’s weekly broadcast schedule, which is rife with morning skates, pre-game fare, player profiles from the past, the AHL affiliate Marlies, and just about anything you can imagine having to do with pro hockey in a hockey-mad metropolis.

In Washington, we have five such outlets devoted to the Redskins, but on a mid-week morning in the middle of a winter-less winter, I think it might be fun to imagine a Washington world with its sports media hierarchy turned upside down, say five years from now, with media savvy owner Leonsis the ascendant entertainment leader in town (the Redskins still having failed to qualify for the postseason, with billion-dollar payrolls). To showcase better his Hart Trophy winnings Russians (all three of them), and his sublime Swede, and generally to improve Washington’s laughingstock MSM coverage of hockey, Mr. Leonsis partners with Comcast and purchases a startup cable channel to take Capitals’ coverage into his own hands.

As his first order of business he wisely appoints a Caps’ blogger the new outlet’s Director of Programming.

What might this channel be called? And what might a day’s worth of programming on it include? Let’s make these questions the subject of ongoing OFB reader input. Share with us your suggested name for the new outlet, and assume we’re looking for a moniker somewhat distinctive from “LeafsTV,” with flair and 21st-century multi-media pizzaz. And with your comments share as well suggestions for specific programming to help fill 24 hours. Be creative, imaginative, and presume that the owner and the station’s general manager have appropriated a generous budget to include the development and production of original programming. Let’s see if we can come up with a day’s worth of Caps’ and hockey programming on the new channel that repeats only a thrice-daily, 30-minute, SportsCenter-like roundup show, airing early morning, early evening, and lastly at 11:00, that’s all things pucks.

I’ll save my suggested channel name for later, but here are some programming ideas I have:

The Hockey Reporters [a roundtable of impassioned hockey erudition, featuring Mike Vogel, JoeB and Craig, your cordial host, and the region's Queen of Sports]”

Gr8TV: All AO, in motion, on and off the ice

ClassicCaps [the most memorable games, with Ron Weber audio provided from WTOP archives]

Morning skate and post-game pressers with Coach Hanlon, in full

Chit-Chat from Chocolatetown [A weekly Bears' progress report with John Walton]

The outdoor skate at Chevy Chase Country Club

The games themselves

The CapsReport [the weekly studio program is broadcast on TV as well]

And last but by far not least, for after-hours insomniacs, Youngblood.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Hershey Bears, Lindsay Czarniak, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, Redskins, Ron Weber, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (9)

Lindsay Czarniak’s Interview with #99

By Gustafsson
Friday, January 5, 2007

Monday’s Morning cup-a-joe talked about Lindsay Czarniak’s interview with Gretzky and his comments on Ovechkin.

Here’s the video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6883654262143921427

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Lindsay Czarniak, Phoenix Coyotes, Video Clips, WRC, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (0)

Morning cup-a-joe (1/3/07)

By pucksandbooks
Wednesday, January 3, 2007

cupajoe.jpegNot yet 100 hours into the Redskin offseason, the region’s television sports personalities could reasonably be expected back at Ashburn yesterday, camera crews in tow, chronicling the football equipment staff’s changing of player cleats — March mini-camp is less than three months away, after all. But one figure of courageous defiance, emboldened perhaps by a flurry of recent endorsements for her candidacy to ascend to the Big Seat (vacated late in 2006 by NascarNed), blazed a broadcast trail at 11:26 last night: the centerpiece of Lindsay Czarniak’s WRC sportscast was her Washington hotel room interview with #99, the day after his charges’ New Years’ Day dismantling of the Caps.

The Great One and The Great Looking One.

The two-and-a-half-minute segment afforded little to command a stopping of the CBC presses, but it was fresh, enterprising, and well executed. The Great Looking One delivered a break-from-the-media-horde angle with the segment: not content to glean merely from Gretzky’s Verizon Center musings on “The Goal” one year later on Tuesday, she sought an in-depth assessment of the general standing of Alexander Ovechkin from one of the most gifted and most respected figures in the game’s history. (Incidentally, not a word about NASCAR in the sportscast.) She then took her interview footage and shared it with AO, who was rendered ashen and dumbfounded by the Great One’s testimony. Ovechkin’s muted humility fostered a poignancy to the overall piece.

Speaking of head-turning blondes, Caps’ 06 draftee Oskar Osala is making the 2007 World Junior Championships his hot hockey prospect coming out party. In my preview of the WJC last week, I suggested that his Caps’ draft classmate, Russian netminder Semen Varlamov, could emerge as a breakthrough performer. He sorta has, in the sense that he’s made scouts forget Ken Dryden or Patrick Roy with his brilliance [4 GP, 4-0, 240 minutes, 92 shots faced, 89 saves, .967 save pct., 0.75 goals-against] (Russia faces host Sweden in one WJC semi-final today while the U.S. faces off against Canada.) But the Osala story is stunning.

A fourth-round pick by the Caps last summer, Osala — a towering presence at 6 ‘4, 225 — seemed mired in mediocrity this fall for the Mississagua Ice Dogs of the OHL. He put up just 9 goals and 7 assists in 26 games there, but he was skating a +6 — a big improvement over last season’s -19 rating as an OHL freshman. Still, he entered the 2007 WJC well below everybody’s radar. No more. Finland was eliminated by the U.S. yesterday in quarterfinal play, 6-3, but for no fault from Osala. His two goals in the game were the subject of lavish hockeysfuture message board hosannas, and throughout the tournament his game-dictating play has been singled out, even among more high-profile Finnish prospects. He exits the tournament fourth in scoring, with 3 goals and 5 assists in 5 games. It’s just one tournament, but it’s one of the best in all of hockey, and the Ice Dogs can be assured of seeing an ultra-confident Osala bolster their second half. And Caps’ fans can add another name to watch for the future.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Lindsay Czarniak, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, WJC, WRC, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (3)

The Examiner Agrees with OFB

By Gustafsson
Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Lindsay Czarniak - Photo from WRCSeven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer for The Examiner Jim Williams must have read our blog on 13 October, 2006 where pucksandbooks wrote

“… there is already in place a fantastic replacement within the WRC family, whom if it were left to me would acquire as well the title of Regional Queen of Sports.”

because he wrote an article in yesterday’s Examiner about upcoming changes and wishes for the local Washington media.

New Year’s wishes for local sports media

» NBC 4 should make a bold move. When King George Michael steps aside in March, the station should name Lindsay Czarniak as his replacement. Making her the first-ever woman sports director in the Washington market is the smart thing to do.

Filed in Examiner, George Michael, Lindsay Czarniak, Media, OFB, Print, TV, WRC| Permalink| Comments (3)

On Frozen Ombudsman for the Week of November 17

By pucksandbooks
Friday, November 17, 2006

The week commenced catastrophically: on an ad hoc assignment to cover the Caps, WaPost’s Amy Shipley, seemingly in over her head, filed an ignorant and nonsensical game account from Miami Monday night. However, the week improved appreciably thereafter, culminating with Christmas-morning-wrapped-goodies-under-the-tree kind of news relating to a geriatric hockey hating television news anchor at WRC announcing his retirement!

While Team OFB will acknowledge the news in predictable and appropriate fashion, on this sunny Friday keep in your thoughts the melancholy this moment enveloping the region’s rodeo fans. Continue reading ›

Filed in Blogs, Dan Steinberg, Dave Fay, George Michael, Internet, Lindsay Czarniak, Media, Print, TV, Tarik El-Bashir, WRC, Washington Capitals, Washington Post, Washington Times| Permalink| Comments (1)

Bastille Day for D.C. Hockey Fans: George Michael Calls It Quits! (Sort of)

By pucksandbooks
Friday, November 17, 2006
gerogemichael.jpg
Filed in George Michael, WRC| Permalink| Comments (1)

Media (Very)Good Guy: Elliot on DC-101

By pucksandbooks
Thursday, October 19, 2006

Elliot Segal, of DC-101’s “Elliot in the Morning” roughhouse of rush hour mischief, is far and away the region’s most sensible and spirited media personality when it comes to things puck. He’s Canadian, for starters (from what province I do not know). He’s also a Caps’ season ticket holder. (I don’t know how he keeps the evening hours he does and arrives in studio solidly before 6:00 the next morning so amped up.)

He gleefully talks puck on air 12 months a year.

Regulars on his program include Caps’ owner Ted Leonsis and goaltender Olaf Kolzig.

Olieinstudio

Continue reading ›

Filed in DC/101, EITM, Lindsay Czarniak, Media, Olaf Kolzig, Radio, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (4)

Retirements, Firings, and Tribunals: a Fresh MSM Meditation

By pucksandbooks
Friday, October 13, 2006

As I familiarize myself with the caliber of Caps’ coverage at non-traditional outlets far more established than OFB, I become thoroughly convinced of: the inverse relationship between the prestige and remuneration associated with MSM hockey coverage, most particularly in our market, and reportorial quality. Which is to say, I would have D.C.’s Tag Team of Print Terrible dismissed for cause, and George Michael I’d have brought before a Blogger’s Tribunal, and, before evidentiary proceedings could commence, charge him with being AWOL.

Does George still do that late Sunday night, 30-minute tour through auto track greasepits and bull stalls? Would that the SportsMachine labored more like this against its owner.

Continue reading ›

Filed in ESPN, George Michael, Lindsay Czarniak, Tarik El-Bashir, WRC, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (2)
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