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Morning Cup-a-Spirit: This Bigotry Against Babes, I Won't Stand for It!

pucksandbooks — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 04:28:17 +0000

To read the reactions left only here related to the Caps’ plans, announced over the weekend, to introduce SpiritBabes to the team’s home games next season, you’d think management announced that Verizon Center was hosting 41 brothels next winter.
It’s too warm in there for brothels anyway.
Would that the peasants took up pitchforks and torches in these numbers when the league bleep-canned hockey jerseys for Reebok’s tuxedo vests a year ago.
Count me among those with a more inclusive spirit — one who will approach the scheme with an open mind. I take the owner at his word (“I am a family man with a wife and daughter“).
I was all prepared to write about my first one-on-one chat with Hershey Bears’ head coach Bob Woods on Saturday when this fracas broke out later that day. No wonder Washington is consistently regarded as a sex-appeal-less city.
In reality, though, all the NHL is doing is catching up — modestly, I might add — with football’s spirited sidelines. Or Fox News. In a culture of seriously foxy FoxNews, is this really anything to get all that worked up about?
But by late yesterday we’d received pointed clarification from the Capitals on the matter: “The squad won’t be ice girls in the traditional sense . . . It’s also not a dance squad, a la the NBA. It’s more of an evolution of the entertainment team we have had in the past” [the one that most in the stands thought was remarkably annoying -- I'm all for evolving that].
Still, I found it riotously funny to learn that Bruce Cassidy had contacted the team’s sales department Sunday seeking a full plan for next season. And Smoken Al Koken — has he been revived since Saturday’s news?
Actually, you can make a compelling argument I think that hockey, particularly in markets like Washington, is much more in need of some sultry spirit than is the NFL. Mr. Leonsis, in defending the move on Sunday, noted that it was with new revenue in mind that the team pursued the idea. In case you hadn’t noticed, television ain’t exactly throwing mad dough at the NHL’s 30 clubs these days. Meanwhile, the league’s salary cap has mushroom-clouded by more than $15 million in just the three seasons since the lockout.
It’s swell that we’re all in love with this rockin’ garage band called hockey, but the band still has to be paid, and if Hooters-Lite (not Hustler) wants to underwrite the Friday night jam session, I think the beer will still taste cold. Count me as one who wants a hockey team’s practices, scrimmages, and camps to remain free and open to the public, year round.
Anyone remember the millions the NHL spent on its post-lockout relaunch television advertisements — you remember the ones, the “My NHL” spots featuring the hockey locker room beefcake, rather shirtless, massage-motivated by a Fox News anchor in the pre-game? I remember thinking the first time I watched it, ‘My, how shirtless this hockey player is, and my, how little I now want lunch.’ Now that was profane, and brought to you by Bettman & Co. I’m confident that Ted doesn’t have quite that in mind.
I’m not sure what revenue the Washington Redskins’ cheerleaders bring in to the team, but whenever they make community appearances you seldom hear of Puritanical protests accompanying them or of anyone having a real lousy time at them. In fact, once in a while, the tight end marries the babe. Maybe the SpiritBabe will marry the bachelor blogger.
The Capitals, and hockey in Washington, need increased exposure (if you’ll pardon my word choice). If the Caps’ SpiritBabes are going to be out and about town during and after seasons hence, perhaps toting along a few congenial players with them, it’s bound to improve the team’s visibility, as well as that of the sport.
And in our recessionary times, where is the acknowledgment of the idea’s job creation ???
There’s been all manner of hyperbole associated with this past weekend’s high-pitched hue and cry reaction. For instance, some have alleged that the aisle ladies in their shimmer and shake will distract from the play on the ice. On nights when the Caps lay an egg, I agree — and let’s hope so. On those nights especially I’ll be glad for Verizon Center’s new state-of-the-art, high-rise, high definition, center ice scoreboard. But really, if the Alexanders are barreling down the ice on a two-on-one scoring chance, how many men’s and women’s eyes will be fixated on tight fannies in the stands?
And what of the selectivity of outrage in this instance? When it’s Mites on Ice, all are quiet, despite the fact that with that exhibition the laughter is generated at the expense of really, really short people. But raise the specter of pretty girls prettying up the District’s rink, and all hell breaks loose.
The only genuine harm that can come from this scheme is if, to quote the wit of one of the few in this town with a sense of humor, who imparted it in the maelstrom of message board madness yesterday, “they come down to the Johnny Walker Club after the game and are attracted to out-of-shape middle-aged men.”
When Messrs. Vogel, Parker, Rucki and I were taking in the World Championships in Moscow in the spring of 2007, we had no shortage of aisle-jiggling accompanying our blogging endeavors (see photo above). I think I can speak for the four of us in saying that we got our work done just dandy. In point of fact, the real distraction in terms of Moscow hotties diverting our gaze came with the middle-of-the-night trollop parade through our hotel’s lobby (where we were blog drafting), aided and abetted by bellhops on the cash take.
Baltic beauties in boas and hip-high black boots. Naughty, naughty Nikitas! Sorry, that was the indulgence of reverie.
Anyway, over in Moscow, we learned that NHL scouts were in favor of off-ice girls.
!
Perhaps since Alexander Ovechkin has to spend the next 13 seasons skating here we should let him be the arbiter in the matter.

Where to Watch the Worlds

pucksandbooks — Fri, 02 May 2008 04:02:12 +0000

The 2007 edition of the World Championship Tournament found half of OFB watching the games live and in person. What about the other half? We, too, watched live — just not in person.
Like last year, we don’t believe that this year’s tournament will be on television, though we are hoping for a few games to be on the NHL Network. There is a way to watch ALL of the games… the World Championship Sports Network.
The games are live and WITHOUT COMMERCIAL INTERRUPTION (at least they were in 2007). Last year there was some analysis between periods, and the arena camera remained on live. We even got to experience the Russian version of the Kiss Cam. Though an internet feed is usually inferior to a television broadcast — especially in HD — the WCSN.com video stream was quite good, especially considering it originated half a world away.
A monthly pass is only $4.95 and includes live and “on demand” event coverage, plus access to thousands of hours of archived sporting events. During Team USA’s off days, if you are wondering how Ovechkin or Backstrom played in last year’s tournament, it is all archived here.
Here are the preliminary games for the United States and Russia.

¬†	United States	¬†	Russia	¬†
Friday, May 2nd	vs. Latvia	7:00 pm	vs. Italy	6:45 pm
Sunday, May 4th	vs. Slovenia	7:00 pm	vs. Czech Republic	12:45 pm
Tuesday, May 6th	vs. Canada	3:15 pm	vs. Denmark	12:45 pm

You can find the full 2008 Schedule here.

To Russia (Hopefully) with Appreciation and Goodwill

The OFB Team — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:45:38 +0000

Last spring Capitals’ owner Ted Leonsis bank-rolled an act of unprecedented goodwill for hockey, dispatching two of his communicators and two OFBers to Moscow to cover hockey’s World Championships, in which a number of Caps competed. This coming offseason, he’s poised to organize more goodwill for the game, and pursue a plan of the Caps traveling to Russia — sooner rather than later — to showcase the team and simply celebrate hockey there.
“My bet is that in the next 13 years that Alex [Ovechkin] is here, at some point we’ll get him back [to Russia],” the owner told a couple of Russian journalists this past weekend.
Most assuredly, it won’t take 13 years for the Caps to make such a trip. The smart money is on a late summer excursion in 2009, right before that season’s training camp. The owner has already discussed the idea with team President Dick Patrick and Vice President and General Manager George McPhee.
While management is focused on the team making the playoffs right now, the trip to Russia is an idea Leonsis is committed to pursuing further this offseason. He will be talking to league officials about the idea then.
“Alex is Russian first and foremost,” the owner noted. “He’s a Washington Capital second, and he loves Washington, D.C., and America, but he loves his country, and he’s our player and we would like to do things that make him feel more and more comfortable.”
“The cultural exchange would be good for everybody,” he added.
There are scores of compelling reasons for such a scheme. For starters — and perhaps most importantly — Gary Bettman is supportive of it. The NHL, the owner noted, is encouraging teams to go play in Europe. “I think Gary Bettman would like us to go to Russia,” Leonsis said.
And it just so happens that largely because of Ovechkin the Capitals are the most popular NHL team in Russia. It’s why there are two full-time journalists covering the team for Moscow news organizations here in D.C.
Leonsis views such a trip as primarily an act of goodwill, but in listening to him discuss the idea it’s also clear that he’s made a link between the internationalization of hockey and the Internet. You can bet he won’t send his team over there crossing his fingers for old media coverage.
“In Washington, D.C., you want to be a global team, and I think it’s a reason that players like Alexander Ovechkin feel so comfortable here — it’s a very cosmopolitan city. We would want to show Russia some of the best players in the world, and celebrate the connection [between Russia and the NHL]. It’s not about money,” he said.
“Our team would be very popular in Russia, because of Ovechkin, Semin, and Kozlov,” he added.
There’s another reason driving this idea. Russia, it turns out, is one of the few countries in the world the owner hasn’t visited. “Russia is such a hockey loving country, and we’ve got such great [Russian] players, I think it would be a great thing for us,” he said.
In 1989, the Capitals joined the Calgary Flames in a headline-grabbing tour of the then Soviet Union for a historic series of exhibition games that September. The team traveled to Moscow and Leningrad for eight games against various Russian professional teams. Here’s how high-profile a happening that was: NHL Commissioner John Ziegler made the travel announcement from the United Nations Assembly in New York.
Twenty years later, the Capitals could be returning to Moscow. They’d be carrying a whole lot of Glasnost in their equipment bags. And quite a few thank yous for the Russian hockey development program.

Smitten by the Siberian in Skates

pucksandbooks — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:54:03 +0000

Where was my friend Dmitry Chesnokov last night when I needed him most?†Near the start of†the 8:00 – 9:30 public skating session at†Cabin John Ice Rink†last night I was heart to heart†with a size 2, seriously English-challenged Siberian blonde bombshell whose beauty, had it been encountered by the Cold War-exiled in her home region, would have lead them to petition for an extension of their hard-labor detention. By decades.
I was on†shift as the Sunday evening Zamboni driver at Cabin John, but in the presence of this East-of-Moscow dynamo, I lost all sense of obligation. †
I†don’t want to sound disloyal to the†set-your-heart-to-swooning Red, White, and Blue set†here; I yield to no one in my appreciation for them. But from my visit East this past spring I have, you might†say, broadened the spectrum of my fairer sex admiration. Mike Vogel can confirm: to be immersed in that outpost of outlandishly flowering femininity, to share their busy Moscow sidewalks†and snuggle in next to them within the city’s world-famous underground transit†system,†is to develop a telepathic faculty for finding Baltic beauties in their comings and goings on any continent.
That was then, this was last night: oh we’re talking mouth-drying, whiplash-inducing, how-on-Earth-did-she-arrive-in-my-little-Maryland-rink luscious.†Maybe she was was 5 ‘7. Lithe. Early on this blogger-stalker adopted the view that her bluejeans, post skating, were they directed toward laundering, might have contacted†an attorney†and filed suit for abandonment. Her fractured and†halted English directed at rink staff only added to her appeal. The Sunday evening rink staff†was small,†and word spread among us quickly†that we had a patron whose limited ability with English required us to devote extraordinary courtesy and attention to getting her fitted in rental skates and out on the ice.
I felt up to the task.
I mentioned I think losing a bit of my†Zamboni/rink management work ethic by virtue of her arrival.†The other 50 or so†session patrons†formed an unattended-to line of outrage at the skate exchange while I stood behind it gazing, transfixed, at the beauty’s efforts to lace up her skates. Then I watched her march in perfect balance†and confidence toward Cabin John’s Olympic ice sheet. Siberia, I thought, cradle of the bladed from birth.†
Time for the remainder of the planet marched onward, but†I was†lodged within that rarefied, timeless, euphoric realm of crushed-by-crush. Principally, I was consumed by†this thought: if she can’t understand English, how on Earth will I flirt with her?†††††††††††
Fortunately, not long into her skating regimen, she was visited by injury, and as night shift manager, the duty was mine to attend to her.

She presented her injured wing to me back at the skate exchange. She’d acquired a rather severe scrape about her left elbow, as a modest amount of blood testified. She held it up for me to inspect. Briefly I considered canceling the session and closing the facility so that I might transport the victim to†Bethesda’s Suburban hospital in my Jeep, at warp speed. Instead†I hurdled the counter and raced toward the facility’s snack bar, to assemble a makeshift ice pack. I returned and presented her with the ice pack and offered to cleanse the wound with antiseptic and gauze, and then obviously follow with shoulder massage. She expressed appreciation for the ice but seemed embarrassed to accept the fuller prescription for remedy called for in Keeley’s Principles of Medical Physiology†, vol. 1.
She held the ice pack to her elbow, and we started to chat, as best we could.
“You’re from Russia, aren’t you?” I asked.
“[Unintelligible -- certainly unspellable], in Siberia,” she responded. †
“I made my first visit to Russia this past†May, to Moscow,” I replied. “I loved it.”
She smiled but remained conspicuously quiet, as if she’d understood little beyond the word ‘Moscow’.
“How long have you been in the U.S?” I pressed onward, undeterred.
She smiled again but shook her head. Speed dialing Chesnokov’s cell phone would only further confuse her, I reasoned. †††
Back on the ice she went, back to bachelor’s strategizing I returned.
Within my supervisor’s powers I hold the ability –†albeit sanctionable†perhaps (likely)†by suspension –†to redirect admisison tickets that went unstamped by cashiers during the day to young ladies I’d rather prefer to see returned for skating in the future, unencumbered by entry cost. Had I done this before yesterday? I cannot recall. Anyway, yesterday’s stack of tickets was thick and high; so necessarily I resolved†to go†through every one seeking just a pair I could pass off to my would-be beloved’s hand.†Deep into the endeavor I found them. As the angel exited the session I handed them to her. She didn’t quite recognize their significance at first, but some seconds later, when I was nearly out of ear reach from her, she shouted “Thank you.” †
I feel like I know my friend Dmitry and how he will respond to this set of circumstances. I wager that he will make it his life’s mission this week to get me fluent in a handful of sentences in Russian so as to make a favorable impression on the Skating Queen should she return to my rink next Sunday night.
I could have used his help back in May. ††
†

Young Glory Draped in Old Glory

pucksandbooks — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 21:20:38 +0000

In the middle of this past hockey season consensus was that the 2007 NHL Entry Draft would offer up another strong showing by American prospects — seven or eight of them were likely to be tabbed in the first round. This would follow by a year an Entry Draft in which fully 10 Americans went in round one. These kind of tallies are bettered only by the Canadians.
As we near the 11th hour of the Columbus draft that forecast is being widely revised . . . upward. TSN’s superb draft primer forecasts 10 Yanks as first-rounders; The Hockey News’ Hot 100 list, a ranking compendium comprising the blended prognostications of 10 NHL scouts, also has 10 Americans going in round one. There are a litany of highly thoughtful and well-respected reader-generated draft forecasts to be found at Hockeysfuture this week, and again Americans litter those lists.
No two Americans have ever gone 1-2 in round one. It almost happened last year. It well could tomorrow night in Columbus.
If 10 Americans again have their names called on Versus tomorrow night the implications are beyond clear: in consecutive years the broad pipeline of American development — from the USNTDP to U.S. college hockey to the USHL to American high school hockey — will have claimed fully one-third of the NHL draft’s first round. And by the way, one of the Americans likely to go in round one tomorrow night is a Californian.
As player development goes, this is called trending upward.
But what might perhaps be even more impressive than the sheer tally of American talent is its breadth across positions. Looking over the haul of first-round U.S. talent in recent drafts, and with an eye toward this year’s, one notices sleek snipers (Kane, Kessel, Oshie), bruising blueliners (the Johnsons, Joe Finley, Nick Petrecki, Colby Cohen), power forwards aplenty (Okposo, Bobby Ryan, Skille, van Riemsdyk, Pacioretty), and especially an abundance of two-way rearguards.
Interestingly, if there’s one area of positional weakness relative to the Canadians and Europeans in recent drafts for the Americans, it’s an area of previous strength: in goal. Since Rick DiPietro went first overall in 2000, we really haven’t seen USAHockey or anyone else produce high-end talent between the American pipes. That 2000 draft is the more intriguing in light of the modest American skating talent that followed DiPietro in the first round: Ron Hainsey, Brooks Orpik, David Hale, and Jeff Taffe.
This decade, it seems, the U.S. feasts in first-round skating talent and famines in net, and vice versa.
While the best is yet to come for U.S. national teams in international competition because of this embarassment of young talent riches, over at the World Championships this spring it was abundantly evident to us that the new generation of warp-speed, wicked skill set is already primed to make an impact. That U.S. squad coached by Mike Sullivan was one overtime, struck goalpost away from taking down gold-medal finalist Finland. And it was a conspicuously young squad.

Moscow Bonus – Canada Gold

pucksandbooks — Mon, 21 May 2007 09:01:49 +0000

As we mentioned before our trip to Moscow, OFB would serve as the “DVD extras” to supplement the Caps’ official coverage of the IIHF World Championships, including photos and observations that didn’t make the cut for Caps’ site. Here’s the first in a series of those extras: photos of the Gold medal-winning Canadian team.

IIHF World Championship MVP Rick Nash

Team Canada GM Steve Yzerman

Team Canada Captain Shane Doan

Team Finland Silver

Team Canada Goaltender Cam Ward

The Captain and the Cup

Mr. Staal is very tall

Shane Doan, with wife and son

Eric Brewer

Cam Ward Rockin’ the Flip Flops

World Championship Widget

pucksandbooks — Wed, 16 May 2007 19:34:59 +0000

The following widget was the content distribution tool for the joint OFB / Washington Capitals coverage of the 2007 IIHF World Championship tournament in Russia.

Admin Note: The World Championship Widget became unavailable after the NHL mandated that all teams move their websites to NHL servers.

Ruminations on Russian Food, Drink and Rubles

pucksandbooks — Tue, 15 May 2007 23:16:12 +0000

MOSCOW . . . I mean, BETHESDA — Driving back home through Bethesda this morning, the smell of two “everything” bagels filling the car and the sun shining brightly, I was struck by how adaptable people can be. In a day or two, my DC routine will feel normal again. Yet sixteen hours ago I was flying over the Arctic Circle at 33,000 feet (outside temp -72?F) on the way from Moscow to JFK.
There’s old Russian proverb: “There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out.” Within the confines of our trip’s busy schedule we tried a variety of Russian food and drink, and in the process expanded our knowledge of Russia in a small but not insignificant way.
So before the details of this whirlwind trip begin to fade — and before the looming specter of my lost luggage ruins my mirthful morning mood — here are one traveler’s impressions of Moscow’s cuisine.
Sticker Shock
Let us open the ruminations with a brief discussion of Moscow prices to put things in the appropriate context. Everything is a lot more expensive than you’d think in Moscow. As the City Mayors site notes, “Outside the European Union (EU) Moscow is the costliest destination, and is now more expensive than New York.”
Our first taste of bottled water simultaneously provided a taste of Moscow prices. The day we arrived, we reached in our hotel at 2 P.M.; our rooms wouldn’t be ready for another hour. So as we sat in the lobby with thousand-mile stares, exhausted and dehydrated from the long flight, Keeley ordered a bottle of water for us to share from the hotel’s restaurant. A server delivered the water to the tired travelers, and at that point I would have paid any price to rehydrate. Still, we all gasped when the bill arrived: $13 for one liter of Evian, plus tip. Zoinks, Scooby.
With rare exceptions, such as the coffee vending machines we found in the hockey arena, the prices were consistently much higher than we expected. And by no means were we living high on the hog; I’d wager we were the only accredited journalists covering the tournament who, rather than hiring a car every day, instead walked a mile from the hotel to the metro, then a mile from the metro to the arena, in the rain. Uh oh, I sound like a bit of an old curmudgeon . . . “In my day, we walked to school, uphill, both ways, in the snow,† without shoes!”
Regardless, the point is that it’s nearly impossible to travel cheaply in Moscow, particularly when much of the food and drink was crammed down our throats as we rushed from event to event. Still, despite the hectic rush we did find a few stand-out beverages and meals.
For Love of Coffee
As I now sit at home, pouring myself a cup of Alonzo’s Double Dark coffee from a French press, I realize the coffee on our trip deserves its own little sub-heading. After all, we drank a lot more coffee each and every day than we did alcohol on all the days combined.
Coffee Mania on Nikitskaya Blvd., one of eight locations owned by a friend of Igor Larionov’s, prepares the best coffee the four of us had on the this trip and, perhaps, the best on any trip. You may have already seen the photo of wondrous cappuccino in the Worlds photo gallery, but here’s another photo of their award-winning Cappuccino with a delicious Kiwirinha (kiwi-ginger concoction) and a Carambol (a creme brulee mousse pastry) that knocked our socks off. Finding Coffee Mania made our last three nights of late-night laptopping much more enjoyable.
We generally enjoyed the coffees in Moscow, though the quality and prices varied dramatically. For example, due to frantic schedules, we purchased many of our coffees in the Flat Iron Bar in the hotel. They serve an excellent double-espresso and, until our discovery of Coffee Mania, we happily kick-started our days with several foam-topped cups.
Such convenient caffeine came at a price though: a double-espresso in the hotel cost 300 Rubles, or about $12, plus tax and tip, each. So we were thrilled to find Coffee Mania, albeit late in the trip, where superb coffee cost a more reasonable $9.00 — still expensive, but better and cheaper than the hotel.

At the other end of the price and quality scale was the coffee provided in the arenas’ coffee vending machines. For a little less than a dollar, the machine brews a strong cuppa joe with a variety of powdered additives (creamer, hazelnut, etc.) in under a minute. This steaming beverage rises out of the machine in a little plastic cup (click here for YouTube video of the cup rising out of the machine — a wonderful sight to tired eyes). We made many visits to this machine during our long days at the arenas; the bitter but sweet caffeine jolt the machine’s brew provided was priceless.

Feedin’ Time
The easiest way to summarize the hockey arena food is: different isn’t necessarily better. The choices were quite unlike those at the Verizon Center and other U.S. sporting venues, but the high prices for average-at-best food remain the same.
What stands out is that almost no overlap exists between Russian arena offerings and those in American arenas. Gone are the hot dogs, chicken fingers, and burgers of U.S. arenas; in their place are things like plastic-wrapped meat-on-a-bun which they microwave in the wrapper (so the roll gets warm and soggy but the meat stays cold and damp, yum), slices of salmon or salami on dry bread (not bad), and a wide variety candy bars.
Another difference worthy of note: the two arenas for this tournament did not serve alcohol to the public. That’s right: beer-less and vodka-less Russian hockey fans! Apparently some combination of the arenas and organizers made the decision, and frankly it was a good one. With back-to-back games each day and nationalistic emotions running high among the fans, alcohol was only likely to fuel problems . . . particularly since it seemed clear to this reporter’s nostrils that some fans liberally partook in pregame libations on the way to the arenas. While beer and drinks were available the in press lounge, we had little time to indulge — caffeine was usually the priority.
After many days of sub-par food at over-par prices, we decided to treat ourselves to a nice restaurant recommended by one of the friendly hotel staffers. At The Mill serves delicious traditional Russian fare in a rustic setting, complete with mill wheel and fish pond. For an appetizer I had Siberian ravioli stuffed with lamb, sprinkled with herbs and butter. My main course was a hearty Russian veal stew with mushrooms and potatoes, served on a sizzling platter. The others’ meals looked just as tasty, ranging from colorful salads to rack of lamb.
Of Russian beer, little need be said. Almost all of it is Pils style: light and crisp on the palate but with little to distinguish itself from, say, a Pilsner Urquell or a Kirin. As Seinfeld might say, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” but frankly it’s not my cup of brew. The fact that many establishments serve beers cool-but-not-cold also detracted from our enjoyment; it’s one thing to have room-temperature Guinness, and quite another to sip warm Budvar.
We all wish we’d had more time to explore Moscow’s dining offerings, as the little samples we had outside the arenas were quite palatable. From the lovely outdoor Scandinavian cafe to Coffee Mania’s impressively varied dinner and dessert menu, Moscow seems a place one could find many terrific meals . . . given a large wad of Rubles, of course.
Da Zvidanya to Friends and Luggage
Luggage update: one bag was just delivered to my home intact, the other is still missing; as of noon on Tuesday American Airlines has not yet located it. That is, to put it mildly, less than encouraging.
Like our Moscow food and beverage experiments, my luggage’s journey is yielding mixed and (potentially) expensive results. But while I am loathe to repeat this luggage experience, exploring Moscow’s cuisine is an adventure I’d happily embark upon again.
Thus our trip comes to a close. It’s one I’ll never forget, and will always be grateful to Ted Leonsis and the Capitals for making it all possible. The camaraderie the four of us developed on the trip was unplanned and organic, and it turned out to be crucial for the smooth execution of our close-quartered, fast-paced, sleep-deprived venture. It, too, is something for which I am extremely grateful.
John and I will post additional photos and thoughts to On Frozen Blog over the next week or so — consider them the DVD extras that spilled over from the official Capitals’ Worlds coverage.
Da Zvidanya all!
(original post on the Capitals’ site)

SkyBlog: A Few Words About a Thousand Pictures

pucksandbooks — Tue, 15 May 2007 02:35:14 +0000

Somewhere over Europe, at 30,000 feet –†As a traveler, I’m not much of a picture-taker. Instead, the images I form of a foreign culture and its distinguishing traits I collect from hours of interactions with its people. I seek out the animate as opposed to their monuments. Now that I think about it, a nation’s people are its monuments. Ideally, these encounters spawn new and exciting and altogether unexpected friendships. Such was my great fortune in Moscow and Mytischi this spring.
Ironically for me, though, a fair portion of our Worlds coverage has come to be characterized by the quality and volume of images we captured. And as late as day two or three of our excursion we had no notin that this would happen. When we devised a workplan for Caps’ management last month we imagined the trip’s two powers of generous prose, Vogel and yours truly, making laptop keyboards hum while Parker and Rucki tended to things techy. This we did, but in a pocket-sized Sony digital camera with video capability Rucks had an impression-collecting tool whose utility and quality I don’t think even he appreciated back on May 3.
Instantly, we had roving camera eyes collecting and distributing impressions of this year’s World Championships, with Rucki pointing his jewel tool at the ice sheets even from Khodinka’s upper deck. This bit of technology was something we hadn’t exploited before even at OnFrozenBlog. Meanwhile, Vogel and Parker had their remarkable Capitals’ web content schematics down to a perfectly practiced art form. But Rucki’s vantage exponentially expanded our coverage team’s focus. Daily we generated photo galleries, publishing at least one every day. With these stills and small video snapshots we were able to bring the life of Moscow cafes, its personalities, and of course the action on the ice alive, for a travelblog and, eventually, a stand-alone e-exhibit. Sometimes we found delight in the sculpted cream-top creations of our middle-of-the-night cappuccinos and published our mirth moments later.
By tournament’s end Rucki was practiced enough in this rewarding artwork to orchestrate a post- bronze medal game picture of combatants-turned-teammates Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom. It was a portrait that was picked up literally globally, by print and electronic media from Stockholm to Silver Spring.

From the Web wonder duo of Vogel and Parker we had a strong theoretical sense of what we could achieve overseas with comparable access to athletes. But subject to the whims of the International Ice Hockey Federation, the best laid story plans are just that — theoretical. If two weeks ago we’d planned on publishing e-postcards and player profiles, today we hope our readers feel, if not quite having been in Moscow themselves, afforded a window to the action and culture that traditional media rarely can impart. This I do know: I’d like to attend a few more 4:00 a.m., impromptu puck lectures in hotel foyers held by NHL scouts. In our middle-of-the-night chats with them I learned as much about Nicklas Backstrom from hockey’s hardcore who live out of suitcases than I did from his shifts at Khodinka Arena.
I love to talk hockey, and I love more listening to folks who really know hockey. From this perspective I’d have holed myself up in an overhead carry-on bin across the Atlantic to listen to the stories of the scouts who converged on our hotel in Moscow. Many of these guys learn of your passion for their sport and relish the opportunity to impart their insider’s anecdotes to you. It doesn’t hurt if you buy them a round, too.
“Work,” and laboring hard at it, was a defining ethos of our excursion, and I take home a keepsake portrait of great hockey writing craftsmanship from working alongside Mike Vogel, a pro’s pro in this business. At the risk of stating the obvious, he honored me with his offers of collaboration. That sounds more structured and formal than the experience actually was. By the World’s medal round we’d simply pass a laptop back and forth, working from the same file screen during our middle-of-the-night draft sessions, assembling collages of what we’d seen, heard, and felt. Great forward lines possess intangible instincts and know-where-each-other-are knack, and foremost among my fondest associations of this trip were the moments during which Vogs and I were in-synch laptop linemates, weaving organic and polished narratives while the rest of Europe slept.
Spike Parker, however, redefined my notion of commitment to craft. He’s a one-man webcast crew, a tour de force of technology. We’re about five hours into our flight home now, and he’s out like a light, which relieves me. In a very real sense his job couldn’t fully begin until our writing had ended, so he saw more than his fair share of Russian sunrises. All of us are wine enthusiasts, and if we were ever to start our own winery I think we’d call Russian Sunrise.
Or . . . Tall Russian Hard-Bodied Hotties, by the Millions. Early in the trip Vogs and Parker shared with us Alexander Ovechkin’s boundless enthusiasm for the aesthetic virtues of the women of his homeland. The joke among us was that he understated their appeal. We first encountered their “charm” seconds after setting foot on Russian soil, at the Moscow Airport Customs and Immigration station. Even in curve-covering government uniforms they weakened our American knees with their willowy stature and blemish-free beauty. Eleven days of: blonde, brunette, and black- and red-haired goddesses, whose “swivel” (coverage team characterization) movements in bluejeans and ever trendy general Euro tightness gave us a natural remedy to writer’s block. Or caused it. From hotel to train station to arena and back, and then back out again on foot for meals and sustaining caffeine and spirits, we were at all angles ever in view of Russia’s most precious jewels†– Kremlin included†– in awesome and awe-inspiring volume.
Sharapova? Kournikova? Uglies.
But I found beauty deep within the Russian people as well. I return home with a stack of music made for me by Andrey, a Ukranian, university-aged restaurant worker in our hotel. Late each morning, over my first cups of coffee in the new day, Andrey and I would bridge our linguistic impasse by sharing our favorite music with one another, he with the Flat Iron Bar’s sound system and me placing my MP3 player’s headphones over his ears.† Khodinka Arena daily offered up a soundtrack of loud, pulsating Russian rock music aired during play stoppages and intermissions, some of which pleasantly stuck in my head long after the games had ended. From his age and the elaborate and fierce looking tattoos ringing his wrists and forearms, Andrey, I figured, would be a good source for information on Russia’s rock music scene, and I was right. He devoted one of his off nights to making a pile of sample CDs for me. He did this, his English speaking manager informed me, because he worried about me lavishly and fruitlessly wasting money in a Moscow music store. Music, like hockey, unites nationalities and forges friendships.
I will also remember Anna the press-level usher at Khodinka. Petite and piercingly pretty, she was a perfect barometer for the fortunes of Team Russia: professionally stern in her usher tasks, she’d comport herself expressionlessly, until the Russians scored, when her sky-blue eyes would widen and she’d raise her hands to her mouth to suppress, ineffectively, her glee. She also had a habit of swaying and mouthing the words to the arena’s rock music I liked, and I enjoyed watching that.
In Anna I sensed an unvarnished authenticity of emotional range in Russian people. The instant the red light behind Russia’s cage alighted in Saturday’s semi-final with Finland, signaling their elimination, I looked over at Anna and caught the onset of her sobbing.
Because I saw her so often in my comings and goings at Khodinka, after some days I found it amusing to make her an audience to my massively mangled Russian utterances. She indulged me well, smiling at my most grievous miscues and gently correcting them.
Near the end of the gold medal game Sunday night I walked up to her, mouthed the word “Ovechkin?” to her in an interrogative, saw her smile, and handed her a door-length, AO-in-action color fabric banner and Caps’ ballcap. She hadn’t finished unfurling the banner before turning and rushing an aisle over to show off the gifts to an usher colleague.
I didn’t want those semi-final tears as my parting image of her.

Faraway, So Close

pucksandbooks — Tue, 15 May 2007 02:17:06 +0000

MOSCOW — Some reflections on the Russian hockey arena experience at the Worlds:
Let The Music Do The Talking
As expected, Stompin’ Tom Connors’ “The Hockey Song” is not on the standard Russian hockey arena playlist. The song did, however, make a brief appearance during Team Canada games as a play-stoppage snippet.
An extended dance mix of the “Ol?©, ol?© ol?© ol?©” chant was prominently featured during intermissions. Its accompanying video is an odd combination of old hockey footage from the previous four times Moscow has hosted the Worlds; a voluptuous lead singer wearing strategically-placed pieces of black string; and a rapper in goalie equipment. It’s a bizarre collision of disparate images that left this viewer’s head spinning. It also firmly lodged the the “Ol?©” chant in my head for hours, much to my chagrin. Then again it was no worse than the disco remix of Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” which was, to say the least, unpleasant. A frequently-played bossa nova-ish version of “Smoke On The Water” was just bizarre.
Lest one think that Russian hockey arenas completely eschew the classics, our ears occasionally caught a break with traditional fare like Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and several flavors of AC/DC. Bon Jovi rocked the arena a few times, and we caught the dulcet strains of 80s tracks like Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” and even Opus’s “Life Is Life” at one point. For some reason none of us could suss out, the irritating Aerosmith tune “Shut Up And Dance” was played every ten minutes or so; why that lame song was chosen from the band’s extensive catalog, we’ll never know.
Back in Arena Mytischi, one of my fellow travelers mentioned that some songs sounded like Russian cover tunes, perhaps to avoid copyright issues. But a little research revealed that Mytischi boasts a “house band;” many of the PA songs are performed by a local rock band performing in the bowels of the arena. Apparently they prefer anonymity, however, because no one seemed to know the band’s name.
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