In this regard (and many others), I am a Caveman.

Arenas last week merely did what was common in his sport. If what Ovechkin did in January can’t be described quite as common in his, still, it didn’t quite surprise those of us who follow hockey all that much. Or put another way: when has Ovechkin ever been about himself at the expense of his team?

Ultimately, it doesn’t much matter what Arenas decides to do in what I believe is yet another Summer of Change for sporting D.C. Last week I think signaled more of a dramatic progression in the unprecedented ascension by a sports star here in a sport that’s never truly taken root in this city (but sure looks like it is now). Ovechkin the transformative athlete was last week transforming his town more. You saw last Friday how he summertime transformed A1 of the Washington Post.

In his defense, Arenas is an extremely likeable NBA star. When healthy, he plays his sport magnificently and manages to stay out of trouble off the court, entirely, which unfortunately is somewhat news of note for a leader in that league. Like Ovechkin, Arenas is full of wide-smiling charisma, and like Ovechkin, people are drawn to him. Still, last week, he told us rather explicitly just how near and dear to his heart we Washingtonians were, this way: it’s just business, baby.

It was business, too, for AO last January, real serious business; but he took a markedly different view of his supporters and their town. He articulated then this sentiment: I want to win a Stanley Cup in Washington. He reiterated this in Toronto last Thursday night, when he filled a 747 with honors hardware.

It wasn’t lost on me, either, that Arenas snubbed a sum nearly $3 million more than Ovechkin will ever earn in salary as the planet’s greatest hockey player. And yet, in this moment in time, whereas perhaps 20 years ago the departure of a basketball stud in his 26-year-old prime likely would have occasioned every-office corner angst, are the city’s flags flying at half mast? Is anybody but me this morning much talking about Gilbert?

Our mayor doesn’t seem to be.

But this file isn’t about the humility of hockey players versus the bling and entourages of the athletes in other sports. It’s about the ongoing procession of a pied piper of puck, who just seems with his ongoing presence to take Washington’s sports fans — and the city’s media editors — in ever increasing numbers into his realm.

It is also about his ascension into a new, parallel universe of sports star. One that’s not necessarily in competition with Redskins or Wizards but rather is its own deeply edifying existence: Washington the no longer one-sport city. Even if Jason Campbell manages no better than a .500 career as a Redskin starter he will certainly enjoy greater celebrity and name recognition here than the hockey star. That, along with dispiriting humidity, is Washington’s perpetual affliction. But Ovechkin, without really trying, just by being great and just by being himself, is enlargening our game here. Mario did it in football-looney Pittsburgh, made it fashionable to travel to other cities in a Penguins’ sweater (speaking of afflictions).

Over at the Wilson building last Friday afternoon, Ovechkin again showed how he’s breaking the mold of what we in D.C. have come to know as our enduring sports icons. He’s in possession of a charisma, an aura, that will not be throttled or dimmed by any awkwardness with his still-in-progress command of English. In moments when the most special of stars are supposed to shine, he’s almost always radiant. And so in accepting his ceremonial key to the city he announced, “I’m the president this day in the city, so everybody have fun — no speed limit.”

Apt words, those, because even in 90-degree summer heat Ovie has us having a lot of fun loving him and his winter game.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Basketball, Morning cup-a-joe, Other Sports, Washington Capitals, Washington the Hockey Town| Permalink| Comments (8)

The Capitals Have You (and Your Commute) Covered

By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)
Tuesday, June 3, 2008

All AboardAs the Caps vs. Flyers Game 7 third period ended in a tie, I turned to my wife and said, “If the game goes past midnight, I’ve got enough cash for the cab home (to Bethesda) — happily, if the Caps win.” Metro Rail closes at midnight, but the cost of a taxi home was nothing next to the chance of a multi-OT Game 7, particularly one that could result in a Capitals victory.

Sadly, as we well know, that’s not how the night ended. But it got me thinking: What would happen if a game went past Metro’s last call? As players and fans at the quadruple OT sharks at Stars game in Round 2 stumbled into the morning hours, I reflected that Dallas fans would not experience the same problem that Washington fans might. After all, Dallas has practically no public transportation, so 99.9% of the fans likely drove to the game. It’s a different story in our nation’s capital.

So in light of another multi-OT grinder last night, and the likelihood of the Capitals’ frequent return to the post-season for years to come, be reassured: The Capitals and WMATA have got you covered.

A WMATA representative provided a breakdown of their policy for the Nationals and other DC-area sporting events. She explained that WMATA has a standing agreement with Nationals Stadium to operate the rail system beyond normal hours if Nationals games go into extra innings — which makes sense, since any of the Nats’ 81 regular-season games could go well into extra innings. With regard to other sports events, “the sponsoring team makes arrangements with Metro in advance to operate beyond normal hours.”

I also contacted Kurt Kehl of the Washington Capitals; he confirmed that, in the event of extended playoff OT (or even, one would assume, some sort of interruption that significantly delays a regular-season contest), fans need not worry about getting home:

The simple answer is yes, Metro will always make sure that fans get home after a game at the Verizon Center. Metro will keep Gallery Place open and have trains available to get people home. Metro has had a long-standing agreement with Verizon Center to make sure no one would ever be stranded, and they have service agreements in place just in case a hockey, basketball or concert event runs past midnight Sunday to Thursday.

It seems the Caps can simply inform Metro that a given game may be pushing or exceeding Metro’s typical operating hours, and the trains will be there.

So as Alex Ovechkin leads the Capitas into the 2008-09 playoffs and beyond, Capitals fans needn’t let travel concerns make them consider early departure — they can devote full attention to the ice.

As for work the next day . . . well, that’s what caffeine is for, no?

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Baseball, Basketball, Front Office, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (5)

Blame the Rapid Change in Weather for Your Friday “Illness”: Must-See Postseason Puck TV

By pucksandbooks
Friday, March 21, 2008

If you labor in an office setting, you’re no doubt familiar with the “creative” excuses some co-workers have used this week to excuse themselves from work to follow Thursday and Friday play in the NCAA hoops tourney. It’s a common pursuit by the common man.

The uncommon sport’s fan, however, appreciates alternative television viewing this weekend.

College hockey — far less exploitive of its student athletes insomuch as its postseason games, like its regular season ones, are contested on actual weekends — offers this afternoon semifinal play in all of the sport’s power conferences, and there’s ample cable television coverage of it. This year Hockey East (NESN), the CCHA (FSN/FoxCollegeSports), and the WCHA (FSN/FCS) are on TV and available in numerous cable markets and on satellite.

The Caps play only tonight this weekend, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of great puck to view. If you’re late arriving to the great party that is college hockey, watch a few of these postseason games this weekend, replete with their multiple overtime, sudden-death drama, and you’ll be hooked.

Even if you aren’t feeling under the weather at the moment, it’s a good time of year to take precautionary measures, and extend your rest time this weekend with an early office depature this afternoon.

So start coughing around 2:00 and try this prescription:

(All times Eastern Daylight)

3:00 p.m.: Fox College Sports – WCHA semifinal game 1

4:30 p.m.: Fox College Sports — CCHA semifinal game 1

5:00 p.m.: NESN — Hockey East semifinal Game 1

7:00 p.m.: Fox College Sports — WCHA semifinal game 2

8:00 p.m.: Fox College Sports — CCHA semifinal game 2; NESN — Hockey East semifinal game 2

On Saturday, you can see re-broadcasts of many of Friday’s semifinal games in the afternoon before the finals in the evening. And one or two Saturday night finals’ games will be re-broadcast on Sunday.

Filed in Basketball, College Hockey, Media, Other Sports, TV| Permalink| Comments (5)

A Spiritual Streak Remains Intact, and Adherence to It Pays Off Large

By pucksandbooks
Friday, March 21, 2008

My boss gave me an unpleasant assignment at week’s start: take a reporter to the NCAA basketball opening round’s evening slate at Verizon Center Thursday, for a schmoozing session with the press. That’s unpleasant for me cause it isn’t just that basketball isn’t my bag, but to be in a multi-use venue like Verizon Center and not see the ice sheet saddens my hockey heart. Even if I’m in a big building like the Phone Booth for a rock concert in the dead of summer my thoughts always gravitate to the cement slab covered up for the offseason.

I find monogamy sexy.

Also adding to the inventory of my Thursday melancholy was this consideration: I’d yet to set foot in Verizon Center, since its opening, for a hoops game. This was partly a bias I’d maintained because I’m hardcore about my hockey, but as the middle ’90s of Abe Pollin puck poison yielded to tough times of mess cleaning up by the liberated and Leonsis-led Caps, I developed a deep and lasting resentment for the half-hearted attentions old ownership ever showed the hockey team. And when under false and ludicrous pretenses the old man took away the name of the title-winning basketball team, that was the deal-sealer.

Call it a sh*t list. He and his team ain’t the only one on it. (How sad a thought: there are scores like me around town that have such bans imposed on multiple teams in the region, often for the same reason. We seem to have two extremes of sports team ownership in this town — the really, really commendably, personably engaged and competent, fellas you’d like to have a beer with, and the you-know-whos.)

It was a spiritual, devotional ban-streak I maintained. Cal had his streak, I have mine.

I messaged the reporter, Jeff, intermittently throughout Thursday, setting up a meeting point and dinner arrangements and such. I learned that he hails from Vermont. Which led me to ask him the inevitable question.

“Oh I’d much rather attend a hockey game than basketball,” Jeff told me. “We can use the tickets for a few minutes then go grab some beers,” he added. Suddenly, my evening assignment seemed a lot more pleasant.

My boss, using a boss’ prerogative, attended Thursday afternoon’s session at Verizon Center. He’d forked over some pretty serious dough for the tickets ($600+) and was under the understandable impression that his investment was good for the entirety of Thursday’s games. I found out otherwise at Will Call near 6:00.

When I called my boss to explain the oversight, he was crestfallen with embarrassment. Six hundred dollars (admittedly in pretty premium seating) apparently doesn’t buy what it once did. He made all manner of apologies to me, none of which of course were necessary. I was smiling widely. I assured him that I’d get a hold of Jeff and extend his heartfelt apology.

Then I suggested that we make it up to our reporter friend, at a future date, which at the moment was an immensely easy sell to my boss.

“Jeff is from Vermont and a big nut about hockey like me,” I began. “We do have college hockey’s final four coming to Washington next April. I’m sure Jeff would get a kick out of that.”

“Make it happen,” my boss replied.

Loyalty has its rewards.

Filed in American Hockey League, Basketball, College Hockey, Morning cup-a-joe, Other Sports| Permalink| Comments (1)

All This City-Wide Sports Misery, Its Birthyear was 1993

By pucksandbooks
Monday, December 10, 2007

Cup'pa Joe

Early Sunday evening, keeping an eye on the New England Patriots’ further encroachment on the history books, I thought about being a sports fan in D.C. during a reign of general competent management by a majority of the area’s sports teams, accompanied by general on-field/court/rink winning. Nothing dynastic, mind you, just a generally consistent, healthy dose of winning boasted by most of the teams in town.

These were, necessarily, hypothetical thoughts I was having.

Now consider what the good folks in Boston are enjoying these days. In October the Red Sox won their second World Series in the past four years. The remarkably rebuilt Celtics are serious contenders for the NBA title this season. And the Patriots? Perhaps a perfect season, and heavy favorites to win what would be their fourth Super Bowl title this decade. The Bruins are Beantown’s weak sister, but even they’re five games above .500 this season. It’s an embarassment of sports riches in Beantown.

Meanwhile, here, we have Daniel Synder, the no-name Nats, and really bad ice.

At least we’re getting a nice new stadium next spring.

My Sunday evening thoughts, prompted by envy of New England, centered on this query: precisely when was the arrival of the present sports downturn in D.C., and is there any probable hope for better times in the foreseeable future?

Let’s first stipulate that by virture of the Unholy Trinity of the Hardwood — Abe Pollin, Susan O’Malley, and Wes Unseld — there was no competency to be achieved there, post ‘79. So unlike Boston, we in D.C. couldn’t have all the major sports teams firing on all cylinders. The Bullets-Wiz of the ’80s and ’90s remained Hechingers while the rest of the NBA went Home Depot. But D.C. in the ’80s had the Super Bowl Skins and a couple of 100-pt. Caps’ clubs (who also always made the playoffs). Title-winning Georgetown hoops, too, was quite strong then.

(Being baseball-less until recently, we Washingtonians who sought summer sport had to borrow the O’s, and they, too, won a title in the ’80s (their last), and showcased the superstar shortstop, Cal. Then Peter Angelos arrived and we all had to stop liking them.)

I thought about Joe Gibbs’ sudden, shocking retirement in March 1993, (he pulled a Vermeil) (without the incessant sobbing), and wondered if I might not mark that as the anchor for D.C.’s lodging in the Bermuda Triangle of sports hell. Turns out, 1993 was an infamous year for us here. While Gibbs departed then, leaving the ill-prepared Skins staggering in a leadership void and launching them into 15 years of lousy-to-mediocre coaches, and mostly lousy seasons, one Peter Angelos arrived (via an ambulance he chased) as majority owner of the Orioles. Likely we didn’t realize it at the time, but the descent was on.

March 9, 1998, was a particularly bleak day for D.C. sports: Washington Post Caps’ beat reporter Bob Fachet passed. A legend was lost and soon thereafter hockey, institutionally, incurred nominal — but not professional — coverage by the paper.

Nineteen ninety six was no peach of a year, either. That year the Redskins bid farewell to the NFL’s most charming stadium, RFK — also one of the most intimidating for visiting teams — and took up residence in a place called Raljon (really), an immense, aesthetic-free mausoleum breeding nightmare Beltway traffic, seat licenses, and, eventually, the arrests of spectators who’d dare try and enter Raljon without ponying up an American Express number for parking fees. It was like replacing Jackie Onasis with Britney Spears.

(It would be most interesting to poll Redskin season ticket holders today and ask which they’d have preferred seeing 12 years ago: millions spent adding 20,000 seats and luxury boxes to RFK, as part of D.C. bid for a future summer Olympics hosting, or the super-sized sinkhole in PG County.)

But as malignancies against winning go, we in D.C. were just getting started. Continue reading ›

Filed in Baseball, Basketball, Daniel Snyder, Football, Morning cup-a-joe, Other Sports, Redskins, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (12)

Gimme Shelter (in the Rink)

By pucksandbooks
Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Cup'pa JoeJust a hunch, but after what we saw Monday in court in Richmond, I suspect we won’t much hear the Baha Men’s “Who Let the Dogs Out?” played over the NFL’s loudspeakers beginning the Sunday after next. (Like I knew who the Baha Men were; ah, Google.) Call this the Knee-jerks of an increasingly disaffected contemporary sports fan.

  • An ESPN Radio personality took to Fox News last night and reported that since the year 2000, more than 300 NFLers have been arrested. More than three hundred. This ESPN personality referred to this state of affairs as the league’s “climate of criminality.” Ya think?
  • Will we need an additional CourtTV channel merely to cover the criminal jurisprudence of the modern, non-hockey-playing pro athlete?
  • It would be interesting to go back in time, to ESPN’s founding year of 1979, and compare a week’s worth of SportsCenter stories then as they related to athlete criminality versus that of about 25 years later.
  • Mark Twain is alleged to have famously said that he wanted to be in Cincinnati on the day the world ended, figuring it would end there considerably later. But what if Twain could have been introduced to the contemporary Cincinnati Bengals, who own their fair share of the more than 300 perp walks? “I want to be in Newark on the day the world ends” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
  • In the current climate of sports criminality, we can really admit any further discussion of closing Gitmo?
  • On relativity: I’m going to be in the Midwest this Labor Day weekend, keeping an eye on my beloved Fighting Irish footballers. Years back, the then perceived ruffian Miami Hurricanes visited Notre Dame Stadium, and ND students t-shirt marketed the matchup as “Catholics vs. Convicts.” Steve Walsh I believe was the ‘Canes QB then. But beyond being a bit boorish for the times, did the ‘Canes of ‘90 really have anything on the gridiron grossness of today?
  • I have it on reasonably good authority that the NFL’s Security Office employs no small number of successfully recruited, or retired-from-but-still-in-their-prime, FBI personnel. Apparently they are very, very busy in the leadup to the NFL draft. A pro league might do well to hire a Bureau vet to head up its security office, but a veritable army of them?
  • He’d never admit it, but if anyone in America is grateful (in muted fashion) for the current mess in Atlanta and Virginia, it’s David Stern. Doesn’t the Pacers-Pistons brawl of 2004, and all of the talking head tongue wringing it ocassioned, seem like a calamity of about 22 years ago?
  • A generation or so ago pro tennis was plagued by bad actors on its courts, and today it’s known for the comparatively quiet and respectful demeanor of its athletes. I get mildly optimistic thinking about this example. But then I think: there’s a world of difference between Ille Nastase screaming obscenities at a linesman and say a QB electrocuting or hanging canines.
Filed in Basketball, Football, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Other Sports, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (11)

The Phone Booth’s Big-Screen Makeover

By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)
Sunday, August 26, 2007

United Center Mitsubishi ScreensHere’s the latest on the Verizon Center’s new screens: Mitsubishi Electric is installing the first-ever indoor High Definition LED scoreboard, and it looks to be a doozy.

According to LEDs Magazine, the Phone Booth’s four new screens will be 14′ 5″ high and 25′ 2″ wide (total screen area of 365 square feet each). The United Center in Chicago has a similar setup, though it’s two years older, a bit smaller, and not true HD (take that, Blackhawks!). The photo at the right is from the United Center, just to give you a taste of what’s to come; for more information on the Verizon Center’s new system, read on:

In addition to the high-definition boards, the new center-hung scoreboard will also feature four 10mm 5-foot, 3-inch high by 25-foot 6-inch wide LED video matrixes and two 20mm LED rings.

“Arenas are being built all over the country and in order to compete, you need to be ahead of the curve,â€? said Abe Pollin, chairman of Washington Sports & Entertainment. “Partnering with ANC Sports and Mitsubishi Electric, who have created the first true high definition scoreboard, is a perfect example and we’re excited to be able to expand our resume of firsts for sports and entertainment facilities.”

Operated through ANC’s unique VisionSOFT software application, the signage system is capable of exhibiting separate game prompts, statistics and 3D animation in real time to build an energetic environment throughout the building.

“We are excited to partner with Washington Sports & Entertainment in delivering a one-of-a-kind event experience at Verizon Center,” said Jerry Cifarelli, president and CEO of ANC Sports Enterprises. “Combining Mitsubishi’s technology with ANC’s revolutionary software and graphic content will create visuals that indoor entertainment has never been able to feature before.”

No official go-live date has yet been announced; it’s slated for completion some time this autumn. Soon the Verizon Center’s video system will be the class of both the NHL and NBA.

I am excited about the system not only for Capitals games, but also for concerts. This summer I’ve seen the Virgin Festival at Pimlico, Rush at Nissan Pavilion, and The Police in Hershey. All three shows were a blast, but the screens were woefully inadequate at each venue.

The Phone Booth is already an appealing concert spot due to its public transportation-friendly location; the heinous traffic to and from the three locations mentioned above seriously detracted from the overall concert experience. These new HD screens will make the Verizon Center an even better concert destination than it already is, and they should certainly enhance the in-game experience for Capitals and Wizards fans alike.

Filed in Basketball, TV, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (12)