05 September, 2008

Category Archives: Verizon Center

Nurturing the Fashion Passion of HockeyWashington

By pucksandbooks
Monday, August 25, 2008

What does Rock the Red mean to you today, well away from its inauguration and deployment during the 2007-08 season? What does it mean to the Capitals now? How should it be cultivated, nurtured, and deployed in 2008-09?

Also: was it hooey and hokie or a heartfelt rallying cry for you? Do you want to see more of it in the new season? Should Verizon Center be Redded Out for Cristobal Huet’s return with the ‘Hawks on Opening Night?

Let me submit that what we sat among and saw on television in the stands last spring was special. It was an uprising. Of passion-fashion. It was a community powerfully connecting with its hockey team.

(It actually forced old media print columnists to come and cover hockey.)

Let me also submit that it wasn’t fad or fleeting in its heartbeat — that it’s an indigenous state of the contemporary hockey mind here. Team officials in Philadelphia tried to replicate what was originated here in their rink, but they had to distribute thousands of orange t-shirts in their rip-off act, and in the end, it came off as copycat, forced, and generic.

There will be more genuine Caps’ fans in Verizon Center this coming season than perhaps in any season preceding, as thousands of Washingtonians have purchased season tickets this summer. The opportunity will be red-ripe to Red Out the building whenever the team wants to.

Personally, I have one deeply ingrained reason for wanting to see the scheme continue — but with great care: the sight of an orange-and-black-less Washington rink for games against Philthy — playoff games at that! — remains something of a dream theater to me.

In real time last spring there was a searing sense that the Caps had, with the look, connected with their much-maligned fanbase in durable fashion. Metro trains never looked so gorgeous. Folks painted their faces and dyed their hair. Some wore red socks. Men in red dresses never looked so . . . mainstream.

That Alexander Ovechkin would lead our hockey team to great feats like the against-all-odds Southeast Division title last season was, and is, from my vantage, merely predictable byproduct for his other-wordly game. But that he could engineer, in Pied Piper red-fashion, the obliteration of the enemy’s colors and pawns from our building, precisely when they most wanted to be there, that’s special. I’m not sure I thought I’d ever see that happen.

Of course, in identifying Ovechkin as architect and engineer of our awesome new atmosphere I’m conflating his on-ice heroics with the clever atmosphere actions of the team’s marketing pros. And AO alone among Caps’ players shouldn’t be exclusively credited for 07-08’s home rink euphoria. But he is, for lack of a better description, our banner boy — certainly the face of the franchise. He is the Pied Piper of Pucks in this town.

It’s amusing to think that perhaps AO foreshadowed the Caps’ special spring scene at home back in July 2007, when the first installments of the team’s new colors and look made their way to Russia.

Those who participated in the Red Outs, as well as those Caps’ fans watching on television at home, likely are of one mind when it comes to rolling out the Red again: it ought not to be a commonplace occurrence, it ought never to be trite and trifling. It ought to be summoned only for truly special occasions. It’s like a team’s special occasion jerseys or sweaters, in a sense — you always want them to remain special.

Good news on that front. Tim McDermott, the Caps’ Senior VP, Chief Marketing Officer, this morning told me, “Red will be our brand campaign/theme again this year . . . we will select a few high profile games for a Rock the Red/Red Out theme.”

And note that the Red Rally Cry still has to be tested against Pennsylvania’s other team. Hmm . . . should we Red-Out all games against the two Keystone Staters? And by extension, should we avoid the fashion-passion statement against all Southeast division foes, further damning an already depressing division alliance? Or, the Caps and HockeyWashington might opt to Red Out the Phone Booth on November 10, against Tampa, and welcome back Barry Melrose to the NHL in spirited fashion.

And welcome back a certain netminder, too.

Going forward, should the team, on its website, make the selection of Red Out nights an interactive force, and poll the impassioned on their fashion in advance of select regular season games? Should season ticket holders have a special say? For certain there should be specially priced Killian’s Red at the concession stands.

There was a marvelous viral quality to the rollout of the Red last spring. It was a beautiful infection, anything but unhealthy. Long may it afflict us.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Cristobal Huet, Morning cup-a-joe, Olaf Kolzig, Puck Sodas, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals, Washington the Hockey Town| Permalink| Comments (15)

The State of the Washington Sports Union, August 2008

By pucksandbooks
Thursday, August 14, 2008

We who find succor and solace in the refrigerated mustiness of rinks do enjoy the occasional night out at the old ballyard, and last night, amid yet another stunner in this greatest-ever weather in the history of Washington Augusts, two hockey bloggers enjoyed that experience at Nationals Stadium. Despite the on-field product offered there. The Sporting News’ Eric McErlain and I cracked open roasted peanuts, occasionally followed yet another Nats’ mauling, and did what two sports-loving friends do best in one another’s company: survey and solve Washington’s sports’ problems over a few beers.

Creative and caring about our home though we be, we may not be able to aid these present Nats. There is rebuilding and then there is this team: godawful, and embarrassingly non-competitive. There were no delusions about this team flirting with mediocrity this season, I don’t think, but Nats’ ownership and management, I also think, had some level of obligation to assemble something remotely attractive in this the maiden season of baseball in Washington’s beautiful new ballpark. The final last night was Mets 12, Nats goose egg.

When the Capitals were rebuilding they were rather surprisingly competitive, and even fun to support. Having Ovechkin certainly helped, but there were other heart-and-soul types to rally around, and even on the toughest of nights two seasons ago one could see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

There are two jewel ballparks separated by about 40 miles in our region, and both most nights are half empty (or worse). It’s not so good. Last night was for all intents and purposes a road game for the home Nats, there were so many Mets’ caps and jerseys outfitted on patrons. I moved past souvenir stand after souvenir stand with lone workers in each conspicuously inactive. The baseball product here now, despite its gorgeous, sparkling new home, isn’t selling. And in such conditions, beleaguered franchises acquire the parasitic, preponderant presence of enemy fanbases.

There was as well conspicuous youth to last night’s “crowd”: offices that months ago had purchased blocks of Nats’ tickets have surrendered them, night after failing night, to summer interns and the teenage children of associates. On pretty summer nights for them it is better than hanging out at the mall.

Then there is the television dilemma: even family members of the Nationals aren’t following at home.

No one affiliated with the Nats now ought to be proud, and a revolutionary redrawing of the master plan (such as it is) ought to be well underway.

That ought to include, high on the list, re-pricing seats behind home plate to get some volume of humanity seated in them. Bad baseball is one thing; craven greed showcased with it is appalling. Put another way: the new stadium, funded as it is with bonds, can’t endure many more summers like this one.

Meanwhile, interestingly enough, across town the Capitals were hosting a third open house for hundreds of new ticket plan purchasers. A funny thing has happened to hockey here just since last fall: tickets are becoming scarce. (It would wise for Yahoo’s Ross McKeon to take in one of these open houses at the Phone Booth.) An OFBer was there last night, and around about the 4th inning I received a text relaying how few Verizon Center seats were tagged as available for the 08-’09 season. Almost certainly the Caps are holding back some seats for walkup sales, but it’s become abundantly clear that SportsWashington is investing with their wallets in this team what they did with their fashion red last spring.

Bank on this, too: media for the team’s training camp next month will blow away anything and everything that’s preceded it, including Jaromir Jagr’s first camp here. Gustafsson — father and son — will be in attendance. The hardward-hauling greatest hockey player on earth will daily hold court. There’ll be a bit of interest in the performance of the camp’s netminders.

The Wiz made news this summer by inking all of their name free agents — the ones who’ve guided them to annual first-round failures. More importantly for Capitals’ fans, the hoops and arena owner looks increasingly frail in his few public appearances.

McErlain last night shared with me a terrifically insightful assessment of the standing of the Burgundy and Gold here. “They’ve more of a college football hold on the region,” he said. It’s absolutely true. The Skins are to D.C. what the Cornhuskers are to all of Nebraska, what the Buckeyes are to Ohio and the Wolverines are to Michigan: quasi religious.

Not everybody wants to go to church on Sunday, however.

Filed in Baseball, Blogs, Eric McErlain, Football, Internet, MLB, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, Other Sports, Redskins, The Sporting News, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals, Washington the Hockey Town| Permalink| Comments (15)

One Washington Hockey Fan’s Very Good Fortune

By pucksandbooks
Thursday, July 31, 2008

Letter received today from the NCAA:

“Dear pucksandbooks:

We are pleased to inform you that your offer to purchase tickets contained in your application for tickets to the 2009 NCAA Men’s Frozen Four at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., has been accepted. The semifinal games will be played at 5 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Eastern time, Thursday, April 9, and the championship game will be played at 7 p.m. Eastern time, Saturday, April 11. Please note that game times are subject to change.

You will receive 2 all-session tickets . . . Tickets and seat locations will be distributed in March 2009 . . .

The seating capacity for the 2009 Men’s Frozen Four will be 18,875 [interesting, that]. Priority ticket applicants and those individuals applying for the first time have been allocated 9,626 tickets. The remaining tickets are reserved for the four participating institutions, the NCAA membership (e.g., athletic directors, coaches and various committee members), the host institution, the local organizing committee and other groups affiliated with the NCAA . . .

We thank you for applying for tickets to the 2009 Men’s Frozen Four and appreciate your interest in and support of NCAA ice hockey.

Sincerely,

NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Championship Staff

Filed in College Hockey, Frozen Four, Verizon Center, Washington the Hockey Town| Permalink| Comments (24)

Fedorov II Returns to the NHL

By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)
Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The New Jersey Devils have signed Fedor Fedorov, Sergei’s younger brother. Fedor spent last year with Dynamo Moscow, tallying 26 points in 49 games.

The Devils visit the Phone Booth twice this season (Oct. 18, Nov. 14).

Filed in New Jersey Devils, Sergei Fedorov, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (6)

The Hockey Blockbuster, Coming Soon to a Rink Near You

By pucksandbooks
Saturday, July 19, 2008

This is an extraordinary American summer weekend, insomuch as it delivers something rarer than an NHL goalie scoring a goal: the arrival in theaters of a great and compelling and culture-consuming domestic movie. I’m speaking of course of the new Batman movie, ‘The Dark Knight.’ It isn’t merely exceptionally well reviewed by critics, who are discussing it in terms of Oscars and “classic.” For its Uptown Theater debut Thursday night at midnight city youths arrived to stand in line some time near 2:00 that afternoon — in Washington July heat. It will be even hotter this weekend, and thousands more, already with tickets, will stand in line hours just to get the seats they want for the screening.

If you can imagine, the nationwide midnight screenings of the film Thursday grossed nearly $20 million. To put that number in terms we hockey fans can understand, that’s a Koules-Aid kind of July budget for free agency to assemble a lottery contender for next June.

Area theaters will have Batman screenings this weekend beginning at 9:00 a.m.! The notion of arriving at any area theater this weekend a few minutes before screening and securing just a single ticket is preposterous. By early yesterday afternoon Craigslist had pages of the movie’s tickets for sale priced solidly above regular box office rate.

Yesterday I found myself marveling at so novel a cultural moment, grateful for its very belated arrival but also melancholy when I considered that Hollywood needs more or less a full decade to render it. It’s true: approximately 99.7 percent of domestic cinematic fare is altogether ordinary or outright rotten. The true gotta-see-it — because of its greatness — cinema spectacle is in frequency of theater runs not dissimilar to the prevalence of Alexander Ovechkins in NHL entry drafts. Anyway, as Americans, we have a special place in our hearts for the buzz-generators on the big-screen that actually deliver the goods. So it’s a moment indeed to savor — history suggests that we won’t see it again for quite some time.

This special moment also led me to think of something special in hockey being crafted, right here in Washington. Like the great summer blockbuster, it’s exceptionally rare for hockey here. It could very well be the case that Verizon Center, beginning this October, will be akin to the great old moviehouse showing just a single feature, for months on end, with weekend tickets very much in demand.

I wouldn’t quite call the 2008-09 Capitals’ season a sequel, however. I think in its forecasted critical acclaim, in its culminating sense of a roster’s arriving very near the peak of elite contention, it will very much be a first run of its kind.

The differences from a summer ago are rather extraordinary. In July 2007 Washington hockey fans thought they had a gifted young star left wing in Alexander Ovechkin. But in his coming off a 46-goal campaign in his sophomore season, most here hoped he’d merely return to the 50-goal club in season three. Who then thought that he’d fairly obliterate competition for the Hart Trophy last season? Today he is regarded as a game-changing force, and the greatest player on the planet.

Additionally, last summer no one even in team management knew that a no. 1 stud of a defender was already in the organization, and poised to break out. But Mike Green will enter the 2008-09 season on a short list of Norris trophy candidates.

Count Brooks Laich as a key component to a glory run in 2008-09, and yet a summer ago he was in a fierce competition among a seeming glut of third and fourth-line center candidates just to make the club. Indeed, if any of the organization’s young centers was thought to have some unexpected offensive upside heading into last season, it was Boyd Gordon, who in ‘06-07 fell one point shy of 30 and flashed a penchant for fits and bursts of well-timed production. Now Laich’s regarded as one of the league’s bright young two-way pivots. And paid like it.

Last summer, who would have imagined that a hockey legend (Sergei Fedorov) would arrive here two-thirds of the way through the season and settle a green and nervous young roster and guide it to an against-all-odds Southeast division title? And then announce, mere weeks after his arrival here, that the atmosphere in Verizon Center ranked as the best he’d ever competed in, and that despite the formation of a very well funded super league in his home country of Russia, that he’d very much like a return engagement in Washington?

There are, indisputably, one or two important areas for Director Boudreau to address in final editing this summer, one of which (the acting in net) is largely out of his control. But given that all of the East’s well built teams for next season possess question marks of their own, it’s certain that the Caps will enter 2008-09 as consensus contenders in the East. They possess star quality principal actors, on-screen chemistry in abundance, and a director newly acknowledged by his peers to be among the best in the business.

Actually, insomuch as there looks to be high-achieving hockey rostered both in Washington and in Hershey this coming season, we appear slated for long run of a great double feature.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, American Hockey League, Boyd Gordon, Brooks Laich, Bruce Boudreau, Hershey Bears, Mike Green, Morning cup-a-joe, Nicklas Backstrom, Sergei Fedorov, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (4)

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

By pucksandbooks
Monday, July 14, 2008

To read the reactions left only here related to the Caps’ plans, announced over the weekend, to introduce SpiritBabes to the team’s home games next season, you’d think management announced that Verizon Center was hosting 41 brothels next winter.

It’s too warm in there for brothels anyway.

Would that the peasants took up pitchforks and torches in these numbers when the league bleep-canned hockey jerseys for Reebok’s tuxedo vests a year ago.

Count me among those with a more inclusive spirit — one who will approach the scheme with an open mind. I take the owner at his word (”I am a family man with a wife and daughter“).

I was all prepared to write about my first one-on-one chat with Hershey Bears’ head coach Bob Woods on Saturday when this fracas broke out later that day. No wonder Washington is consistently regarded as a sex-appeal-less city.

In reality, though, all the NHL is doing is catching up — modestly, I might add — with football’s spirited sidelines. Or Fox News. In a culture of seriously foxy FoxNews, is this really anything to get all that worked up about?

But by late yesterday we’d received pointed clarification from the Capitals on the matter: “The squad won’t be ice girls in the traditional sense . . . It’s also not a dance squad, a la the NBA. It’s more of an evolution of the entertainment team we have had in the past” [the one that most in the stands thought was remarkably annoying -- I'm all for evolving that].

Still, I found it riotously funny to learn that Bruce Cassidy had contacted the team’s sales department Sunday seeking a full plan for next season. And Smoken Al Koken — has he been revived since Saturday’s news?

Actually, you can make a compelling argument I think that hockey, particularly in markets like Washington, is much more in need of some sultry spirit than is the NFL. Mr. Leonsis, in defending the move on Sunday, noted that it was with new revenue in mind that the team pursued the idea. In case you hadn’t noticed, television ain’t exactly throwing mad dough at the NHL’s 30 clubs these days. Meanwhile, the league’s salary cap has mushroom-clouded by more than $15 million in just the three seasons since the lockout.

It’s swell that we’re all in love with this rockin’ garage band called hockey, but the band still has to be paid, and if Hooters-Lite (not Hustler) wants to underwrite the Friday night jam session, I think the beer will still taste cold. Count me as one who wants a hockey team’s practices, scrimmages, and camps to remain free and open to the public, year round.

Anyone remember the millions the NHL spent on its post-lockout relaunch television advertisements — you remember the ones, the “My NHL” spots featuring the hockey locker room beefcake, rather shirtless, massage-motivated by a Fox News anchor in the pre-game? I remember thinking the first time I watched it, ‘My, how shirtless this hockey player is, and my, how little I now want lunch.’ Now that was profane, and brought to you by Bettman & Co. I’m confident that Ted doesn’t have quite that in mind.

I’m not sure what revenue the Washington Redskins’ cheerleaders bring in to the team, but whenever they make community appearances you seldom hear of Puritanical protests accompanying them or of anyone having a real lousy time at them. In fact, once in a while, the tight end marries the babe. Maybe the SpiritBabe will marry the bachelor blogger.

The Capitals, and hockey in Washington, need increased exposure (if you’ll pardon my word choice). If the Caps’ SpiritBabes are going to be out and about town during and after seasons hence, perhaps toting along a few congenial players with them, it’s bound to improve the team’s visibility, as well as that of the sport.

And in our recessionary times, where is the acknowledgment of the idea’s job creation ???

There’s been all manner of hyperbole associated with this past weekend’s high-pitched hue and cry reaction. For instance, some have alleged that the aisle ladies in their shimmer and shake will distract from the play on the ice. On nights when the Caps lay an egg, I agree — and let’s hope so. On those nights especially I’ll be glad for Verizon Center’s new state-of-the-art, high-rise, high definition, center ice scoreboard. But really, if the Alexanders are barreling down the ice on a two-on-one scoring chance, how many men’s and women’s eyes will be fixated on tight fannies in the stands?

And what of the selectivity of outrage in this instance? When it’s Mites on Ice, all are quiet, despite the fact that with that exhibition the laughter is generated at the expense of really, really short people. But raise the specter of pretty girls prettying up the District’s rink, and all hell breaks loose.

The only genuine harm that can come from this scheme is if, to quote the wit of one of the few in this town with a sense of humor, who imparted it in the maelstrom of message board madness yesterday, “they come down to the Johnny Walker Club after the game and are attracted to out-of-shape middle-aged men.”

When Messrs. Vogel, Parker, Rucki and I were taking in the World Championships in Moscow in the spring of 2007, we had no shortage of aisle-jiggling accompanying our blogging endeavors (see photo above). I think I can speak for the four of us in saying that we got our work done just dandy. In point of fact, the real distraction in terms of Moscow hotties diverting our gaze came with the middle-of-the-night trollop parade through our hotel’s lobby (where we were blog drafting), aided and abetted by bellhops on the cash take.

Baltic beauties in boas and hip-high black boots. Naughty, naughty Nikitas! Sorry, that was the indulgence of reverie.

Anyway, over in Moscow, we learned that NHL scouts were in favor of off-ice girls.

!

Perhaps since Alexander Ovechkin has to spend the next 13 seasons skating here we should let him be the arbiter in the matter.

Filed in Football, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Hockey Art, Hockey Rituals, Ice Girls, Mike Vogel, OFB in Russia, Other Sports, Puck Bunnies, Redskins, Spike Parker, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (22)

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)

The Capitals’ Top 10 Storylines for 2007-08

By pucksandbooks
Monday, April 28, 2008

10. The Rebuild Is Over. Owner Leonsis uttered this proclamation during the preseason, later claiming that the season’s barometer for success would be qualifying for the postseason. Through the middle of November both seemed delusionally wishful thinking. But when the right guy arrived behind the bench, when the Caps’ skilled young core was encouraged to attack, the team took off, rampaging from last in the league at Thanksgiving to a Southeast Division crown on the regular season’s final Saturday. The right pieces indeed were in place, and the team’s future has never been as promising.

9. Backstrom: the no. 1 Pivot of the Future — and the Present. Really nobody knew what Nicklas Backstrom’s rookie season in the NHL would bring. During last July’s Development Camp, he seemed to struggle a bit with making plays on a smaller sheet. But he looked better at the end of camp than at its start, and by September’s training camp he looked even more adjusted. Like other skilled players in Glen Hanlon’s system, he struggled. Like other skilled players under Bruce Boudreau, he blossomed.

His 69 points on the season represented the second-most prolific rookie season in Caps’ history (behind a certain precocious Russian in 2005-06). Most telling: 60 of his points came in the final 61 games. He adjusted all right. He played his finest hockey of the season when you want a player to — in the postseason. In so doing he defied a long tradition of rookies fading under the rigors of an 82-game season. And he rightfully earned a nomination for the Calder trophy.

8. One Seriously Sorry Sheet. Washington’s never been known to offer a quality sheet of ice for its NHL games, but the matter gained unprecedented urgency when in December team captain Chris Clark spoke with commendable candor to the Washington Post about the indefensible ice at home. This surface wasn’t merely bad aesthetically, it was, suggested Clark, injurious to players. Clark himself lost virtually the entire season to a groin injury. Flyers’ winger Mike Knuble injured his leg when he caught it in a Verizon Center rut in the playoffs. And game 7’s sheet was so ill-prepared that arena workers could be seen repairing it on their hands and knees in the moments before puck-drop — and throughout the game.

Whatever greatly skilled and exciting roster Capitals’ management assembles for the future, it won’t much matter if at home it’s asked to compete on an ability-leveling and integrity-sacrificing surface.

7. Deadline Day Doozies. Trade deadline day was supposed to be quiet for the Caps. It turned out to be anything but. General manager George McPhee engineered a dramatic infusion of postseason experience and skill in areas of weakness on February 26, including securing a no.1 netminder in Cristobal Huet from Montreal for merely a second-round pick in the 2009 Entry Draft. All three players acquired on deadline day played pivotal roles in the season’s final 18 games.

In his Capitals’ debut on February 29, Huet stopped all 18 shots he faced in backstopping the Caps to a 4-0 win in New Jersey. He went 11-2 in his 13 starts for the Caps, winning the final nine games he started. In the biggest game the Caps played in years, Sergei Fedorov, acquired for 2007 second round selection Teddy Ruth, was named the game’s first star in the Caps’ 3-1 win over Florida on April 5, which vaulted the team to the SouthEast title and the postseason for the first time since 2003. He was especially adept in the faceoff circle. Matt Cooke played a less significant part statistically during the stretch run but recaptured his active, pest-like play from years ago in Vancouver night in and night out. All three veterans were credited with providing vital leadership to the young and inexperienced Caps.

6. Mike Green: the no. 1 Gun Arrives. If there was one overarching question confronting the Caps’ blueline heading into the 2007-08 season, it was: is there a no.1 Gun among? If last September you thought there was, you knew something the rest of hockey didn’t. In 2006-07, Mike Green played 70 games for the Caps, tallying just 2 goals and 10 assists. He offered glimpses of high-end promise, but he also seemed years away from becoming consistent and reliable and earning a top pairing assignment. But this past season Green blossomed into a dominant, mature-for-his-years force. He led the entire league in goals by a defenseman during the regular season, and he followed that with a superb playoff series — so much so that Flyers’ head coach John Stevens very publicly made it known that Mike Green was a weapon his team had to strategize to stop. The no.1 Gun on the Caps’ blueline has arrived.

5. AO: The Best Hockey Player on the Planet. Alexander Ovechkin’s hardware-hogging brilliance during 2007-08 earned him broadcasts of “Ovechkin Ovations” on the NHL Network and, more importantly, ascension over the Nova Scotian as the game’s greatest talent. His 65 goals during the regular season were the most scored by a Capital in franchise history, and he became just the 19th player in NHL history to score 60 goals in a season. By the end of the regular season he’d staked unassailable claims to both the Richard and Ross trophies and was a near mortal lock to command both the Hart trophy and the Lester Pearson award for his most valuable performance. At one point no less than the Great One suggested that his seemingly unbreakable record of 92 goals scored in a single season could be within Ovechkin’s visored viewfinder.

4. Canning Glen; Finding the Right Guy Right up the Road. After winning their first three games of the season, the Capitals proceeded to lose 15 of their next 18 and plummet to the very bottom of the NHL standings. While Glen Hanlon may well have been the right coach to preside over the rebuilding Caps beginning not long before the team began its purge of high-priced, under-achieving talent in the 2003-04 season, autumn 2007 seemed to deliver a resoundingly rotten verdict on his ability to advance the team to where management deemed appropriate for 2007-08.

No one would suggest that Hanlon didn’t offer the organization his fullest possible effort. But by late 2007 that effort wasn’t working. “He knew as soon as he saw me this morning,” McPhee told the Washington Post on Thanksgiving day. “He said, ‘I wouldn’t have known what to do today.’ ”

Enter Bruce Boudreau, aka “Gabby.” On Thanksgiving Eve Bruce Boudreau was in his third season behind the Hershey Bears’ bench. He’d enjoyed an auspicious first two seasons there: a Calder Cup title in his first season in Hershey in the spring of 2006 and a return to the finals the following season. He’d won a Kelly Cup title in the East Coast League as well. Still, to many Capitals’ fans, he appeared to be just another “no name” plucked from the farm.

Probably it was with this in mind that Hershey Bears’ Senior Manager for Communications John Walton authored a memorable open letter to Capitals’ fans on the day that Gabby was announced as the new Caps’ coach. “Know this first and foremost,” Walton wrote in his letter. “He’s a winner . . . For what it’s worth, we have seen the magic here. We’re more than willing to share.” Continue reading ›

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, American Hockey League, Bruce Boudreau, Calder Cup, Chris Clark, Cristobal Huet, Development Camp, Eastern Conference, Entry Draft, Front Office, George McPhee, Hershey Bears, Ice, John Walton, Kettler Capitals Iceplex, Matt Cooke, Media, Mike Green, NHL Network, NHL Trades, National Hockey League, Nicklas Backstrom, Philadelphia Flyers, Print, Sergei Fedorov, Stanley Cup Playoffs, TV, Ted Leonsis, The Big Deal, Training Camp, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (11)

Frozen Moments, in Red

By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)
Friday, April 25, 2008

Yes, the dull ache from the season’s end remains. But as we head into the weekend, I hope you enjoy these moments in red — photos from the Washington Capitals’ playoff run that remind us it was an incredible ride.

Rock the Red Victory ToastSea of Red (click for larger image)The Rarely Seen MulletHawk

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Filed in Stanley Cup Playoffs, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals, Washington the Hockey Town| Permalink| Comments (18)

Another Blogger’s Poor-Ice Perspective

By The OFB Team
Thursday, April 24, 2008

Our friend and fav blogger Peerless was at Tuesday night’s game 7, and he shared with us this morning his observations about the conditions inside the Phone Booth:

“In game seven, sitting where I was, the goal crease at the end the Caps shoot at twice was a lake. There was standing water in the crease, and when the goalies came out to scuff the ice at the start of the period, they could have made sno-cones with the results. In the last games of the season, one could see a lattice-work of cracks in the ice. It looked as if someone had dropped a boulder from an overpass onto a windshield.

The Capitals have made a $124-million investment in a player. They have built a team for speed. They employ a coach whose governing philosophy is to press the action. Yet, they play on an ice sheet that jeopardizes the investment and the very nature of the team they have built.

It is past an embarrassment; the word you used — scandal — is precisely correct. It’s like buying a high-definition TV and hooking the thing up to rabbit ears. What was the point in making such an investment or buying in to such a strategic philosophy (speed and pursuit) when the underlying infrastructure is so inadequate?”

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Ice Sheet Capades Continued

By pucksandbooks
Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Corey on his blog has this grotesquely troubling quote from Flyers’ center Daniel Briere:

“Another thing that favored us was the condition of the ice,” he said. “It was so bad that it was tough for guys like Semin, Backstrom and Ovechkin to get anything going, the ice was so bad. That was another thing that went our way.”

I’m so sick and tired of hearing and reading about how unprofessionally crappy Verizon Center’s ice is — months and months after it’s been pilloried by players in the press. And even the home team. The purpose of having home ice advantage, it seems to me, is to afford your players an advantage, not aid the slower opponent, undermine the advantages your world-class players possess, or, in a worst-case scenario, actually increase the likelihood of your best skaters incurring injury by skating in slop.

It was mild and muggy in Washington yesterday, and so external conditions made for a modest challenge for the arena’s ice techs. But whereas in February and March it was actually chilly inside Verizon Center for hockey games, yesterday most in the press box were dressed comfortably, in light and loose clothing, for balmy spring. I’d actually seen improvements in the ice in late winter as the building was made colder; passes remained flatter on those nights, for instance, and at times you could see a heavy volume of snow accumulate on the sheet at periods’ end. Not last night. Not when it mattered most.

The Wizards had been off in Cleveland for the better part of a week, a big circus was weeks behind us, and Verizon Center actually replaced its ice sheet just prior to the start of the playoffs. There simply is no excuse whatsoever for there not having been in place merely an adequate surface upon which to contest the most important hockey game for the Caps in perhaps a decade. Instead, world-class skaters Mike Green and Alexander Semin were falling down — often not from contact.

A few hours after Briere offered up his assessment Caps’ GM George McPhee informed local media of his heightened concern about captain Chris Clark’s ongoing groin woes. Woes that he never knew before this season on this sheet of slop. Now we can add Boyd Gordon to the list of the leg-injured (with, like Clark, a torn groin).

We’ve been told that the problem was elaborately studied during the season, and recommendations for improvements made and implemented, only to have one of the few world-class Flyer skaters say playing on the road in game 7 was most inhospitable for the skilled members of the home team. Swell.

Right now I’m far less concerned about restricted and unrestricted free agents getting inked this summer and worrying who’s groin is next to rupture. What good is it having a young and skilled and quick team when at home they can’t move and make plays?

Filed in Hockey Rinks, Ice, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (22)

When Opposing Fans Go Bad

By DC Sports Chick
Tuesday, February 19, 2008

ESPN’s Terry Frei recently took on the topic of visiting fans. The Caps’ faithful are extremely familiar with this issue, especially when fans from Buffalo, New York, Pittsburgh, or Philadelphia are in the house. Every time I attend a game against one of those teams, I wonder about the masses of opposing fans who retain their loyalty despite living here — is it a sign of D.C.’s transience or a hometown habit? Frei’s take on it asks the question: at what point do the opposing fans merit scorn?

Yeah, sometimes — sometimes, not always — the relocated fans of the “other” team might deserve it. When they cross the line to obnoxiousness…When they come off as fans who might not even have cared as much about (fill in team name) when they lived in (fill in city) until they moved somewhere else and could flaunt their non-native status.

Harsh? Sure, but Frei might have a point. There’s nothing wrong with rooting for your home team, but there’s no need to be obnoxious about it.

Those “visiting team” fans deserve it when they’re obnoxious transplants whose retained childhood or family-roots sports loyalties are part of a more aggravating bigger-picture attitude. That attitude can be summed up as a complete lack of sensitivity or concern about how galling it all can be to natives who in their course of everyday life are reminded at every turn that 87 percent of their metro area can seem to be made up of transplants.

He lost me here. To relate this statement to Washington, while it’s irritating to hear “Let’s Go Rangers” in the Phone Booth, I’m not offended that D.C. is made up of people from other areas (after all, I’m a transplant too). That’s what gives the city a little personality. Plus, I doubt that most natives are so sensitive that they can’t handle the idea that people from other places move to their city.

I will concede there’s nothing wrong with — and it even can add spice to a game — having good-natured fans of the “opposing” team in the seats, and hearing the teasing go back and forth.

This can be one of the best parts of a game. During a Washington-Toronto game several years ago, some deaf Leaf fans and I had a great time taunting each other in sign language. Unfortunately, those types of harmless fan experiences are in the minority when the aforementioned Pittsburgh/Buffalo/New York/Philadelphia fans are in the arena; the good nature goes out the door as they’re walking in. I’m reminded specifically of a classless incident from the final game last season, when I saw two Sabres fans proudly wiping their feet on the Ovechkin giveaway banner. (I was tempted to “accidentally” spill my beer all over them, but then I’d be no better than they were — and I would never waste a beer.) In many ways, fans in cities that don’t see opposing fans take over the arena on a semi-regular basis are fortunate.

This might be the most significant point of all: They’re the most aggravating when their attitudes come with the kicker beliefs that their friends who dare to switch their loyalties to local teams, or have rooted for the local team or teams all along, are saps.

Admittedly, that’s a fair statement. Why someone can’t root for both teams (at least when their hometown team isn’t playing the local team)? Why is there an attitude that the two must be mutually exclusive? Is that really considered selling out?

Yet Frei’s position is a little confusing. Does he mean that every time someone moves to a different NHL city they should root for the local team? That’s just plain silly. Perhaps the distinction comes from the obnoxious opposing fan’s attitude: the smug superiority that nothing compares to the home team, the local team is inadequate, and thus deserving of disrespect. Again, there’s nothing wrong with cheering for the visiting team in someone else’s house, but why be a jerk about it?

Filed in Buffalo Sabres, ESPN, Media, Toronto Maple Leafs, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (20)

The Language(s) of Hockey Love

By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)
Friday, February 8, 2008

Phone Booth Sign (photo-Mike Rucki)Saturday, February 9th, is CBC’s annual Hockey Day in Canada. The annual hockey love-in is always a treat, with a full day of NHL games and many other hockey festivities across Canada.

This year’s celebration comes with an interesting multi-lingual twist: NHL games broadcast on CBCSports.ca in Hindi, Mandarin, and Cantonese.

The game featuring the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs (CBC, 3 p.m. ET) at Air Canada Centre will be available in Mandarin, with University of Toronto students Yutong Zhao and Zhen Jiang calling the action.

The contest between Montreal and Ottawa (CBC, 7 p.m. ET) will be available in Hindi and called by Sheridan College broadcast journalism post-graduate students Priya Sharma and Sapna Singh.

At 10 p.m. ET, Colorado and Vancouver will be available online in Cantonese, with Alex Chum of Omni Television handling the play-by-play duties alongside Bill Tang.

Given both my recent experience with friends at their first Caps game (one of whom speaks fluent Hindi) and the Phone Booth’s Chinatown location, I feel that broadcasting games in languages not usually associated with hockey is a terrific idea. Not only do large portions of the Canadian population speak English or French as their second language, but reaching out to hockey fans of all cultures cannot go amiss.

Making the game as accessible as possible to as many potential fans as possible — nice move, CBC!

Filed in CBC, Verizon Center| Permalink| Comments (1)

When the Best Ice in Chinatown Is in Clyde’s Cocktails

By pucksandbooks
Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Morning Cup-A-JoeOur heroes’ home playing surface is back in the news. Of Saturday night’s Phone Booth sheet, our good friend JP put it this way: “One could pour 4,000 Slurpees across an elementary school blacktop and it would probably provide as good a playing surface as the one at Verizon Center last night thanks to an afternoon Hoyas game.” The home team’s owner placed the Slurpee pump on idle on Monday, claiming on his blog that not only was his team’s ice nice but that those raising objections about it were X-Files exiles: we who discuss this serious issue are, in his view, the perpetrators of a “mass hysteria.”

Here’s what seems certain: given the rotation of events at the Phone Booth, from one night to the next no one can tell what caliber of ice quality the NHL games there will get. More on that in a moment.

But just so we’re clear: it wasn’t Washington hockey bloggers with too much time on their hands ginning up poor ice as a writing topic that started this subject; it was actual Capitals’ players voicing outrage in post-game candor, with cameras and microphones recording. No less than the team captain complained. This he told the Washington Post:

“I could see a lot of injuries coming from the ice there. It could cost [players] their jobs.”

There’s savage irony there.

At one point Tom Poti termed Verizon’s surface “embarrassing.” Saturday night a disgusted and Slurpee-logged Olie Kolzig threw up his arms in the post-game locker room.

Neither Jeff Friesen nor Chris Clark — both renowned power skaters while in their prime — suffered lengthy and debilitating groin injuries before (or even, in Friesen’s case, after) calling Verizon Center home. Might be pure coincidence. Might not. Friesen the then-Cap ultimately needed surgery. Last season, repaired and skating in Calgary, he played 72 games for the Flames.

I made the case earlier this season that there was something peculiarly pernicious about this season’s home sheet of ice. Clark, slightly younger than Friesen, of course posted 20- and 30-goal seasons in his first two seasons on it. In Friesen’s case, I personally find it noteworthy that the old Continental Airlines Arena he skated in as a Devil was, like Verizon Center, a very multi-use venue: the Nets bounced balls there, and so, too, did Seton Hall. It was only when the 29-year-old — not quite the age we associate with being washed up in the groin — arrived at the Phone Booth that he lost his stride. Now the vital cog that is the Caps’ captain is on the shelf, in perpetuity.

To their credit, Caps’ management hasn’t slogged through the season in blissful defiance of the complaints. Mr. Leonsis promised an inquiry, got it, and acted upon recommendations. I personally noticed a dramatic change in the temperature of Verizon Center way up high in the press box in January. That’s a good start. (Of course, this begs the question: why wasn’t it cold there to begin with?)

The owner on his blog yesterday noted that recent improvements apparently had earned the venue a ranking of 12th in the league in ice quality. But his having recently made a $124 million investment in a very serious skater, now only 22 and therefore physically immortal, is that Verizon Center in its present state, I’d suggest, at best an inadequate gamble. Or put another way: with the likes of Mike Green and Alexander Ovechkin likely to lead the puck rush up the slush in D.C. the next decade, just what caliber of sheet does management demand that its charges skate on?

To the rejoinder that Leonsis’ owning all of Verizon Center and its assets will ultimately improve things ice, I wonder. First of all, who knows when that will be. But more basically, hockey, generally, needs to be played in the evening. Here and in other towns, recreational and youth hockey, consuming families, is played on autumn and winter weekend mornings and afternoons. The winter weekend afternoon hardwood and its consequences, for better or worse, is here to stay.

But does that mean that evening ice sheets must always Slurpee? I wonder. I’m no engineer, but advancements in insulating materials are such that here in the home of NASA, is it delusional to imagine that some day soon some hockey lover in Greenbelt might devise a covering for arena ice that would preserve its integrity no matter the time of year, no matter the duration of hoops overtime?

I wonder. And it is in this vein I would have all of us who are concerned about this issue direct our thoughts. Capitals’ management wants a quality surface, of that I’m convinced. But at present, it can’t happen with consistency.

That needs to be addressed, somehow. It’s the right thing to do, for players and fans. And if that isn’t reason enough, I have one hundred and twenty four million others.

Filed in Chris Clark, Hockey Rinks, Ice, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, New Jersey Devils, Ted Leonsis, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (1)

Finding a Good Story in the Stands

By The OFB Team
Thursday, January 17, 2008

One good trumpeting of good journalism deserves another. In today’s Washington Times Bob Cohn profiles the spirit-raising efforts of two committed Caps’ fans, Sam Wolk and William Stillwell, aka Horn Guy and the Goat.

Ted Leonsis on these fans:

If one of them isn’t at the game, people send me emails. ‘Is he ok?’ ‘Did he get sick?’ They’re part of the game now.”

Fans are part of any pro sport’s experience, and the enthusiasm and prominence of these two is well worth reporting.  

Filed in Hardcore Hockey Fans, Ted Leonsis, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (1)

Players’ Union Boss: It’s Too Warm in the Phone Booth

By The OFB Team
Thursday, January 3, 2008

The Hockey NewsKnow who’s the latest to take notice of Verizon Center’s poor ice quality? No less than the new Executive Director of the NHLPA, Paul Kelly. In particular, he mentioned the building temperature to The Hockey News:

“I think frankly that there’s been an unfortunate deterioration of the ice condition in certain arenas, because they load the arenas with multiple events.

“For example, having watched the Capitals/Rangers game (recently) in Washington, it was too warm in that building. It was simply too warm, and it had to affect the ice surface.”

Filed in NHLPA, National Hockey League, Paul Kelly, The Hockey News, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (13)

Foam Finger Frenzy

By DC Sports Chick
Friday, December 7, 2007

The Caps will be doing things a little differently over the rest of the season. From Caps’ PR:

Capitals Unveil Series of Initiatives to Enhance Fan Experience at Verizon Center

Dollar Dog Night, giveaways, Family Value Pack highlight new offerings

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Washington Capitals have created a series of new initiatives at Verizon Center designed to enhance fans’ experiences at the games, many of which will be in place for the start of the team’s four-game homestand that starts Saturday, Dec. 8, against the Atlanta Thrashers.

Visit the Capitals’ web site for more details.

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Winter Wonderland Outdoors, Continued Nightmare In

By pucksandbooks
Thursday, December 6, 2007

Team captain Chris Clark, quoted in today’s Washington Post, claims that Verizon Center is home to the NHL’s worst ice, that it may be contributing to the injuries the Caps are incurring, and that he’s been complaining about it more or less since he arrived in town three seasons ago.

“I could see a lot of injuries coming from the ice there. It could cost [players] their jobs . . .

It’s tough to play on. Even guys on other teams say the same thing. When we’re facing off, they say, ‘How do you guys play on this?’”

The situation is so bad that Ted Leonsis addressed it on his blog earlier today:

“As to the conditions of the ice at [Verizon], we are working with all parties to improve the quality and the consistency. We deserve great ice. We have a great facility. We will do our best to work with building management to make it right.”  

Filed in Chris Clark, Hockey Rinks, Ice, Ted Leonsis, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (0)