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Rooting for Fire, Famine, and Pestilence on a Sheet of Ice

By pucksandbooks

Saturday, May 10, 2008

I was hoping for more hatred. I don’t have a dog in this Pittsburgh-Philthy affair, so naturally I’m rooting for a rink full of rottweilers and pit bulls on blades. Who haven’t been fed in a while. Let it be a bloody war of attrition, period after period of marauding and maiming, devouring so many carcasses that the American League farmclubs for both sides are exhausted.

This, especially, is what I don’t want from this series: pretty boy puck.

In game 1 last night, based on some springtime flairups I witnessed between these clubs, I expected a bit of feeling out fisticuffs — some messages sent and received. Some elbows carried high, some sticks carried higher, some blade-jabs to the abdomen about eleven seconds after whistles. Some old time hockey. This is the Battle of Pennsylvania, for gods sake, and a clear contrast in incompatible styles. But we really didn’t get what we deserved for a Friday night with a fridge full of beer. We got a pretty good hockey game. Nothing wrong with that. And actually, this series has the early look of a potential classic.

But it can only rise to the level of Classic if the two teams acknowledge their inner hatred.

I turned off Thursday night’s game 1 between Detroit and Dallas early not only because it wasn’t competitive but because I had the sense that there was no piss and vinegar present. And likely, there won’t be. I’m far more interested in the Eastern Conference finals because there’s far more potential not only for a lengthy and competitive series but also for scores of Pennsylvanians swaying plexiglass with their over-beered bloodlust. It’s true, you wouldn’t hire a single one of them for an office job, but you want them present at a hockey game between these clubs at this time of year.

Whatever objective detachment I possessed at 7:00 last evening was obliterated when I tuned in to the pre-game fare only to be confronted by a 30-minute Versus Valentine for FishLips. At one point they even had the lad wax poetic about playing injured. (When’s he ever done that?) No wonder that at 7:30 last night I had visions of Hartnell and Ruutu rioting shift after shift in my head. But neither lived up to their lurid billing. Ruutu especially could have auditioned for the Lady Byng last night. Georges Laraque — was he even dressed?

There were some terrific hits last night, but they were clean. We can’t have that.

I try and content myself with the thought that each night’s outcome will deliver agony to one franchise I loathe, and therefore shadenfreude joy to me. But with, necessarily, a corresponding victor, that’s Pop-Tart nourishment.

Caps’ fans friends have asked me this week who “I’m rooting for” in this series, and I return them expression-less stares of bewilderment. Imperfect as I am, I am nonetheless a man of rudimentary morals and irregular religiosity. “Rooting” for either heathen franchise is a genetic impossibility. Instead I “root for” marital discord among all the series’ players; for their nights spent in the company of Bill McCreary; for debilitating addictions and IRS audits among them all; for the early onset of arthritis.

People of mainstream breeding listen to my depraved wishlist for this series and challenge my stability. I can’t possibly be genuinely rooting for widespread injury, they allege. Why on Earth not? In so doing am I going to get fired from my job? (No.) Will my dog cease wagging her tail at my arrival home? (No.) (In point of fact, she barks her approval at Flyers’ and Penguins’ misfortunes, when I point them out to her). Will Metro learn of my arrival on its cars and swiftly deliver deficient service? (It does that anyway.) Will the Earth suddenly cease its rotation?

I wouldn’t begrudge life insurance largesse directed at a single series’ widow. I call that taking the high road.

For gods sake, this isn’t the Hatfields and the McCoys, or Iran and Iraq. It’s the Flyers and Penguins. Neither deserves to triumph in a universe presided over by a just Deity.

Look [channeling my inner Donnie Schultzhoffer], get the kids out of the room. This is how it is: there is no one on the Flyers’ roster remotely close in talent to Evgeni Malkin. There is also no one remotely close in ability to Sidney Crosby. Frankly, there’s no one in orange and black who can hold Marian Hossa’s jock. It’s a fact. So how should Philly strategize?

The only way it knows.

And let the high definition cameras chronicle every beautiful brutal second of it. Lets us have a series to make Bobby Clarke proud. And Mario Lemieux cower.

Filed in Atlantic Division, Eastern Conference, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Old Time Hockey, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Stanley Cup Playoffs| Permalink| Comments (14)

Farewell to Our All-Time-Best Netminder

By pucksandbooks

Thursday, May 8, 2008

It seems reasonable to posit that Olie Kolzig’s play as a middle-thirtysomething netminder during the first two seasons after the lockout was distinctly solid. Not spectacular, clearly, but quite solid. He didn’t have the most formidable blueline corps in front of him, which to some extent his numbers reflected, but few in the sport would have pointed to those seasons and suggested that Olie Kolzig was no longer a no. 1 netminder in the NHL.

Heading into 2007-08, we knew that Kolzig the gracefully aging elder statesman was a superbly conditioned and distinctly dedicated professional athlete. He spoke very openly about the adjustments he was incorporating in the twilight of his career to ready himself for a new and long season and its rigors. This was an explicit acknowledgment that he was feeling the effects of Father Time. Still, he appeared to be aging a bit like wine. During training camp he spoke of playing another two or three seasons after ‘07-08, under a new contract, hopefully with Washington.

Last fall, the present and the forecasted future for Olie Kolzig seemed promising, without a scintilla of wishful thinking attached to it.

The difficulty, the angst, as it’s settled in among Kolzig’s legion of loyal fans here this spring derives singularly from what settled in upon Kolzig’s game this past season. Most glaringly, October through January: really bad numbers. Now Olie Kolzig, save his Vezina season and his spectacular run through the postseason in 1998, has never really been about stellar numbers. But this season’s were unprecedented in their wretchedness. At one point deep into the season the statistical Olie Kolzig didn’t rank among the league’s top 40 netminders. George McPhee wouldn’t have dealt for a no. 1 netminder bearing looming unrestricted free agency unless he believed he needed an upgrade — immediately — in net. The acquisition of Cristobal Huet proved to be one of the GM’s most impressive personnel moves in his 10-year run in Washington.

No one would reasonably have suggested that with Kolzig in net instead of Huet the Caps would have won 11 of their last 12 regular season games and stolen a Southeast title away from Carolina. The lone loss during that run was with Kolzig in net.

Moreover, there was something peculiar and unnerving about Kolzig’s very public rebuke of Bruce Boudreau to the Washington Post’s Mike Wise at a time when the team was really gelling and making early rumblings of transforming its season. He intimated that the locker room had become a home for Hershey Bears, and that he was a bit out of place in it. He very explicitly called into question the head coach’s faculties in handling goaltenders. The bellyaching seemed out of character. It seemed distracting. Knowing what we know about Kolzig and the franchise deep in the spring of 2008, one wonders if that wasn’t the breach from which there was no repair.

Which brings us to early this offseason when every apparent indicator suggests that Olie Kolzig has played his last game in a Capitals’ sweater. The situation strikes many of the team’s fans as outlandish, as cruel and cold-hearted to the core on the part of management. These fans are reacting as fans should. Caps’ management, however, is acting precisely as it should.

The fans, understandably, want the franchise’s all-time best netminder to enjoy the promising harvest from a rough rebuild. Kolzig having guided the team to its only appearance in the Stanley Cup finals, this thinking goes, it’s only cosmically just that he’d lead them into postseasons ahead, when the Caps would enjoy roles as favorites rather than long-shots and underdogs. He’s been through so much this sorry decade, his sympathizers sigh. And it’s true. But fairness and cosmic justice and Hollywood endings aren’t the domain of the National Hockey League.

This is about business. The business of winning hockey games. And the cold hard reality is that in this Olie Kolzig NHL offseason the skill set he has to offer is at odds with the present composition and ambition of the only NHL hockey organization he’s ever served. Gordie Howe shouldn’t have left Detroit, ever, but this isn’t a mythical, age-resistant athlete we’re talking about. Olie Kolzig, somewhat sadly, but also somewhat predictably and certainly rather naturally, is aging away from the Capitals’ ascension.

He may well find gainful if non-no.1 netminder employment elsewhere in the NHL this offseason. And as with Peter Bondra, Dale Hunter, and Calle Johansson before him, if that comes to pass it will be jarring and painful to see him compete in a sweater not the Capitals’. Against the Capitals. The man who stood so tall when all around him hockey was so small here actually working to defeat the Caps? I could almost feel an opposing force emanating from the keyboard as I typed the thought.

But by April 5, when Cristobal Huet backstopped the Caps into storyline-of-the-year contention, the business writing was bright on the arena wall. No longer losers, with losers’ payrolls, the winning Caps now need to pay up for services very well rendered. (Think Mike Green.) The team needs not Olie Kolzig so much as his $5.45 million per.

Kolzig and his agent, to judge by their public pronouncements, believe that #37 is worthy of no.1 dough and no. 1 minutes, somewhere. The Caps can’t deliver either to him. It’s really that simple. There is also the matter of their having a capable backup netminder under contract at a budget-friendly rate for ‘08-’09. And Brent Johnson’s contract will expire right about the time it would appear probable that one of a stable of young, highly skilled, recently drafted netminders is ready to ascend to an apprenticeship behind Cristobal Huet or someone like him.

It’s business — the business of pro hockey. Uncomfortable at times to be sure, but never sidelined for sentimentality.

Enough about business, though. Olie Kolzig deserves his night of honor, he deserves to have his sweater retired, when the timing is right, and the wager here is that it’ll happen. Kolzig with his commitment to his club and his leadership in his hockey community came to embody what fans cherish most about pro athletes: he was the rare superior performer and role model. His fans deserve a night to shower him with a decade’s-plus worth of admiration. But until that night, gone now seemingly forever is Verizon Center’s chant of “Olie, Olie, Olie.” The place won’t quite be the same.

Hall of Fame netminder Eddie Giacomin played 10 seasons for the Rangers before being dealt to Detroit. He famously discussed his return to Madison Square Garden to face New York as a Red Wing, where Rags’ fans stood and thundered down — drowning out the national anthem — chants of “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie” while Giacomin stood in his new crease with tears streaming down his cheeks.

“The New York crest is embedded in Eddie Giacomin’s heart,” he said of that night and New York’s impact on his hockey career.

Giacomin never won a Stanley Cup. He also never forgot where was his home in hockey.

Let it be said — God willing one day soon — that this player, his organization, and his fans realized that Olie Kolzig is Washington’s Eddie Giacomin.

Filed in Bruce Boudreau, Cristobal Huet, Front Office, George McPhee, Morning cup-a-joe, Olaf Kolzig, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (46)

They’re Making a Hockeytown in Chi-town, Too

By pucksandbooks

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Business that brings me to Original Six cities is my favorite kind (save trips to Detroit), and I’m in Chicago this week. Weather is very much a weather vane in my life; among the 40 colleagues here with whom I met last week to discuss this trip, I was the only one who smiled at word that spring hadn’t yet arrived on the southwestern shores of Lake Michigan. It actually snowed here a bit last Monday night, if you can imagine. Many trees here are without leaves still, and so I won’t lift allergy medicine from my travel bag during my stay. I arrived Saturday, and the mercury hardly moved above 50, along with 20 mph gusts and strong at times rain. It was a nice backdrop from which to huddle in Miller’s Pub on Wabash St. and watch some NHL playoffs on a large flatscreen with a few puck sodas.

I’ll enjoy a warm, sunny spring day like the rest, and we had that here on Sunday, but there’s something about a novel re-immersion in hockey weather, at odds with the calendar, that warms my hockey heart. Even in May. Besides, we really didn’t have winter this winter in D.C.

I’m one of those hockey fans who believes it’s good for hockey to have all of the NHL’s Original Six franchises, save perhaps Toronto, healthy and vibrant and competitive. (Actually, as part of a realignment scheme that would largely reconstitute the Patrick Division, I’d like to see an Original Six division. A file for another day.) And the Chicago Blackhawks had been lagging behind on this front for a good solid decade. Had been. But Dollar Bill Wirtz is deceased, the Hawks started winning hockey games this past season — they took Detroit to the woodshed a number of times — Patrick Kane and Co. have this town talking hockey again, the big rink — sadly, tragically located well away from this great city’s heartbeat — was filled to the ceiling for a lot of winter, the home team’s games are back on TV, and perhaps like in Washington, hockey in a sports-competitive town may be set to take off in the hearts of the locals for a durable future.

On my very first trip to Chicago, many years ago, while strolling the shopping strip of Michigan Avenue, I happened upon a quaint boutique-sized shop called Hawk Quarters — an outlet whose merchandise was devoted exclusively to the Blackhawks. It was distinctive for its largesse of authentic team equipment and uniform wear. You wanted a pair of Denis Savard’s shin guards, or skates, Hawk Quarters had ‘em. The store had dozens of hangers of multi-colored, authentic practice sweaters, all of them with endearing stress markings about them. On Sunday I visited Hawk Quarters again, and I enjoyed the stop every bit as as much as my first.

For one thing, a full hour before the store opened at noon, there was a middle-aged, silver-haired Chicagoan standing before the store window, within which a large flat-screen TV was replaying, perfectly audibly, a months-old game from the regular season. He was following it intently, even conspicuously and loudly exhorting on his Hawks to prevail. Standing not quite near enough to him to be associated with his eccentricity, I thought to myself, you wouldn’t see this in Atlanta or Nashville or Raleigh. I also didn’t think I’d have seen it for preceding renditions of the Hawks.

Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part, but I thought the old geezer was where he was Sunday morning because he missed his fun-to-watch hockey team again. Offseasons do that to the devoted.

Inside, I was drawn to the authentics section, as before. But on this visit it seemed expanded. Scores of sticks. Rows of skates. Bins teeming with well-worn protective gear. And that fabulous array of practice sweaters. There were some new Reeboks, but I noticed many, many more of the old school Centre Ice set, cut and formed the way hockey sweaters were supposed to be: beautifully bulky. Leave it to an Original Six franchise, I thought, to still skate a contemporary hockey season in a hockey sweater that looks like a hockey sweater. At least during practice.

They looked so good, in fact, that I very nearly plunked down $100 for one. I took a real hard look at a selection of green practice sweaters bearing that distinctive Hawks’ logo and thought how well I’d fit in this town were I sipping St. Patty’s beers here in one next March 17. But I reasoned that while I love Chicago, I just don’t love the Hawks.

Another reason for my attachment to this little store in this sorta hockeytown is its exclusivity of product. During all of those very lean years of losing Hawk Quarters remained open and faithful to its team, never once jumping on MJ’s formidible marketing bandwagon. Or the always marketable, lovable Cubs. Or the rebuilt Bears. That’s a monogamy I admire.

After an indulgent visit I left Hawk Quarters Sunday afternoon for a sun-splashed walk along Lake Shore Drive, and I thought about the chances of the Capitals needing/supporting a devoted store of their own in their downtown. A heck of a lot of gear today is moved on line, making stores like Hawk Quarters perhaps archaic or antiquated. The Caps of course have never had one. There’s a devoted store to the team at Kettler, but that’s different from announcing one’s presence to the residents and tourists of a downtown. There’s something commendably civic-minded about such a site, I think — a sort of meeting place for the like of heart. I hope we see one one day soon.

Filed in Chicago Blackhawks, Hockey towns, Morning cup-a-joe, Puck Sodas, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (6)

Pittsburgh Wins; Ovechkin to NFL

By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)

Friday, May 2, 2008

Pittsburgh won on Thursday . . . no, not the Penguins, who were shut out by the Rangers, but Pittsburgh itself won the title of Sootiest City in the country, snatching the title from former champion Los Angeles. Click here to read more about it on CNN.

The Friday funnies continue: equal-opportunity offenders at The Onion mock both hockey and the mainstream media’s hockey ignorance/dismissal (yes, we’re looking at you ESPN) in their latest ONN (Onion News Network) video, sort of starring Alex Ovechkin with some surprising news:

NHL Star Called Up To Big Leagues To Play For NFL Team

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, American Hockey League, Hershey Bears, Hockey Wit, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Pittsburgh Penguins, Ted Leonsis, Video Clips, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (1)

Watching Other Teams Flirt With the Stanley Cup

By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Watching the Washington Capitals get bounced from the playoffs was a bit like getting dumped, hard. The team and its fans may have recovered from the initial stomach-punched feeling, but it’s still hard to watch all those other teams flirting with the Stanley Cup.

Nonetheless, we can all look back fondly on the good times the Capitals had during the season and in the 2008 Playoffs, and then move on. After all, the Capitals are young, confident, and fun—I’m sure they’ll meet someone even better next year . . . er, will have an even better playoff run next year.

That said, is another team in this year’s playoffs catching your eye? As we mentioned a few weeks back, Toronto Maple Leafs fans seemed to be rooting for the Capitals (for who can resist watching Ovechkin play?), and after the sweep some Senators fans jumped on board as well.

So have you been able to watch the Playoffs dance with other teams? If so, for whom are you rooting to “go all the way” this year?

Which team are you supporting for the rest of the playoffs?

Filed in Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, Morning cup-a-joe, New York Rangers, OFB Polls, Pittsburgh Penguins, San Jose Sharks, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (45)

Making Big News on 15th St.

By The OFB Team

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Saturday’s Washington Post has an editorial on, of all things, the Washington Capitals. This is not an op-ed on the sports page; this is an actual editorial in the paper’s A section. The last time we remember this occurring there was in the immediate aftermath of the team’s run to the Stanley Cup finals in June of 1998.

“A New Ice Age for D.C.?” it’s titled. Imagine. The subhead reads, “After the Capitals dazzled the hockey world, we’re believers.” Implicit there is the legacy of the media outlet long being non-believers.

“The Washington Capitals are still fourth in line, behind the Redskins, Nationals and Wizards, in the affections of the city’s sports fans,” the editorial notes. “But the Capitals’ longtime followers can match those of any team for loyalty, intensity and knowledge of the game. The problem has been that there usually haven’t been enough of these fans year in and year out. That may be about to change.”

Encouraging, no? No mention of hockey taking a back seat to NASCAR.

More: “A young team with perhaps the best player in hockey — Alex Ovechkin — got the Verizon Center back to where Capitals’ owner Ted Leonsis likes to see (and hear) it: packed full and threatening to bust the decibel-measuring machine. The Caps’ extraordinary comeback this season . . . made legions of new fans every day.”

“Under Mr. Boudreau, who had toiled 15 years in the minor leagues, the Caps won game after game down the stretch, none of which they could afford to lose. By the time they gained first place and a playoff berth on the last day of the regular season, they’d become arguably the most popular hockey team not only in North America but in Russia as well, [emphasis OFB's] where Mr. Ovechkin and three Russian teammates competed with the national team for attention.

“. . . who could bet against a player who led the league in scoring and who gets so fired up that he tries to throw himself into the crowd after scoring a game-winning goal (no easy thing in hockey, since there’s a Plexiglas screen in the way)?

Of Gabby the Post’s editorial team says, “He is a true find, one of the most likable, unassuming and (on the outside, at least) calm people ever to stand reassuringly behind a bench full of hypercharged skaters.”

As to the team’s future?

“Perhaps in the next year or two they can deliver an authoritative answer to those who say the Potomac will freeze over before Washington wins the Stanley Cup.”

Color us stunned.

Filed in Media, Morning cup-a-joe, Print, Prospects, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (3)

A Foul Finish to a Stunner of a Season

By pucksandbooks

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

I dreaded the elevator ride down to the Capitals’ dressing room at 10:07 p.m. last night. Jubilation, as we in HockeyWashington certainly learned this spring, is a damned fun thing to chronicle and consume, and for the first time it seemed in all of 2008, I had to cover jubilation’s juxtaposition — gut-wrenching, sudden and season-ending defeat.

One that just didn’t quite seem merited.

To reach the Cap’s room I had to pass through a corridor containing the spillover of a Game 7’s jubilation. In pro sports’ postseasons there are of course victors and the vanquished, and of course they share a wing of seclusion in resolution’s aftermath, but for me there was something searing and jarring about seeing so wildly divergent a set of reactions separated by just about 75 feet. And one man’s whistle.

Among the teeming press horde that packed Verizon Center last night most already have or soon will focus their coverage on a white-knuckler of a Game 7 that could have gone either way and was ultimately decided, on a controversial power play, by a Joffrey Lupul goal 6 minutes and change into sudden death, the home team left stunned about the ice and bench. I however feel compelled to report this: two gutsy and talented hockey teams that showed no signs of fatigue from a bruising and emotionally draining affair in another city the previous night and who played six-and-nine-tenths of a seven-game series as tightly and evenly as any in recent playoff memory, deserved to have their series outcome determined in precisely the manner that hockey long ago deemed appropriate in such circumstances.

Which is markedly different from what transpired at Verizon Center late Tuesday night, under the auspices of Mssrs. Koharski and Devorski.

In the second period, on the type of play that just earlier this month against Tampa overturned a goal earned by the Caps, Philadelphia’s Patrick Thoresen shoved Shaone Morrisonn into Cristobal Huet, taking the Caps’ netminder out of the play, allowing Flyer Sami Kapenen an open net into which he gave the Flyers a 2-1 lead. Huet told the media after the game that he thought a penalty could have been called on the play. Still, his team had plenty of time remaining to recover. Eventually, deep in period two, Alexander Ovechkin did tie it up.

Huet and his teammates then played the type of third period Bruce Boudreau couldn’t have scripted any better. They won faceoffs. They peppered Martin Biron with 16 shots while holding Philly to fewer than 5. They controlled the puck in the Flyers’ zone for long stretches. All four Caps’ lines took turns responding to the Rockin’ House of the Red’s loudest urgings.

They did just about everything right. It just wasn’t good enough.

“We couldn’t find the back of the net before them,” Huet said in his customarily quiet postgame voice.

Martin Biron, who looked so unsteady as Monday night’s game 6 got tighter and tougher, rebounded big time Tuesday night, stopping 39 of the 41 shots the Caps sent his way, including all 16 in the penalty-free third period.

The Caps’s Sergei Fedorov was whistled for tripping at 2:52 of period two, and the game’s referees wouldn’t identify another infraction against the home club until 4:15 of overtime.

A camera panned in on the red-sweatered owner seconds after Lupul’s rebound score ended Washington’s season, and in the Capitals’ locker room afterward the owner was asked what at that moment was going through his head.

“I was disappointed for the fans and for the players who worked so hard. I was disappointed that we lost with a man in the penalty box. I didn’t hear the whistle blow at all tonight after the puck dropped for the third period.

“That’s the way the game goes,” he added.

“Even though people were disappointed in the outcome of the game, they were not disappointed in hockey,” Leonsis noted. “The vibe is so positive [in Washington] right now, as it should be.”

“This is a young, beautiful team that only has unlimited upside. We can keep this team together, that’s been the goal, and this team is worthy of being kept together.

“I don’t think anyone can say we’re still rebuilding,” he added.

In a season in which this Capitals’ team had given so much feel-good buzz to its league, the hardware for which will arrive in just a few weeks’ time, and captured the hockey hearts in Russia, Canada, and elsewhere about the globe, it seemed like they deserved a better send off than the one the league authored and authorized Tuesday night.

Bruce Boudreau afterward was asked what he told his team in a room full of silent dejection.

“I told them they gave me the best year of my life.”

I’d like to thank these Capitals and their coaches for giving me the best season of hockey here in my 34 years of following them.

Filed in Cristobal Huet, Eastern Conference, Incompetent Referees, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Overtime, Philadelphia Flyers, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (41)

The Calm Before the Seventh Game Storm

By pucksandbooks

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Over a 75-minute period late Monday evening I fielded a dozen-plus phone calls from family, friends, and media, all waxing euphoric over an “It’s ordained in the heavens” sense that Tuesday night was to be all about partying for Caps’ fans.

The euphoria is understandable. Where this Caps’ team is this morning is magical, miraculous, and marvelous. The sense that Uncle ‘Mo is with the Caps is irrefutably accurate. The analysis that suggests that it’s much better to be the Caps than the Flyers right now is spot on.

But there’s this tempering thought:

Because what we’re dealing with on April 22, 2008, at Verizon Center is a Game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs, none of the preceding variables matter.

None.

If you think this Flyers’ team is busing down I-95 in perfunctory fashion to play the patsy to our party, you’re in for a rude awakening around 7:15 Tuesday evening. On this blog over the weekend we talked about a reversal of pressure, from an advantage for Philly toward one for the Caps. It reversed itself again around 9:30 Monday night. For the past three games the Caps have been the hunters. Beginning tonight, they’re the hunted. And Alexander Semin’s wrists and Alexander Ovechkin’s new-found confidence, I’m loathe to report, don’t mean a heck of a lot in the matter.

In a very real sense, the heart of the matter is articulated best by Flin Flon, Manitoba’s, Donnie Schultzhoffer, television commentator for the big game in ‘Mystery, Alaska,’ when asked to sum up the small town’s chances against the New York Rangers:

“This isn’t exactly rocket surgery. Now send the kids out of the room. I don’t care how fast a skater you are, if you don’t play this game with a big heart and a big bag of knuckles in front of the net, you don’t got dinky-doo.”

From this blogger’s perspective, there was a whole lot of dinky-doo in the doings of the Caps Monday night, particularly when down 2-0 in the second period amid the Philly frenzied, but there’s also no guatantee it’ll be back Tuesday.

But to take a step back — and an important one — Washington this spring deserves what’s arrived here tonight. What will take place tonight at Verizon Center represents the summit of sports’ hold on our culture. This is neither the file nor the forum (right now) for an elaborate debate about Game 7s in hockey versus those in other sports. They all have their virtues. But hockey’s hold the greatest quotient for unpredictability.

They often deliver remarkable feats of heroism. When we learned that the Caps would be playing the Flyers two weeks ago we posted a video file of Dale Hunter scoring a Game 7, series-ending goal in overtime, against Philadelphia. It occasioned an outpouring of reminiscence here. To no surprise to us.

Incidentally, this spring marks the twentieth anniversary of that goal.

Often, Game 7s are scintillating in their drama. Moreso than any other sport’s single night’s sudden deaths they raise us out of our spectating seats precisely because every single rush of the puck carries such magnitude.

And Washington this spring, however accidentally and or fortuitously, has embraced hockey in all its culture and trappings. And so it should experience this rare vintage of a Game 7 sporting drama. And savor it.

Nothing that precedes Game 7 means that much — not 20,000 maniacs in red, not the momentum earned just 24 hours before up the Interstate. Line matchups don’t matter that much. Who’s home, who’s away is virtually irrelevant.

And as such that is their elemental and enduring appeal. These games — and they occur rather rarely — are their own islands, with their own tides, winds, and storms. That the Caps — the Cardiac Caps — should be involved in one this spring, and against an arch-nemesis of playoffs past, perhaps should be no surprise at all.

We are so lucky to host one.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Eastern Conference, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Philadelphia Flyers, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (18)

Is the Big ‘Mo with the Team in Red?

By pucksandbooks

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Hockey’s most mysterious quality is momentum. It wavers at times — is obliterated, even — from shift to shift. Years ago I saw it change for the Caps from bad to beautiful with a single shift of chaos from Kevin Kaminski. A solitary act of incompetence by a single referee, as with yesterday’s mystery infraction alleged against Sergei Fedorov in period two, can (and did) radically realign a game’s outlook.

The Caps earned a series-prolonging victory Saturday afternoon, but it wasn’t until about 4:30, as I walked toward a Verizon Center exit behind Flyer forward Mike Knuble, that I thought this series’ momentum might have changed.

I was walking, but Knuble most assuredly was not. He was more in a shuffle of anguish. I’ve seen my share of miraculous recoveries from fairly major injuries in 48 hours’ time, especially in the NHL playoffs, but watching Knuble labor under such obvious distress, I began to wonder if the sudden shift in the series’ authorship of the physical — for the second straight game the Caps outhit the Flyers — might have signaled a new overall control. In this series, control of the physical most often means victory.

Suddenly, Saturday seemed like more than a single loss for the team still the favorite to prevail.

It was only after I’d arrived home that I learned from Corey Masisak’s blog that Knuble was indeed out for Monday — and Tuesday, if there’s a game 7.

Meanwhile, in the other dressing room, there are suddenly answers where 40 hours earlier there were only questions.

In a series in which Alexander Ovechkin is goal-starved his countryman Sasha Semin has announced himself as a stealth sniper, setup man, and in-your-face antagonist, the latter of which I don’t imagine was of much concern to the Flyers’ coaching staff when this series began. Semin’s game-winning goal Saturday was surreal — I described it in my game file as a “high-slot sling of heavy, heavy heat” — and the type of tally that can rattle an opposing team out of its comfort zone. It’s one thing to have a home team hold serve in a gritty elimination game; it’s quite another to see a secondary star being born into a primary role and leading a comeback. The Flyers have done a magnificent job of mitigating the impact of the planet’s best hockey player. Now they have to do something about his roomie on the road.

And keep an eye on that Mike Green fella.

Semin’s 6 points through the series’ first five games are second only to Green’s 7, but it’s when you stand about a foot away from the supremely shy 24-year-old and see the playoff’s black and blue etched deep within his face that you fully appreciate his maturation this postseason.

That’s right, there was an Alexander Semin sighting among the press yesterday afternoon. He did his best to duck us again — biking (his customary post-game pursuit), bathing, even immersing himself in a video training session — but eventually he came out and with the aid of a Russian journalist answered a half dozen questions from the local press. He has a Halloween-scary look about him now. It’s really quite beautiful.

“I’m playing as well as I can, I’m happy with how I’m playing and I feel good,” he said.

In his bashfulness Semin is economic with his expressions but also thoughtful in a summary kind of way.

“It’s a different game in the playoffs,” he noted. “You simply can’t make mistakes at the blueline — you can’t lose the puck, you have to use your chances.”

Semin’s turnover awareness may be most heartening to a fanbase patiently awaiting his maturation on that front. He’s playing with confidence, an inspiration for which there is no surprise: on playing with Sergei Fedorov — “He sees the ice very well, he’s a great passer and as far as what he’s brought to the team I think it’s more of a confidence.”

Alluding to Semin in particular and some of his other young players as well, Bruce Boudreau confirmed a change, a maturation within this series: “I think there’s a big difference from the first three games of the series to the last two,” the coach said in his postgame press conference. “Semin, Backstrom, some of these younger guys are really playing good hockey right now.”

Another player helping to change this series’ outlook is its unlikeliest, perhaps — Steve Eminger.

“He’s stepped in and done a tremendous job,” his coach said late Saturday afternoon. “He’s playing physical, he’s taking hits, he’s doing a lot of the stuff that Steve Eminger can do.”

There is no game film to analyze for the remarkable ascensions individual players make from one night to the next in the NHL playoffs. The opposition merely endures it and hopes one of its own can answer in kind. But the combination of three young Caps so delivering — Semin and his new-found grit, Backstrom suddenly looking no longer the NHL rookie, and Steve Eminger, the forgotten one now a third-pairing rearguard creeping toward top four minutes with his polish and poise — gives the Caps and their fans hope for the underdog on Monday night.

“It’s not a situation that we’re not used to,” Gabby noted. “We’re gonna go into that building and we’re gonna play as hard and we’re gonna leave everything in that building that we have.”

No one I think doubts the effort they’ll bring. The Flyers, however, now thrust in the must-win role themselves, elst they face Red Chinatown again, have to wonder if the series’ swagger has swung Washington’s way as well.

Filed in Alexander Semin, Kevin Kaminski, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Philadelphia Flyers, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (8)

Languishing in the Learning Curve

By pucksandbooks

Friday, April 18, 2008

If you watched Game 4’s broadcast last night likely you saw Comcast illustrate the dramatic discrepancy in playoff experience between the Caps and Flyers: last night 14 Capitals were making their NHL playoff series debuts, just 6 for Philadelphia. The way the game was contested you’d never have known.

Small solace this morning.

But I think I am going to enjoy watching Eric Fehr compete in playoffs hence. Through nearly 90 minutes of game clock I kept seeing Fehr impose his physical will down low and along the boards and carry off the simple and smart decision under pressure and in traffic. Next season I suspect we’ll begin seeing him score more regularly and then take that scorer’s touch and add it to his already impressive physical drive.

And I think Alexander Ovechkin has, four games into his NHL postseason career, found a prescription for making his mark at this time of year: first hit everything that moves, helping to dictate a game’s tempo and feel, instead of waiting for the play to come to you — and the scoring will follow. The Capitals last night followed Ovechkin’s physical lead: four games in, and likely three games too late, they finally got physical, winning the hits ledger 38 to 29.

And I’ll take six or eight more springs like this from Dave Stecklel, too, and, if I can, at least a dozen more of this caliber from Alexander Semin.

Semin, for me, is the storyline of success in what is fast beginning to look like an abbreviated first trip to the postseason by the rebuilt Caps. I’ve enjoyed watching him in all four games, but last night was perhaps the most impressive hockey game he’s played in his young NHL career. The playoffs have a way of maturing, of rounding out and of broadening the skill set of previously one-dimensional hockey players. I’m not suggesting that Semin was altogether one dimensional prior to April 11, 2008, but watching him make quality Flyer defenders look foolish along the boards, watching him dish out as good and at times better than he got, watching him be the first Cap in at a scrum to aid a victimized teammate, watching him get bloodied and battered and thereby only more resolved to win, well, how can you not be excited about what future seasons — and especially springs — likely hold for him?

Viewers last night also saw a rebound performance from Milan Jurcina. He got real physical after playing comparatively passive in previous games. He also didn’t much attempt passes up the middle of the ice from behind his own net. He, like many of his young teammates, is learning.

There’s no other way to get to where the Caps ultimately want to get except through trial and costly error in the cauldron of the NHL postseason. That cauldron includes grotesque gaffes — at times wild in their imbalance — by game officials.

I read Mike Vogel’s commendably restrained litany of lousy officiating, but I’m glad that as grievously bad as it’s been at times — and referee Mike Hasenfratz should be chemically castrated for what he did with 3 minutes left last night (was that as commendably restrained?) — that it’s occurring in this series, so early in the postseason careers of so many Caps. It needs to be filed away among the very hard lessons learned.

One of the toughest lessons a young hockey team has to learn about the postseason is that victory isn’t always awarded to the deserving. There’s about a baker’s dozen of those in Capitals’ playoff history. Add Thursday night to the tally. When Bruce Boudreau was asked about changes his club would need to make for Saturday’s game 5, he replied, “None. I thought we outplayed them. I thought we deserved to win.” Me, too. But that and a $5 bill will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

Hockey clubs that come up short get tinkered with and tweaked in offseasons, and as exciting and rewarding and even inspiring as the 2007-08 Capitals have been, there are missing parts among them, and I’m going to enjoying monitoring how General Manager McPhee works his home improvements this summer. Debates about names and signings are fit for another day. But help is on the near horizon.

More youth will be served. And it will need to be led just as this spring’s has been by the likes of Sergei Fedorov, Matt Cooke, and Cristobal Huet. Here’s hoping the 2008 Young Guns are taking good notes.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Dave Steckel, Eric Fehr, Joe Finley, Karl Alzner, Mike Vogel, Milan Jurcina, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Philadelphia Flyers, Prospects, Sami Lepisto, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (30)

A Hockey Team Looking Orphaned from Postseason Prosperity — As It Should

By pucksandbooks

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Near 10:00 last night I had a singing Little Orphan Annie stuck in my head:

The sun will come out, tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar
That tomorrow, there’ll be sun
Jus’ thinkin’ about, tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow
‘Til there’s none

Annie, though generally not commonly channeled for her thoughts on the Stanley Cup playoffs, was a red-head. And Cristobal Huet wishes it were merely cobwebs in his goal crease as opposed to a swarm of Philadelphia Flyers. Instead, there’s plenty of sorrow there.

Were Annie following this playoff series “tomorrow” for her wouldn’t refer to Thursday’s game 4 but rather next year, for the Caps. The Caps this April have some not-so-ready-for-prime-time players on their roster — including the planet’s greatest hockey player and most particularly his center. I also thought this last night: didn’t Sidney Crosby’s young (sorta) Penguins manage to win just one playoff game last spring against Cup-finalist Ottawa in their maiden postseason appearance as a rebuilt club?

Lest you think this is merely a 2-1 deficit for the Caps to climb out of, know this: of the series’ nine periods played the Flyers have been in thorough control for eight of them. They take penalties but pay no price for taking them, as their penalty killing acumen is elite. They are following their coach’s strategems perfectly. They are in synch. And they are in complete control of this series largely because they have experience in this mission.

Miracles can happen, and larger deficits in playoff series of course have been overcome (don’t we in D.C. know about that), but generally youth doesn’t serve them. You can just tell that Scott Hartnell’s been through this before. Ditto for Daniella Briere. And while Derian Hatcher is largely a pylon at this stage in his career, he’s a very springtime-tested one. Youth is being served in orange and black in the form of Mike Richards. What a stud.

In the interest of making it as tough as possible for the Flyers to prevail I would like to see Gabby tinker a bit more with his lineup. It was right to remove the overmatched Tomas Fleischmann and re-insert Eric Fehr. And I’m with JP: I’ve seen enough of John Erskine, and I want to see a heck of a lot more of Steve Eminger.

There is some good news for Caps’ fans this week: Alexander Semin, whom most in hockey thought would be brutalized by the Flyers’ aggression tactics in this series, is the Capitals’ best forward, and likely only to get better. Do you know how many hockey players there are on planet Earth who can stand on one leg and basically decapitate a well armored netminder?

This would be a more interesting series were warrior Chris Clark a part of it, but that’s spilled milk. No matter how healthy the Caps roster this spring, some brutally tough postseason lessons would have to be learned by the dozen in Caps’ sweaters who’d never participated in them. However aberrational 6-14-1 was last fall, it just isn’t the calendar season stuff of Lord Stanley. I suspect most Caps’ fans recognized this even in the delirium of last Friday night. ‘85 Villanova types generally don’t get their names etched on the Big Silver: that trophy requires eight weeks of excellence, not 40 minutes. And its winners overwhelmingly are comprised of players who’ve slogged through seasons’ worth of hockey’s springtime marathon — one that bears little resemblance to its regular season.

For Game 4 tomorrow I’m attending a late-afternoon Capitol Hill game-watch barbeque with a Sea of Red set under a forecast of springtime perfect skies. For a few minutes late last night I thought about a somberness settling in over our planned picnic, but my friends will read this and I trust be persuaded that tomorrow’s game, and however many more follow before we pack it in this hockey season, is an occasion to celebrate. We in hockeyWashington were orphans from postseason dreams present and future just last fall; now we’re mezzanine ticket holders headed toward orchestra seats.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Chris Clark, Cristobal Huet, Eastern Conference, John Erskine, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Philadelphia Flyers, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Steve Eminger, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (64)

A Return to Mortality

By pucksandbooks

Monday, April 14, 2008

In a league conspicuous for its parity, NHL hockey teams these days aren’t supposed to win 12 of 13 games, or 13 of 14 — and the moreso when something like the success of the entire season is compromised by a single additional loss during such a stretch. On Sunday afternoon at Verizon Center, the Capitals played their first non-must-win hockey game since the middle of March. That’s a month of Russian roulette with near nightly trigger pulls. The surprise wasn’t that the team fell flat yesterday, finally, without some hero-rescuer’s arrival. It was that it took so long to happen.

The Philadelphia Flyers, conversely, were a desperate hockey club on Sunday. And it showed.

I expressed the opinion last week that the Caps’ having a break of five days between the most important games of their season, following a month of ones virtually identical in stature, was good for the team’s fans. It was probably also good for the players. There are only so many elite emotional peaks human beings can consecutively carry off.

One of the reasons hockey is such a compelling affair to chronicle — particularly during the postseason — is the collective emotional synergy required to win. Units of 18 playing on the same page often are bested by ones of 19 or 20. Like: fourth lines coming through and playing winning roles. The Caps since the Black (and gold) Weekend of March 8-9 have been, save a single night, a unified force of 20. That’s as much a story as their winning so consecutively and qualifying for the postseason. Because it’s reason for it.

This past week of scrutiny of the Caps by national and international media almost certainly ratcheted up the emotional aura of game 1, and with players from Mike Green to Alexander Ovechkin confessing to unprecedented nerves early on Friday night, the team managed still to triumph against a two-goal, third-period-deficit odds. You had a sense, though, I think, that there was going to be, eventually, a price to pay for such prolonged prosperity. Sunday there was a bill collector named Biron at Verizon Center. The Caps’ coach afterward expressed the hope that Sunday’s reckoning would come “cheap.”

“I’ve never believed that you’re due for a game to be bad . . . Philadelphia made us look pretty bad. Hopefully it was a cheap lesson,” Boudreau said.

Prior to Sunday, the Caps last lost a hockey game on March 19 in Chicago (also a shutout). They’d hung on for a harrowing triumph in Nashville the night before. The encountered a rested Blackhawks’ club and 21,000 of their supporters in a trap game. The 5-0 result was an aberrational outing in the spring of 2008. Caps’ fans have to hope Sunday’s was as well. The body of this team’s work the past two months is highly suggestive that it was.

If there are ebbs and flows, peaks and valleys to a hockey club’s competitive psyche, the real story of Sunday was the at-last arrival of an emotional flat-lining, of the breaks uniformly going the other way, so late in spring for a team in a sport whose bounces toward bad fortune can’t be forecast from one dump in to the next.

With one point separating these two teams after 82 regular season season games, with two quality netminders backstopping clubs that finished the regular season as strong as anyone in the league, with firepower and youthful exuberance spread out all over the ice, the Sunday stunner would have been one club seizing a commanding 2-0 lead in games. This one isn’t ending early — or easily. We have a good old fashioned, hard-to-call hockey series on our hands.

Capitals’ players and coaches spent all last week claiming that they’d been playoff battle-tested by the previous month — playing weeks’ worth of “Game 7s” night in, night out. The new challenge confronting them this morning is dusting off a big-game’s defeat and rising back up to an elite, united peak.

Filed in Bruce Boudreau, Eastern Conference, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Philadelphia Flyers, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (2)

A Blogging Error of Postseason Inexperience

By pucksandbooks

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Seating Chart - Game 1

I made a grievous mistake in judgment this week, and it adversely impacted OFB on perhaps this site’s most important day of existence. We worked closely and well with the Capitals’ media staff to try and position ourselves to continue to bring you the feeling of hockey as we feel it from within Verizon Center, but you may have heard: the Capitals this week fielded upwards of 250 requests for press credentials for Friday night. Contrast that with what Tarik yesterday reported being the coverage corps for a Caps’ game around Thanksgiving: about a dozen. In a media environment far less fashionable than Friday night’s, two of us from OFB get credentialed so that we can deliver both words and images/video here, but at week’s start, sensing a very changed hockey culture here, I informed my OFB colleagues that we might be lucky to get just one of us in the Verizon Center press box for Game 1. Turns out, even that forecast was optimistic.

To accommodate so massive a media surge, the Capitals communicated to us their need to create an overflow area for working press — in the media lounge, downstairs, well away from the madness. That may have made for a quieter work environment, but I wanted to work in the madness. Sensing an arrival of a frozen Red Sea perhaps even louder than last week, and wanting to see how red it would be with Philly in town, I wanted to survey and savor it and share my sensory experience with you.

But I also confronted a former daily-journalist-turned-blogger’s dilemma: the men and women who make a living at covering pro sports have an obvious claim to priority access that I don’t. Mr. Leonsis in his new media age vision may not agree, but I made the decision that under such extraordinary access demand burdens, and having been accommodated for two years so uniformly magnificently by the Capitals, I wanted nothing of being headache no. 251 for the club. I could watch the game from home, and blog like others. I rationalized my decision partly on this half-truth of a premise: to the extent that I viewed myself (wrongly) as being shouldered aside by professional old media, that very condition was emblematic of the coverage success I’d sought for the game I cherish in my hometown.

At 6:15 last night, shopping for my playoff game beer and pizza out in the suburbs, believing myself able to transition back to simple, traditional hockey fan with the snap of fingers away from a keyboard, I realized the seriousness of my mistaken judgment. I felt a profound ache at being away from the action, away from working at chronicling it, and it felt awful. Even beer on sale offered no salve.

I should have shoehorned myself into that rink last night, even if I had to try and blog from underneath Abe Pollin’s desk. Rather than adopt the view that this new love affair the press is having with hockey could be an impediment to my coverage calling, I should have embraced it as a fresh challenge. I made a huge mistake. This morning, I owe our readers an apology. At least the good guys got it done!

Initially I lessened my early evening ache a bit by maintaining contact with some friends in the press box via instant message. But then my diminished ache turned to anger. I learned that Friday night’s Washington Post delegation — understandably enlarged — was pork barreled in the press box’s front row with the names of Kornheiser and Wilbon. If I ever get to own a pro hockey team they won’t be allowed in my rink — Friday night was a red-tie party for HockeyWashington, and the two of them have amply demonstrated over years not only disinterest in attending such soirées but ridiculing those who do.

My anger wasn’t directed at their hopping on the hockey media bandwagon — it was that after securing so sought after a set of seats . . . they failed to show up to work the friggin game! Kornheiser may have been cavorting about a luxury box, but he certainly wasn’t working upstairs. His workspace space preserved. Ditto for his partner in the superficial, syntax-challenged, and loud. This is a family blog, and the words I associate with this act of unfathomable arrogance won’t appear here. Maybe they could title their next ESPN podcast, ‘Pardon the Absence.’

Enough about hockey-hating egomaniacs and back-room media matters.

Friday night delivered not just a pulsating, emotionally draining victory over a gritty and skilled opponent but perhaps just as importantly it obliterated any residual concern about the viability of Washington being hockey friendly when it really mattered. A Hockeytown under construction may have a completion date that may have to be bumped up.

The Comcast broadcast went live at 7:00 last night, and at 7:00:30 it was abundantly apparent that the orange-and-blackouts of the past were lodged right there, in history. I don’t quite understand how the Capitals’ sales department managed to make it so pervasively red last night.

But I have Friday night beer leftover for them.

Filed in Blogs, ESPN, Internet, Media, Michael Wilbon, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Print, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Tarik El-Bashir, Ted Leonsis, Tony Kornheiser, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (26)

Remembering ‘98 and How We Can Improve on It

By pucksandbooks

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

I remember vividly the Capitals’ stirring run to the Stanley Cup finals in 1998 — 10 years ago this spring. There were helpful upsets that guided the fortunes of the 4th-seeded Caps that postseason — all of the East’s top three seeds lost in round one — but for the battered psyche of this hockey community, that didn’t matter. Taken in total, the run was totally unchartered territory in these parts, an almost out-of-body experience for a postseason-beleaguered fanbase.

I remember most particularly the manner in which this region and its media rallied around that team. By mid-May that spring I would see on my commutes to and from work, in both directions along I-270, tech businesses showcasing “Let’s Go Caps!” banners on the facades of their buildings. Buildings downtown, including the Washington Post’s, did the same. Sportstalk radio was talking hockey — Caps’ hockey — at length. It was hip to be here and in love with hockey that spring.

It’s wildly premature to speculate as to whether or not the 2008 edition of the Caps possesses the chemical/karmic makeup to replicate ‘98, but it’s not ill-timed to wonder if what turned out to be a fleeting flirtation with the team and its sport by this region 10 years ago can this spring be forged into something more durable. In the spring of 1998 the Capitals and hockey here enjoyed merely a one-night stand in the hearts of sportsWashington and its media. However this spring, there’s reason to believe that a swelling Army of Red and layers of media covering this special club are poised to foster a co-habitation with hockey — perhaps for much as the next 13 years.

Before you parry and thrust with “D.C.’s a Skins’ town and it always will be,” understand that I’m not clamoring for a sports community cabal. The Redskins need not be dislodged as king in order for hockey to be accorded a healthy respect by sports-loving Washington. And on this front I would cite the experience of the Dallas Stars as instructive.

What kind of pro hockey team would move from the State of Hockey, take up residence in a football-mad sunbelt state, and prosper, playing to sellout crowds night after night, season after season? Quite simply, one that was constructed for winning for the long haul. I’m not sure that all these years in Dallas the Stars have played an entertaining brand of hockey, but they sure have won. And the support has followed.

But here’s where the calculus gets fun in these parts. The Stars did so with a traditional superstar (Mike Modano) and a heck of a lot of uninspiring role players but nothing approaching the greatest-of-all-time candidate in the Gr8.

Nobody in Texas suggests that the Stars have sullied the luster of the Cowboys. The hockey team just quietly goes about its business of profitting and winning year in, year out, before a loyal and fervid fanbase.

Why can’t that be replicated here?

It was a veteran Caps’ club that nearly ran the tables in 1998, and young GM George McPhee was loyal to them, largely keeping intact that club for 1998-99. Physically brutalized — the team lost an unfathomable 511 man-games to injuries, and 41 players dressed for the Caps that following season — the team finished 31-45-6, good for just 68 points. The morning after sunlight shone on hockey and the Caps, and city didn’t like what it saw.

Early playoff failure again settled in the following couple of seasons, Jaromir Jagr was acquired, and the rest is more unpleasant history until April 2004.

But it’s all different this spring. It’s a young as opposed to a veteran Caps’ club that has captured the attention of Washington — and the hockey world — now. Its most important part is locked up until this century’s third decade. He’s surrounded, already, by a core of world-class young skill. And more well-decorated reinforcements are skating on nearby horizons.

Perhaps just as importantly, the media covering hockey has been revolutionized in the 10 years since 1998. Washington’s remarkable hockey story went dark and silent that summer after its miraculous run at glory. Today, traditional media plays an important but merely partial role in narrating the tale of the Cardiac Caps. Bloggers blog 12 months a year, and old media has somewhat facelifted itself in synch with the contemporary communications revolution. Cumulatively, quality information puck is generated and consumed in rapid fashion. And if the product being reported on with inventiveness and flair is quality, you can red-out a rink with a day’s notice and four-figure ticket prices on Craigslist aided merely by the ‘Net’s viral momentum.

Hockey perhaps moreso than the other pro sports is the beneficiary of the media revolution, and the synergy between new and old media has led, in Washington, to a Chinatown atmosphere few would have deemed possible just six months ago. Capitals’ marketing executives told me long before the 11-1 concluding run toward a Southeast crown of their recognition to brand this team in its community even in the dog days of July and August.

Call it a lesson learned, a hockey hungry community finally fed, and an immensely appealing team at last built with a design on staying power.

Filed in '98, Blogs, Comcast SportsNet, Internet, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, Print, Stanley Cup Playoffs, TV, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (7)

A Stretch Run’s First Hint of Nerves Yields to the MVP’s MoJo

By pucksandbooks

Friday, April 4, 2008

You expected less drama from the Cardiac Caps?

Bruce Boudreau this week made a point of white-boarding his hockey team’s underwhelming and underachieving performances against the Tampa Bay Lightning this season, and his team’s middle 20 minutes Thursday night gave him fresh lecturing material. A dominant opening 20 minutes, exclamation-pointed by a 20-5 shotclock slaughter, was followed by tentative, tense, and sloppy play in period two.

“How many times have we seen that — teams dominate in the first period and not get rewarded enough, the other team comes back in the second period and plays a lot better,” Coach Boudreau noted in his post-game press conference.

“It happens almost every time,” he added. “Guys didn’t want to make a mistake and they wanted to play perfect hockey.

“Sometimes you just gotta play,” he said.

The longer the game played “ugly” the more dangerous the atmosphere became for the favorite. There were even unforced physical errors — Nick Backstrom falling and surrendering the puck dangerously behind his own net, Cristobal Huet nearly sliding head-first into the sideboards in pursuit of a third-period puck — to remind Caps’ fans of the Ghosts of Gonchars past in a big game. And in Karri Ramo (36 saves) Caps’ fans confronted yet another no-name opposing netminder seemingly hell-bent on wrecking a Caps’ season.

And this being the history-plagued Caps, misfortune’s cherry was needed on top of the melting sundae of a season, so a Brooks Laich goal in the first period that would have knotted the game at one was disallowed by the zebras, citing, according to Boudreau, “incidental contact” from which ”the goalie didn’t have time to recover.” Which prompted Mike Vogel to ask the coach, “Is there such a thing as two minutes for incidental contact yet?”

Not to worry. This season, there is in the Capitals’ uniform he who is making it his life’s mission to re-write scoring records as well as a new chapter in his team’s Chronicles of Spring, with a much better ending.

Getting home through this two-week minefield of lose-once-and-you’re-through, inevitably there was going to be a performance in which the young skated their age — actually showed some sign of being aware of the stakes and reacting as the young are supposed to. Thursday was it. There was also this factor: winning games you’re supposed to win is occasionally tougher than winning those you aren’t.

The game turned on Vincent Lecavalier’s third period injury. Matt Cooke clobbered him in open ice, and while Cooke probably went appropriately unpunished, Tampa reacted as hockey teams typically do when their star player is violently removed from a game: with vengeance. On the ensuing Caps’ power play, Alexander Ovechkin scorched a wrister past Ramo that unleashed Def Leppard-like loudness in an arena that had spent nearly 50 game minutes united in an updated version of woes of old: ”They’re gonna come this far and blow it against the bottom-feeding ‘Bolts?”

Lecavalier’s absence was also acutely felt on Tampa’s 4-minute man-advantage from a John Erskine high stick. The last-place ‘Bolts still ranked 6th in the league on the power play. The ensuing effort was competent but lacked its customary lethal fright. Then Boyd Gordon made it 3-1, occasioning another eardrum-paining celebration among the red-clad.

Greg Wyshynski, who yesterday authored “Can You Smell the Sidney/Ovie in the Air?”, stood next to Dmitry Chesnokov and me amid the relief-delerium and shouted, barely audibly, ”Washington isn’t a hockey town!” to demonstrate the very changed air within the rink on F Street. Dmitry and I took turns replying, “We can’t hear you.”

The Caps, a team that spent years recently seeking 5 consecutive wins, won their sixth in row Thursday. (They last won six in a row in 2001). At least for one day, they moved into the Eastern conference’s top eight, and postseason qualification. Their no. 1 star Thursday night is also the league’s no. 1 star of 2008. Soon, formally acknowledged as such.

“We have so much firepower on this team, and so much trust, if we play our way we can come back and score goals, and it’s just a matter of time,” Brooks Laich said afterward. Laich in his breakout season is also a disciple spreading the gospel of puck in a region increasingly receptive to it.

“You can obviously tell in the building that hockey’s really catching on,” he said.

“It’s starting to become a hockey town.”

Filed in 2 Points, Alexander Ovechkin, Cristobal Huet, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Nicklas Bäckström, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (6)

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 sum