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.
The Washington Capitals will face the Chicago Blackhawks in their home opener at 7 p.m. on Oct. 11 at Verizon Center, one day after opening the season at Atlanta, the NHL announced today. The league also announced the Capitals will play two games each against Western Conference opponents Columbus, Los Angeles and Nashville during the season.
The three finalists for the 2008 Calder Trophy should be on the ice for the matchup and the goaltending pairings could provide some interesting storylines as well. Chicago’s Patrick Kane edged Washington’s Nicklas Backstrom last year for rookie of the year honors, as Kane’s teammate Jonathan Toews finished third.
It seems reasonable to posit that Olie Kolzig’s play as a middle-thirtysomething netminder during the first two seasons after the lockout was distinctly solid. Not spectacular, clearly, but quite solid. He didn’t have the most formidable blueline corps in front of him, which to some extent his numbers reflected, but few in the sport would have pointed to those seasons and suggested that Olie Kolzig was no longer a no. 1 netminder in the NHL.
This is about business. The business of winning hockey games. And the cold hard reality is that in this Olie Kolzig NHL offseason the skill set he has to offer is at odds with the present composition and ambition of the only NHL hockey organization he’s ever served. Gordie Howe shouldn’t have left Detroit, ever, but this isn’t a mythical, age-resistant athlete we’re talking about. Olie Kolzig, somewhat sadly, but also somewhat predictably and certainly rather naturally, is aging away from the Capitals’ ascension.
A bit more backfile before I lay my bombshell of a theory on you. I was able to arrive in the Verizon Center press lounge reasonably early in the 5:00 hour Tuesday. It was a zoo in there, as you might imagine. There were a lot of friendly faces and plenty of new arrivals as well. It being a game 7, I wanted to survey the pros — the men and women who get paid to work hockey as a beat, and especially the veteran ones who’ve worked these decisive games before — to try and gain a sense of how they thought this remarkable series would conclude.
