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A Capital Day in the District

By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)

Friday, May 9, 2008

Approaching the John A. Wilson building on a sunny Tuesday morning, I reflected on the once-unlikely event about to occur. Official recognition by the Washington D.C. of its hockey team would have been unthinkable not too long ago. The way the Capitals started this season, positive recognition seemed a far-off mirage. But as the team fought back into contention, it won the hearts of Washingtonians along the way, including several on the District of Columbia City Council.

The Wilson, home of the City Council and adjacent to the more modern but blander Ronald Reagan Building, has quite a history of its own — changing ownership, money issues, resident/tenant turnover — not unlike the Capitals’ past in some respects. But the Wilson, like the Capitals, is now a well-established and stable part of Washington. The building is a fairly impressive sight to behold, both outside and in, including an elaborate stucco ceiling in the council chamber and art sprinkled throughout the hallways.

Shaone Morrisonn, Ted Leonsis, & Jack Evans (photo: Mike Rucki)

Around 10:00 a.m. Ted Leonsis entered the chamber, accompanied by Washington Capitals defensive stalwart Shaone Morrisonn. They greeted several councilmembers and other guests, including a wheelchair-bound youth and DC Fire Chief Dennis Ruben.

Apropos the District, the meeting started about 30 minutes late. With still images of Capitals players in action on the screens behind the council, the session began with some bureaucratic shuffling and a roll call (all but Marion Barry were present; his name plate is likely closer to hockey in this photo than he will ever be).

A bit after 10:30 a.m. Councilmember Jack Evans (of Ward 2, which includes the Verizon Center) introduced Leonsis and Morrisonn. Evans’ ward includes the Verizon Center, and he emphasized how the excitement of the Capitals’ run “energized our city in a way that I haven’t seen since the Redskins won the Super bowl . . . it’s been a long time.” He also

Jack Evans (left) & Shaone Morrisonn (photo: Mike Rucki)

highlighted the courageous play of Morrisonn, who had a separated shoulder and a broken jaw during the playoffs. Morrisonn still had his jaw wired this day as he continues his recovery.”

The best part of the resolution: “WHEREAS, The Washington Capitals Rocked the Red in the ‘Phone Booth’, displaying tremendous skill, spirit, and athletic achievement on the ice.” Yes, the phrase Rocked the Red (and “Phone Booth”) are now in the official record.

Leonsis took to the podium, thanked the council, and jokingly pointed out a dozen or so red-clad Unite Here affordable housing proponents as evidence of “rocking the red” in the council chambers. “A dozen years ago,” said Leonsis, “Washington didn’t have a professional sports team.” Now five professional teams play within the District’s borders—the Capitals, Wizards, Nationals, DC United, and Mystics—evidence of a renaissance in the city of Washington as a sports destination.

Morrisonn presented Evans with an autographed Capitals sweater, which Evans accepted with a smile as a brief highlights video started in the background.

So yes: It was a photo op moment. But Councilmembers Evans and Council Chair Vincent Gray were genuinely enthusiastic in their praise of the Capitals—and as any long-time Capitals supporter knows, such public and genuine appreciation is a far cry from not so long ago, and a heartening sign of hockey’s improving stature in the nation’s capital.

Click here for video from the event, or here for for the full text of the council resolution.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Shaone Morrisonn, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals, Washington the Hockey Town| Permalink| Comments (2)

Washington Capitals Week

By The OFB Team

Monday, May 5, 2008

Per the press release from the Washington Capitals:

Washington Capitals chairman and majority owner Ted Leonsis will receive a ceremonial resolution from the D.C. City Council on May 6. Councilmember Jack Evans will present Leonsis and the Capitals with the resolution during the council legislative meeting, which is scheduled to being at 10 a.m. in the Wilson Building on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The resolution, which will be signed by the entire council, congratulates Leonsis and the Washington Capitals on a terrific regular season and return to the Stanley Cup playoffs. It also declares that the week of May 5, 2008, is “Washington Capitals Week” in celebration of the team’s winning season.

City Council hearings are televised live on District Cable Channel 13 and on the Internet at www.dccouncil.us.

Filed in Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (6)

Pittsburgh Wins; Ovechkin to NFL

By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)

Friday, May 2, 2008

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

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

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

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

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 Bäckström, Philadelphia Flyers, Print, Sergei Fedorov, Stanley Cup Playoffs, TV, Ted Leonsis, The Big Deal, Training Camp, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (10)

A Foul Finish to a Stunner of a Season

By pucksandbooks

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

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

One that just didn’t quite seem merited.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“… our blogosphere is bigger and better than their blogosphere …”

By Gustafsson

Sunday, April 20, 2008

You read OFB, Off Wing, Japers’ Rink, The Peerless, and more. Are you reading the blog by Ted Leonsis? I’m not talking about Ted’s Take… I’m talking about his blog on USA Today, Inside the Owner’s Box. There have been some absolute gems. Here are a few:

Day 3: Saturday, April 12 (Capitals 5, Flyers 4)

I of course also had a Jesuit priest at the game [last night] with us along with a rabbi and a Greek priest working in the background. I covered my bases with a higher calling. I wore exactly the same clothes (down to the underwear and socks) since we have won eight games in a row while I’ve been wearing this outfit.

Inside the Owner's Box - USA Today

Day 5: Monday, April 14

I am debating whether to wear Red in a hostile building. It will be a game-time decision.

Day 6: Tuesday, April 15

We are seated in a suite— I sit outside in the exposed seats and right next to some Flyers fans; it is a fun experience until one of the fans has a few too many beers —and screams in my face — ” Are you not entertained!”. I calmly say, ‘”OK Maximus —sit down and take it easy —it is a long series.” I embrace the setting; it is NHL playoff hockey after all.

Day 10: Saturday, April 19

I am starting to get spammed by Flyers fans now. A few of them are pretty funny and have mastered the art of trash talk — some have over-the-top keyboard courage too. All is fair in love and war, I guess. Here is a fact I do know — our blogosphere is bigger and better than their blogosphere, thank you very much. Thanks Flyers fans for caring so much — I enjoy the back and forth.

We arrive at the arena and my son and I go shake hands with our coaching staff. We see Sergei Fedorov in the hallway. He stops his stretching and comes to see me, shakes my hand and says “thank you — this is so much fun.” I say “No, thank you — I appreciate all you have done and will do for our team.” We hug and he has a twinkle in his eye. He says, “We have great fans — and I love playing in this building”.

The last four minutes of the game are a blur — lots of noise, lots of shots on goal, lots of hitting and we pull it out! We win 3-2. I am relieved … We go down to the locker room and the team is all business — no celebrating a win, game faces still on and they are already getting ready and preparing for Monday night’s battle in Philadelphia.

Tell me we don’t have the coolest owner in all of sports. Do yourself a favor. Grab another cup of joe, click this link, and enjoy.

Filed in Blogs, Media, Philadelphia Flyers, Sergei Fedorov, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Ted Leonsis, USA Today, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (2)

Caps / Flyers Post Game 1 Interviews

By Gustafsson

Saturday, April 12, 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryfx1kCkaJI

Filed in Dave Steckel, Donald Brashear, Mike Green, Philadelphia Flyers, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Ted Leonsis, Video Clips, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (3)

A Blogging Error of Postseason Inexperience

By pucksandbooks

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Seating Chart - Game 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I have Friday night beer leftover for them.

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

Game-Day Chats To Chew on

By The OFB Team

Friday, April 11, 2008

Both big papers this afternoon hosted helpful time-killing/nerves-distracting chat sessions — the Post with Caps’ beat reporter Tarik El Bashir and the Times with Ted. There was terrific give-and-take banter in both; we urge you to check them out in their entirety.

The owner, on his youthful recreational hockey background: “We played roller hockey on 6th avenue and 45th street. Or we ran around and played with a crushed beer can as our puck. I miss those days! I once hit a slap shot and the crushed can embedded itself into my friend’s calf. He needed a tetnus shot, but he made the save!”

On his good luck superstititions and pluralism in the owner’s box:

Question: Do you have certain rituals for big games, like a lucky tie or socks or guests at a game?

Ted Leonsis: “I do now . . . what I listen to on iPod when working out — I have to wear my red Caps home jersey and I have a certain lucky watch. And I have a Georgetown Jesuit priest in the box tonight, and I have the hockey rabbi working on our behalf too.”

On the big concern about the prevalence of orange and black in the Phone Booth tonight:

Ted Leonsis: “We did everything we could to sell only to Caps fans — I am hopeful we will have a red out — but if our fans re-sell their tix on Stubhub, etc. — what can we do? We did not sell any tickets in blocks to any Philly organizations.

“I hope we see how loyal Caps fans are — and that they believe in the team. You are our 7th man.”

Over at the Post chat, Tarik took a questions about the durability of local support for the Caps; the keys to the series, and a rejuvinated Sergei Fedorov:

Washington, D.C.: It’s great to see so many Caps fans at the games now. Do you think that all these fans are for real and are genuinely going to stick with the Caps and follow them? Or do you think that they are fair weather fans that may wither away?

Tarik El-Bashir: “I think these fans have been out there all along. They were just waiting for the product to justify spending a few hundred bucks to see a game.”

Chantilly, VA: If you had to break the series down to one or two key points, what would they be? Does it boil down to goaltendending time and time again?

Tarik El-Bashir: “Two things:

“1) Stay out of the penalty box. The Flyers’ power play was second in the regular season at 21.8 percent.

“2) Keep the crease clear. Huet can’t stop the shot if he can’t see it.”

Warsaw, VA: Sergei Fedorov seems like such a class act. I can’t think of anything better to happen to a player of his caliber in the twilight of his career (except of course, to win it all).

Has this experience rejuvenated him? It seems like it has rescued him from the doldrums of a regimented system approach to one that is closer to a style that suits his game and skill. Is he enjoying the experience, partcularly being back in the spotlight in Russia as a member of the Caps?

Tarik El-Bashir: “He’s loving life at the moment. He’s said a number of times that this experience has made him feel 10 years younger. The presence of the three other Russians — and the winning — helps, of course.”

“It’s going to be interesting to see if he takes less money and re-signs here, or if opts for another payday somewhere else, or if he retires.”

Filed in Blogs, Hockey Reading, Internet, Media, Philadelphia Flyers, Print, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Tarik El-Bashir, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals, Washington Post, Washington Times| Permalink| Comments (1)

A Look Back, and Forward, by James Mirtle

By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)

Friday, April 11, 2008

Terrific read today on James Mirtle’s blog; Mirtle visited D.C. for the Caps’ final game of last season (and stopped by Clyde’s for the blogger post-season party too). His post today reflects on his meeting with Ted Leonsis on that day, and how things have changed for Leonsis and the team in the past 365 days.

Filed in Blogs, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (0)

Plenty to Chat About Today

By The OFB Team

Friday, April 11, 2008

Washington Post writer Tarik El-Bashir will host a live Q&A session at 2 p.m today, bringing the latest on the Caps’ preparations for tonight’s game. Tarik’s article today on the Capitals’ international appeal is a good read.

Capitals owner Ted Leonsis will be chatting live on The Washington Times‘ website, also at 2 p.m. In the meantime, check out Bob Cohn’s excellent profile of Leonsis in today’s Times.

Filed in Tarik El-Bashir, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals, Washington Post, Washington Times| Permalink| Comments (0)

Tens of Thousands More Are Tuning in

By The OFB Team

Friday, April 4, 2008

Tuesday night’s Comcast broadcast of the Caps and ‘Canes drew a 1.6 share, or approximately 37,000 households — microscopic and meager by, say, football or race car standards but easily the best of the season for the Caps. Last night’s game against Tampa earned a 2.2 rating. Something, indeed, is happening with hockey in town. So sayeth the team owner:

“That is best rating we have had on television in maybe 10 years of regular season play. Another great sign post that this community is falling in love with this team.”

[3:05pm Update]

Comcast SportNet issued the following press release:

Bethesda, MD (April 4, 2008) – Last night’s Capitals-Lighting game on Comcast SportsNet delivered the Capitals’ highest-rated game on Comcast SportsNet since the network launched in 2001, and was the highest-rated Capitals game on a regional cable channel in at least 11 years.

The Capitals’ 4-1 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning was the team’s tenth win in its last 11 games and a crucial victory in their battle for a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. The broadcast drew a peak audience of 62,000 Comcast SportsNet viewers in the Washington, DC market, equating to a 2.7 rating. The game averaged more than 50,000 homes or a 2.2 average rating, and a 2.7 average (37,000 viewers) among males aged 18 to 49.

Capitals’ ratings on Comcast SportsNet have increased 166% on a season over season basis since December 26, 2007, when Bruce Boudreau had the interim tag removed from his title and was named the team’s head coach. For the season as a whole, Caps ratings have increased 75% and averaged a 0.7 rating.

Following the game, Comcast SportsNet’s post-game recap also drew a strong audience. SportsNite: Post Game Edition, airing from 9:35-10 p.m., attracted a 1.6 rating, reaching approximately 40,000 viewers in the D.C. area.

Comcast SportsNet will air Saturday’s Capitals regular-season finale against Florida at 7 p.m. in high definition. The network will also carry the Philadelphia Flyers regular season finale against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday at 3 p.m., as the game most likely will have an effect on Washington’s playoff hopes.

Filed in Comcast SportsNet, Media, National Hockey League, TV, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (1)

Ted vs. Old Media

By DC Sports Chick

Friday, March 21, 2008

Duck-billed Platypus- courtesy of library.thinkquest.org

As a regular reader of many of the Washington Post’s discussions, I always take note when hockey is mentioned. It came up in Marc Fisher’s discussion yesterday:

Arlington, VA: It appears that you have angered Mr. Leonsis. Here are a few select quotes from his blog Ted’s Take about you and the newspaper business in general. I believe that this was in response to your comments last week about the Caps.

“I think the question to be asking Marc is this: “Is D.C. a newspaper town or a Washington Post town anymore?”

“Have you seen your numbers of late? Your circulation is down. Your revenues are down. Your profits are down. Your newsroom employee count is down. Your prospects are bleak. You don’t even publish your circulation numbers in your own paper. Why is that? Young adults don’t read your paper. You are a software company with a newspaper aside it now. If I were you, I would write about what you know and not throw out opinions as facts regarding other businesses.”

“If Marc would like to compare the Washington Post’s numbers alongside the Washington Capitals numbers, I would be glad to do so in a public forum.”

Any thoughts? It’s hard for me to take him too seriously since AOL didn’t exactly do a great job adapting to the evolving Internet.

Marc Fisher: Wow–I hadn’t seen or heard about that. (This is apparently picking up on our conversation here on the chat over the past few weeks about whether Washington is indeed a hockey town.) My conclusion so far in our discussion here has been that there are a good many diehard hockey lovers who support the Caps, plus a larger group of casual fans who can get engaged when the team is doing well or has a genuine star, as it does now. But there does not appear to be the same kind of broad, bedrock support for hockey that you find in more northerly and snowy places where the sport has been around for many decades.

I’d be more than happy to talk to Leonsis about the two businesses–indeed, both the Post and the Caps have been leaders in their fields in jumping into new media and embracing the technological changes that promise to redefine what we do. And both are also struggling institutions. I don’t remotely see that as a bashing comment, but rather as a good and important conversation to have, whether we’re talking about journalism or hockey.

Fisher is a noted crank who doesn’t like hockey, soccer, or puppies. Still, his response is a fair one. It would be interesting to read the result of a discussion between him and Ted.

Naturally, the mere mention of hockey brought out the haters:

Hockey: The question you should be asking is, “Is the U.S. a hockey country?” I think we got that answer when the players struck for a year and a half and hardly anyone noticed. Hockey’s a punchline. A joke. A peculiarity like the duck-billed platypus.

Marc Fisher: That’s a little too harsh, no? After all, the NHL is a highly profitable business with a large following. It’s not football or baseball, but it’s certainly a very popular sport regionally, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

It’s sad that people actually think this way, but that’s the stark reality of it. Is this a stupid, incorrect statement? Sure. But it’s unfortunately a common sentiment among those who don’t know the joys of hockey. Despite such idiotic comments, interest in the NHL seems to be on the rise because of events like the Winter Classic and superstars like Ovechkin and Crosby. It certainly helps the D.C. area to have one of the most exciting players and a thrilling team to watch. After a season of highs and lows like this one, no one can say that hockey is boring. And it certainly isn’t a “duck-billed platypus,” either.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Hockey, Media, Sidney Crosby, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (4)

Ted on WaPo Live

By The OFB Team

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Ted Leonsis will be on Washington Post Live on Comcast SportsNet today at 5pm. They are hoping to devote an entire segment with him along with your emails. Pass all questions along to wpl@comcastsportsnet.com.

Washington Post Live can be seen every weekday live at 5pm and replayed most nights at 11pm on Comcast SportsNet and simulcast on WashingtonPost.com.

Update: Ted: “We have to win two of the next three games” . . . but “We could make the playoffs without winning the division” . . . He is worried about the return engagement in Boston this Saturday . . . in mid-November “the plan wasn’t working — our players were talented, and they were working hard, but the plan wasn’t working” . . . On Olie: “We all love Olie — but he’s 37 years old” . . . “People underestimate how powerful the media market of Washington, D.C., is” . . . “We’ve had crowds of [over] 17,000 ever since we signed Alex” . . . “Alex is a once-in-a-lifetime player” . . . Tarik on Ovie’s Hart chances: “An informal poll of my fellow journalists — [Alex] is the favorite” . . . Success this season the owner defines as “making the playoffs.”

Filed in Comcast SportsNet, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (3)

Bloggers, Readers, and Pro Hockey Teams Banding Together for Wilson High

By The OFB Team

Friday, February 15, 2008

Wilson High School hockey team

We hinted at wanting to do something for the District’s Wilson High School hockey team when we learned about their extraordinary story last month. To sum up: Wilson is the District’s only public high school with a varsity hockey team. It was, until last year, guided by an impassioned trailblazer, Paul McKenzie — the type of coach who changes lives and improves his community. He succumbed to pneumonia last winter, and the program, through no fault of the tireless and committed student athletes and parents upholding it, is today stuggling for solvency.

A coalition of Caps’ bloggers — Capital Addiction, Japers’ Rink, Off Wing Opinion, The Peerless Prognosticator, Three Grumpy Caps Fans, and OFB — with the committed assistance of both the Washington Capitals and the Hershey Bears, has worked in recent weeks to cobble together a Friday evening of puck watching at one of D.C.’s best hot spots — Clyde’s at Gallery Place, adjacent to the Verizon Center — and hold an auction to benefit the Wilson High hockey team.

For the price of a movie ticket — $10 — we would ask each and every reader of these six blogs living in or near D.C. to make Friday night, February 29 one for hockey history in Washington. At 7:00 p.m. that evening at the Clyde’s of Gallery Place we’ll gather upstairs to watch the Caps take on the Devils in New Jersey, throw back a few puck sodas, and try and raise some urgently needed money for this desperate and inspiring hockey club.

Many of Wilson’s players never knew of hockey before being introduced to it by Paul McKenzie. We want to help keep these kids skating. Badly.

And Friday night, February 29, will also inaugurate a weekend designated in Paul McKenzie’s honor: the Wilson team will skate that Saturday and Sunday in the first-ever Paul McKenzie Memorial Hockey Tournament in Frederick, Md.

We’ve never before asked anything of our readers in the way of contributions for a cause, but our bloggers’ coalition and the Caps and their affiliate believe in the urgency of this one. Both pro hockey teams have donated items for the auction (including, yes, items signed by Alexander Ovechkin). The entire Bears’ team signed Daren Maschesney’s hockey stick for this event.

Officials from the Hershey Bears will travel down for the event, and Caps’ reps, too, will be on hand. We’ll have Wilson hockey parents on hand. We heard from Kathy Cox, Executive Director of the Friends of Fort Dupont Ice Arena, who told us, “Consider us a part of the team to help the Wilson hockey club.”

It promises to be a memorable evening for an eminently worthy cause. Bring some cash, bring your checkbook, bring your thirst. Even Clyde’s is getting into the giving act.

We are working still on an idea to get some technology involved that would allow folks outside of Washington and unable to make it to Clyde’s on the 29th to chip in for the team. We’ll keep you posted on that front.

In the “Without Whom” department: OFB would like to thank Clyde’s of Gallery Place for generously offering to host the event. Many thanks also go to Shmee of Capital Addiction, whose event-organizing expertise was invaluable to this endeavor. Eric McErlain of Off Wing Opinion offered valuable fundraiser guidance. Our friend Peerless spent hours gathering and editing images and artwork. All of the bloggers involved have been generous and supportive.

And certainly we could not pull off this kind of event absent the support of two very community-oriented hockey organizations, the Washington Capitals and the Hershey Bears.

Update: For those readers not in the DC area who cannot attend but still wish to help, the link to donate online via Paypal to the Wilson High Hockey Team can be found in this post as well as at the OFB right hand navigation bar until the end of March.

This event is sponsored by your friendly neighborhood Capitals blogs; we’re looking forward to seeing all of you on the 29th!

Filed in Charity, Hershey Bears, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (22)

To Russia (Hopefully) with Appreciation and Goodwill

By pucksandbooks

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Ted Leonsis

Last spring Capitals’ owner Ted Leonsis bank-rolled an act of unprecedented goodwill for hockey, dispatching two of his communicators and two OFBers to Moscow to cover hockey’s World Championships, in which a number of Caps competed. This coming offseason, he’s poised to organize more goodwill for the game, and pursue a plan of the Caps traveling to Russia — sooner rather than later — to showcase the team and simply celebrate hockey there.

“My bet is that in the next 13 years that Alex [Ovechkin] is here, at some point we’ll get him back [to Russia],” the owner told a couple of Russian journalists this past weekend.

Most assuredly, it won’t take 13 years for the Caps to make such a trip. The smart money is on a late summer excursion in 2009, right before that season’s training camp. The owner has already discussed the idea with team President Dick Patrick and Vice President and General Manager George McPhee.

While management is focused on the team making the playoffs right now, the trip to Russia is an idea Leonsis is committed to pursuing further this offseason. He will be talking to league officials about the idea then.

“Alex is Russian first and foremost,” the owner noted. “He’s a Washington Capital second, and he loves Washington, D.C., and America, but he loves his country, and he’s our player and we would like to do things that make him feel more and more comfortable.”

“The cultural exchange would be good for everybody,” he added.

There are scores of compelling reasons for such a scheme. For starters — and perhaps most importantly — Gary Bettman is supportive of it. The NHL, the owner noted, is encouraging teams to go play in Europe. “I think Gary Bettman would like us to go to Russia,” Leonsis said.

And it just so happens that largely because of Ovechkin the Capitals are the most popular NHL team in Russia. It’s why there are two full-time journalists covering the team for Moscow news organizations here in D.C.

Leonsis views such a trip as primarily an act of goodwill, but in listening to him discuss the idea it’s also clear that he’s made a link between the internationalization of hockey and the Internet. You can bet he won’t send his team over there crossing his fingers for old media coverage.

“In Washington, D.C., you want to be a global team, and I think it’s a reason that players like Alexander Ovechkin feel so comfortable here — it’s a very cosmopolitan city. We would want to show Russia some of the best players in the world, and celebrate the connection [between Russia and the NHL]. It’s not about money,” he said.

“Our team would be very popular in Russia, because of Ovechkin, Semin, and Kozlov,” he added.

There’s another reason driving this idea. Russia, it turns out, is one of the few countries in the world the owner hasn’t visited. “Russia is such a hockey loving country, and we’ve got such great [Russian] players, I think it would be a great thing for us,” he said.

In 1989, the Capitals joined the Calgary Flames in a headline-grabbing tour of the then Soviet Union for a historic series of exhibition games that September. The team traveled to Moscow and Leningrad for eight games against various Russian professional teams. Here’s how high-profile a happening that was: NHL Commissioner John Ziegler made the travel announcement from the United Nations Assembly in New York.

Twenty years later, the Capitals could be returning to Moscow. They’d be carrying a whole lot of Glasnost in their equipment bags. And quite a few thank yous for the Russian hockey development program.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Front Office, George McPhee, National Hockey League, OFB in Russia, Ted Leonsis, Viktor Kozlov, Washington Capitals, World Championships| Permalink| Comments (3)

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

By pucksandbooks

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Morning Cup-A-Joe

Our 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)

The Ashburn Diaries, Winter 2008

By pucksandbooks

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Morning Cup-A-Joe

Like the Capitals recently, the Redskins find themselves in search of a successor coach. Any and all similarity of operations ends there. What is ensuing now in the Great Search is, predictably, high burlesque, a lavish local sports soap opera.

The Capitals had both a qualified general manager and an appropriately removed-from-hockey-decisions owner involved in their search. The Redskins have neither. There is no foundation for believing that a genuinely gifted hockey mind available on the market wouldn’t have entertained an overture from George McPhee to guide the bench of the young and gifted Caps. But the Capitals’ coaching search was efficient and painless and apparently successful precisely because there was in place a plan of succession. Such planning is the byproduct of business competence. There is abundant reason to believe that Tier I coaching choices won’t return Daniel Synder’s telephone calls. Snyder, like a pornographer, runs a successful business by the barometer of profitability margins.

The general manager’s role in contemporary professional sports, I’ve written before, has evolved remarkably in the past 15 or 20 years, with law schools today clogged with aspiring pro sports executives. We in Washington this past summer, with the Michael Nylander Edmonton-D.C. dust-up, saw first-hand the value of having an executive law trained in a matter of contracts and negotiations. What is it about Daniel Snyder that innoculates him from local press criticism for failing to staff the Redskins with this most basic and increasingly important business role? Clearly, Joe Gibbs’ rerun on the sidelines purchased the owner some years of deferred scrutiny on this front, but with his dismissal of Charlie Casserly years prior, it became standard operating procedure for the boy owner to seat himself in the role of talent evaluator and contract negotiator. The results speak for themselves.

I got a good chuckle from the early replacement speculation stories with their inclusion of Bill Cower’s name. As if such an accomplished coach would deign work for our egomaniacal, control freak tyrant. Notice his name hasn’t been uttered since. Caller ID no doubt ended that courtship. The linear chronology of the search is a bit sketchy, and my suspicion is that this is premised on the Skins’ themselves floating out star quality falsehoods. The architect of the collegiate dynasty out West, Pete Carroll, allegedly surfaced not long after Cower. Yeah, right.

Here’s a list of plausible replacements for the Cerrato-Synder two-(empty)-headed monster to cull from:

Tyronne Willingham;

Wayne Fontes;

NFL interns;

Whoever’s coaching DeMatha — maybe.

The latest, if you believe local press accounts, involves the Mooch, Steve Mariucci. At least he has late ’90s compentency on his CV. His more recent run with the Lions went such that no one’s bothered to ask him to coach since. Now we’re back in plausibility.

The discrepancy in paychecks notwithstanding, one wonders if WaPost’s Jason LaConfora these days pines for the integrity and veracity associated with his old Caps’ beat.

At least in the blogosphere, Snyder is on the receiving end of enough criticism that some of it borders on unfair. He is not, for instance, singularly responsible for Metro’s malfeasance. But at a time when all major college football programs are voraciously recruiting wide receivers 6 ‘2 or taller, the Redskins of recent seasons have insisted on signing smurfs. As with his coaching nostalgia, Snyder is still living in the ’80s. In an Era of the Tall, guess who thinks it’s wise to go small?

Another relic of the ’80s is Danny’s right-hand Yes Man, Vinny Cerrato. His most notable accomplishment prior to arriving in Ashburn? Coordinating the recruiting of 17- and 18-year-olds for Lou Holtz’s Fighting Irish . . . in the ’80s.

This spring, as college juniors and seniors audition at NFL combines in front of scores of talent evaluators who’ve paid their dues, and are held accountable for their decision-making, it’s necessarily the case that Snyder and Cerrato will be perched hard by the likes of Bill Belichick. That’s a fair showdown of pigskin wits.

In this winter of mild Mid-Atlantic temps, and with his Good Shepherd returned to his NASCAR flock, Daniel Snyder is, perhaps at last, dangerously exposed. He’s the Oz in front of the Burgundy curtain. And an in-kind fraud.

Filed in Bruce Boudreau, Daniel Snyder, Football, Front Office, George McPhee, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, Print, Redskins, TV, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (3)

Washingtonians Helping Out Washington Hockey Players

By pucksandbooks

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Morning Cup-A-Joe

On Tuesday a Washington Post staffer emailed me the link to Jeff Nelson’s wonderful profile of the Wilson High School hockey program, which started and took root in recent years under Head Coach Paul McKenzie. McKenzie succumbed to pneumonia last year, and in his absence the Wilson program is struggling to remain solvent and intact. If you haven’t read the piece, you really should. From the moment I finished it late Tuesday afternoon it got inside me and banged around inside my head and heart. At first I couldn’t quite figure out why — I had no personal connection with McKenzie or his players, none either with the school.

Agitated but unsure exactly why, but sure I’d been made aware of a story necessitating action, I emailed Ted Leonsis. At the time I had no idea that he was away at Sundance. In my email I said, “It’s the District’s first public high school hockey team. We can’t let it fail.” By “we” I meant Washingtonians.

One of the take-home points from Nelson’s profile is the uneven skating surface confronting many scholastic teams in the region — the District’s foremost among them. Wilson’s team stands as the only public school in the city playing hockey, and it’s barely surviving. Scholastic hockey in these parts is dominated by private schools mostly in Maryland — DeMatha, Mount St. Joe’s, Good Counsel — and one in the District, Gonzaga. There are as well relatively strong public high school teams in Montgomery and Howard Counties. Most Virginia schools have cash-strapped athletic budgets, and there’s a shortage of ice sheets there as well. Many schools in the state don’t have hockey programs at all.

But it’s the District that is the region’s true wasteland for youth hockey. In the District facilities offering a sheet of ice, boards, and goals number one: Ft. Dupont, which of course is Wilson High’s home. For hockey to take root in the city’s youths a not-so-small miracle has to occur. Paul McKenzie was that miracle.

From Tuesday’s Post:

“On the Thursday after his death, McKenzie’s hockey team took the ice for its final regular season game. The team that had lost 10 of its previous 13 games dedicated its final regular season contest to his memory and won, 6-0.

A few days later, the players were among more than 400 people to pack Cleveland Park Congregational Church for McKenzie’s funeral. They wore their home jerseys and were mentioned in eulogies. On the family’s way out of the church, the boys formed two lines by the doors and made a ceremonial arch with their hockey sticks.