By queer, delightful coincidence I decided at the last minute to don my Dale Hunter Quebec Nordiques sweater for my Sunday visit to Bugsy’s. I needed to remind the out-of-town friends I was meeting there that Bugsy’s was a hockey bar, even while every TV screen was broadcasting NFL football that day. I had a heavy flannel shirt on over my sweater, and the two hockey coaches were the first folks I saw in the bar as I walked in. I walked right up to the table where they were seated sipping cold ones and unveiled my allegiance.

“Now that’s old school!” the head coach said, smiling at his assistant.

I regaled the coaches with warm welcomes and then left them to their off-day relaxation. My friends, apprised of my stunning good fortune, implored me to return to the coaches’ table and request a photo, and for the legend to sign my sweater, and I confess, I gave it a brief moment’s consideration. But I’ve been imbued by a modicum of media professionalism working with the Capitals’ media relations team in recent years, and more importantly, I’m a big believer that our sports heroes need come space out in public to be just like us, free from memorabilia pleadings and such. For me on Sunday it was more than enough thrill to shake the legend’s hand and say, “Welcome home.”

If you’ve been to Bugsy’s just once you know that owner Bryan Watson has made it a shrine of sorts to our sport. My football-loving friends on Sunday were stunned by the framed photos of brutally beaten up ice warriors that gloriously clutter Bugsy’s walls. I’d forgotten, but Dale Hunter’s home white Capitals sweater is encased and hung prominently in the bar. Sunday I really enjoyed looking at that historic sweater and seeing the legend who wore it relaxing some 20 feet away. It was for me one of the more powerful proof points of our arrival as a hockey town. A hockey town needs a hockey legend, of course, and better if he’s actually in town and once in a while out and about so that soldiers can stop by his table and salute him.

I’ve been around Alexander Ovechkin, one of the greatest hockey players in the world, a great deal the past five years, literally hundreds of up close encounters in Capitals’ locker rooms. I’ve interviewed Sidney Crosby in the visitor’s locker room at Verizon Center. I’ve chatted up Bryan Murray and Peter Bondra and famous New York Times reporters while being credentialed to cover the Caps. None of those experiences delivered anything approaching the exhilaration I experienced with my proximity to Coach Hunter on Sunday. It seems silly, and then it doesn’t.

For the first time since I started blogging with credentials I felt awestruck Sunday, but in a good and healthy way. I was quasi-trembling for nearly three hours seated almost immediately next to the new coach. I knew that no other coach, no other figure from the Capitals’ past, could make me feel that way. Distracted as I was, I had difficulty listening to my friends’ conversation with any fidelity. Obviously I didn’t give a damn about the football overhead.

There’s just something about this moment, and that set of silver hair, and those steely blue eyes conveying still a warrior’s intensity, even in Sunday relaxation; just something almost notoriously novel in his being here, right now, taking charge of these Washington Capitals. I know that George McPhee believes it, but my belief is rooted largely in devotional faith, not any objective, dispassionate analysis. And I’m not apologizing for it.

On Sunday I liked a lot that over the course of about three hours the coach, seated with his assistant and later joined by Bugsy himself, never once glanced up at all the football on all the TV screens. The hockey men were there to toss back a few cold ones and . . . talk hockey. On their day off.

Understandably, at so critical a moment for the Capitals, we all want hard and fast evidence that this momentous change will deliver the goods, that this particular change is paramount among final tinkering by George McPhee with his grand design. It is our fervent hope. But of course we can’t know, not before next spring. Instead, we’re supposed to relish all the drama fraught with the unknown journey. For this hockey fan, Dale Hunter’s return home, to lead, is an unmistakable signal that our hockey culture is changing, already, and this Christmas that’s good enough for me.

“Since Alexander Keith first began brewing in 1820, Alexander Keith’s Fine Beers have grown from a local brew only available in Nova Scotia to become a national favourite across Canada. For over 180 years, our Brewmasters have brewed exceptional quality beer that all Canadians can be proud of. This pride of Nova Scotia has something else to celebrate today.

“For years, fans in the U.S. have asked for Keith’s and now we are proud to announce that we are introducing Alexander Keith’s Fine Beers to our neighbours south of the border!

“Beginning this spring, Alexander Keith’s Fine Beers will be available to our American neighbours, but not until Mr. Keith’s time-honoured practices for ensuring quality and taste are upheld through our rigourous brewery accreditation process. Follow along on this blog as Brewmaster Emeritus Graham Kendall passes along Alexander Keith’s proud heritage to Brewmasters Nick Mills and Rebecca Reid as they accredit the Baldwinsville, NY brewery to brew Alexander Keith’s Fine Beers.

You have to imagine that larger American markets would be among the first to be blessed with the imported liquid bliss. What if the Caps go on a great springtime run, and what if we can toast to the success then with God’s tears? Has ever our northerly neighbour treated us with as much warmth and love?

(In our collective excitement we’re even adopting silly Canadian spelling today.)

There are nuisance elements to these unseasonably frosty conditions, I’ve been told, but I am genetically immune to them. I love being a native Washingtonian with deep Viking roots.

Depending on your perspective, we in D.C. are either cursed or blessed by the present Deep Freeze of December. I think you know where I stand.

When the mercury’s more seasonable — say in the middle 30s at morning rush hour — I draw silent amusement from my outdoor Metro platform encounters with otherwise robust-appearing men, layered for Siberia. Scarfs, leather gloves, thick wool pea coats — the works — encase these wussies of winter. NBA fan, I think to myself as I inspect.

Even before the arrival here this week of Mr. Deep Freeze — my all-time favorite Christmas party guest — I’d finalized plans for my first winter vacation. Not the Bahamas. No, come late January I’ll be off for a very long weekend in Maine, and my first-ever immersion in Portland’s Ice Bar celebration. Portland is also home to my favorite non-Dublin tavern, Bull Feeneys. I am investigating the potential of renting two snowmobiles that weekend for that my friend Michael and I can pub-rev it atop 750 horsepower and navigate a trip to and from that great warming spot.

This past Sunday I was enduring torture on one of my gym’s death machines (that’s any piece of aerobic equipment used by me in my middle-age), and overhead on a flatscreen TV my inner Viking was summoned by the illustration of the 5-day forecast for Washington’s week ahead. Those mercury numbers looked like winning Powerball digits to me. In my middle age, at the gym, it’s a powerful incentive to see such a gift from Mother Nature, especially at the holidays.

My thoughts raced ahead to this Saturday morning, with the reasonable expectation of shinny-viable conditions on some local skating ponds. I always pursue a deep burn in my exercise regimen, but at that moment I went extra hard in my routine. If I’m right, there will be kids out on that pond Saturday. My middle age is a grave disadvantage among them.

Mr. Deep Freeze, my perpetually favorite Christmas party guest

But since about Halloween I’ve shed nearly 20 pounds off my frame. Consequently I now sleep like a bear in hibernation at night, feel like a million bucks during the day, and, perhaps not so incidentally, on a recent Friday evening I got carded while purchasing some holiday wine. On a most personal level, there will be I think something special about this winter’s regional shinny: I will pursue it in the best shape I’ve been in in perhaps 12 or 15 years. Maybe it’s the eternal optimist in me, or the delusional imaginings of a shinny enthusiast who never yields the feeling of youth associated with that pursuit, but I believe that come Saturday I’ll still have something to show those kids.

This fairly extreme fitness regime I’m on — it’s partly themed on the battlecry of Do Not Go Gently into Middle-Age Without a Fight.

My body possesses this inner, innate radar for ice thickness on local ponds. I need call no park service recording for a safety assessment. I can drive by a pond in my Jeep and, cognizant of the cumulative incubating cold, fairly accurately interpret the conditions with but a few seconds of concentrated survey. Vikings have this ability, I think.

My pal Pepper emailed me last night to detail the thrill of looking out his New York City apartment window at the season’s first snowfall.  After about 36 hours of email traffic largely themed on ‘What do you think we oughta do about Bruce?,’ that was a most welcomed missive, a bit of an electronic Christmas card from a fellow winter enthusiast.

Weather fronts like this week’s — so wondrously inexplicable so early in the winter calendar — bring out the inner Viking in me. You see, I remember all too well the breezeless agony of summer ’10. A part of me wants to drive to the gym in the morning with my Jeep’s soft top lowered, just to spiritually exorcise the humidity demons of summer.

I plan on skating a bit of shinny of my sorta private skating pond this Saturday. It’s only about eight inches deep and freezes quickly and well in week’s like this one. I’m not going to tell you where it is, for while it’s the Christmas season, for this experience, I’m not much in a sharing mood. Unless . . . you email me and pledge to haul out a goal for our game, and a cooler for warming afterwards.

Narration of their feat of Wednesday for the Capitals-Bruins rematch in Boston is not meant to breed petty jealousy; let us instead draw inspiration from it.

My friends, you should know, are naturally advantaged for such adventure: they are retirees, and young still both in calendar and especially spirit. For most of the past 25 years they resided on Capitol Hill, and, over the past 10-plus years most particularly, rarely missed a Caps’ game. Additional distinction: they’ve a vacation home in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and within it is a sizable shrine to Alexander Ovechkin, for all the neighboring Sidney lovers to behold with each and every visit. Mike is especially disciplined about running errands up in the Great White North of Sidney Sympathizers while outfitted in a Capitals’ baseball cap.

Early in their retirement relocation to Maine Mike and Marleen learned of the Amtrak Downeaster. This conveyance demands all of $39 each for coach accommodations and delivers the Mainer literally into the belly of TD Garden, home of the Bruins and Celtics, and home again afterward. In other words, to Boston and back, in complete, spacious comfort, for about the price of parking your car at Dan Snyder’s mausoleum. Mike and Marleen’s fare was slightly discounted by their purchasing their tickets three days ahead of departure. So departing at 2:30 from Portland Wednesday afternoon they left the driving to a conductor, and Mike in particular took advantage of the arrangement.

The Downeaster, you see, offers premium refreshment: Shipyard Export, a Maine delicacy, and Sam Adams, regular and Light. The whistle-wetters are reasonably priced, too: $4.25 — “about half the cost demanded of the same brew inside TD Garden,” Mike reported. I inquired of Michael’s tally of handcrafted ales on his train ride down to Beantown for exhibition hockey, but fruitlessly: “In my retirement I do not count,” he replied.

Using Stubhub, Mike and Marleen were able to procure seats nine rows from the glass — preseason face valued at $89 — for merely $22. They secured a third ticket for their B’s fan friend Mary, and their tickets were overnighted to them.

They arrived at Boston’s North Station at 5:05, conveniently timed to coincide with Boston happy hour. They then reported to Boston Beer Works for additional sustenance. That venue boasts an onsite brewery. Michael enjoyed a five-selection sampler. Bs-sweatered hockey fans crammed the joint. Both Mike and Marleen found the food reasonably priced, and distinctive: “the biggest chicken quesadilla I’ve seen in my life — maybe an inch thick,” Michael reported.

More tavern tourism followed: Mike and Marleen and Mary set off for the Fours — “the best sports bar in America,” as voted by Sports Illustrated, its website boasts. A great sports town has a great sports bar, and my friends confirmed the Fours being that, though they noted the prevalence of Mike Milbury paraphernalia about the joint. All of Boston’s professional sports teams are celebrated at the Fours.

You won't find this offered on Metro

Wednesday represented a number of firsts for Mike and Marleen besides their maiden voyage aboard the Downeaster. Most dramatic among them: taking in a Caps’ game in a road building while wearing the sweaters of their passion. Marleen fancies a Backstrom, Mike an Ovechkin. And while they saw no others of uniform on the Downeaster, inside TD Garden it was quite a different story.

“Literally every section in the rink had Caps’ fans in it, and of course in red,” Marleen told me. Mike and Marleen saw scores of young Caps’ fans moving about the building, most wearing some manner of Ovechkin-themed fashion. In their movements about the arena concourse Mike and Marleen frequently encountered their kind, smiles and high fives quickly following. My friends estimated Wednesday night’s Garden crowd at about 15,000.

It’s highly likely that Wednesday’s attendance was swelled to some degree by a hope on the part of Boston hockey fans for seeing Ovechkin and Semin and Backstrom and Green, but Wednesday also represented a final opportunity for the locals to see the Bs play in Beantown for some while. Immediately after the game the team boarded a plane bound for Belfast, where on Saturday they’ll play an exhibition game against the Belfast Giants Select, an all-star team made up of the best players from the Giants and the rest of the UK Elite League. Then it’s on to Prague for a pair of season-opening games October 9 and 10 against the Phoenix Coyotes.

Mike and Marleen were treated respectfully and even with warmth while attired in their allegiance by surroundings Bs’ fans. Few of them understood the game-opening assault Matt Hendricks authored on Greg Campbell. Michael, well suffused with spirits by this time, spiritedly explainined the moral appropriateness of the action as frontier justice for Tuesday night’s late-game mischief by Campbell.

“He did well!” Marleen exclaimed of Hendricks’ handiwork.

Their Bostonian friend Mary didn’t take Wednesday’s outcome so well, but Mike and Malreen knew how they had to acknowledge the victory: back to the Fours, for postgame gloating toasting. They had an 11:20 train home and some time to kill.

“We absolutely loved the experience,” Marleen told me. “Their in-game experience is exceptional — lots of classic rock, and not just snippets but extended samplings of a minute or more. And no silly Dance-Cam, no Kiss Cam. Lots of hockey-themed video and great, great music. We can’t wait to train back for the game on December 18.”

We are partly brothers out of sheer size: there were just 94 of us who made it through all fours years of prep school. At that size, you do feel very much like family.

Like a lot of other high school classes, we have captains of industry among our ranks, and I like to think perhaps more than is typical. Brian Cashman, general manager of the New York Yankees, is a member of our class of ’85. This Thursday he’s returning to campus to address the students and be at our school for the entire afternoon, and he’s bringing the World Series trophy with him.

More importantly, all my class brothers could wear a captain’s ‘C’ on a life sweater.

We didn’t have a hockey team when I went to school in the eighties. Now we do, and a good one. That makes me jealous. Then over the weekend I overheard talk of plans a few years back to build a rink on campus. Drawings were actually completed, but money fell short for construction. I may have to direct some energy and resources and try and breathe life back into that aim.

Our reunion this weekend was typical in many respects: lots of posing for lots of pictures, lots of smiling, lots of reminiscing about four years of prep school stress and outlandish pranks. We exchanged business cards, freshly busted one another’s balls, and polished off every keg tapped Friday and Saturday.

Reunion weekend at our school is perhaps a bit different than reunions at most schools. It’s no one-night affair but rather a series of gatherings beginning Friday afternoon for a big lacrosse game and lasting until bars in Bethesda gave us the boot at last call early Sunday morning. Once or twice Friday night a class brother, aware of my enthusiasm for hockey, provided me scoring updates from Verizon Center and game 5, but I confess, I had a Blackberry on me but never checked it for the Caps’ score. My business this weekend — the business of being a buddy again with my brothers — seemed so much more important.

One class brother, an orthopedic surgeon in Massachusetts, made a point of sharing with me photos he had on his Blackberry of his children skating in the rink he’d built in his backyard this past winter. Andy never followed hockey while in school, “but raising a family in Massachusetts, playing hockey is like breathing air,” he told me. I was insanely jealous of the love-labor Andy put into assembling his backyard rink: quality plywood for boards, reliably durable plastic liner for the ice. He invited me to come up and skate it next winter. I’m pretty sure I will.

In addition to this year being our 25th reunion we received exciting news this spring that one of our own had just accepted the post of Director of Institutional Advancement at our school. Basically, it was Larry’s job to repair a badly neglected and underdeveloped alumni relations environment, and of course raise money for our school. To his new job Larry very much brings the Energizer Bunny’s commitment and Dale Hunter’s passion, the result being, using email and social media extensively in very short order, Larry’s succeeding in getting guys to literally fly across oceans to be together this weekend.

We haven’t done the best job remaining in touch with one another over the years, we learned. There’s an obviousness to that, but in our class’s case, also an urgency in the matter. No fewer than four of our brothers over the past 25 years beat back harrowing cases of cancer. Four guys out of 94, and all younger than 40 at the time, getting cross-checked viciously by perhaps’ life’s most frightening disease. This weekend I heard accounts of brothers’ family members being told not to expect a good outcome for the stricken. I even heard the words “last rites” having been uttered.

For a while this weekend a number of us discussed how vulgar and statistically unbelievable such a volume of cancer cases was for our class, afflicting men so young. Then we arrived at a conviction that God simply wanted to demonstrate how special a class we were, and are. Now what do we do, we asked?

For my brothers this weekend was very much about victory in the biggest contest life can throw at you. Quite simply, we’re undefeated against cancer. If we thought we were special as a class at our 10-year reunion, imagine what we believe this morning. Best of all, we’ve set about reuniting for good, and marshaling our many talents, and our brotherhood, for bettering one another’s lives and that of our school going forward.

As deep on Saturday night brought about an emptying out of reunion on campus I noticed dozens of my brothers approaching one another for farewells, but instead of merely shaking hands in every instance we hugged. They’re at airports and Union Station this morning, returning to changed lives, and I miss them already.

Irish coffee, we think

LHillary: Ordered a New England Clam Chowder while seated at Fenway.  Wish you could get that in DC !!! Mmmmmmmm

New Years Eve revelry at the NHL's shindig

LHillary: The New Years Eve bash was at House of Blues. Great food and service. All you can eat and drink. Can’t go wrong with that. And hearing the Canadian anthem south of the border! Ran into hall of fame goalie Ken Dryden, now working in the Ontario gov’t. 

Fenway splendor

LHillary: “Let’s go Flyers . . . Let’s go Bruins” back and forth the entire game.  Seats were 8 rows up, first base.

This ain't a bad perch

LHillary: can’t type. fingers too cold.

Bit of a welcome mat for the Canuck correspondent on the Green Monster

LHillary: Seeing both flags drop down gave me goose bumps. Have run into some old friends from the business. Time for more chowder . . . chowda!

Early arrival comfort, before the cold set in

LHillary: I am so glad I made this trip . . . It was one I won’t soon forget.  The hospitality in this great city is the very best.  Fenway had so many unique characters.  But whether you were cheering for Boston or Philly . . . We all bonded as hockey fans. 

Who here hasn’t enjoyed a puck soda of one of the wonderful flavours gracing the bracket.  While you have time to kill during the hundreds of stoppages in play — and the ability to think without the constant squeeking sound of shoes-on-court — give us your Fermented Four and champion.  Full backet seedings can be found here.

I’m thirsty.