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Category Archives: Kettler Capitals Iceplex
Postcards from Summer Development Camp, Day 1
Ten Top Storylines for Development Camp 2008
This morning the Capitals welcome 21 skaters and 4 goaltenders to their 2008 Development Camp. Almost all of the campers are recent Caps’ draft picks, and first-rounders from each of the the team’s past four drafts are present (Alzner, Varlamov, Carlson, Pokulok).
Camp will culminate with a 10:00 scrimmage on Saturday. Hockey is back! Herewith, 10 top storylines to follow at this July’s camp:
(10) All Eyes on Alzner. 2007 first round pick Karl Alzner impressed observers of Development Camp last July, and then he went on to captain the gold medal winning Canadians at the World Junior Championships in December and earn WHL Defenseman of the Year and Player of the Year honors with the Calgary Hitmen. Not a bad season, huh? As soon as his season in Calgary was completed he was called up by Hershey, but the Bears didn’t advance out of the American League postseason’s first round, so he’s yet to get a taste of pro hockey. He’ll get a chance at training camp in September to crack the Caps’ opening night roster, but he can make a real strong impression on and off the ice this week.
(9) Souring on Sasha? No team got screwed more by Gary Bettman’s inane Entry Draft scheme during the summer lockout of 2005 than the Caps. The league all but came out and said that by virtue of having had the first pick in 2004, the Caps shouldn’t have a reasonable shot at it again. But outside the top 10? A pre-lockout cellar dwellar, the Caps drew the 14th pick in the first round in the ‘05 draft. A lot of quality was already off the table by then, including Sidney Crosby, Carey Price, Anze Kopitar, and Jack Johnson. The Caps took a gamble on Cornell defenseman Sasha Pokulok. He hasn’t impressed. This could be a make-or-break year for him. He’d do well to have a solid week.
(8) College Hockey’s Biggest Weekend Isn’t that Far Away. Washington will host its first-ever Frozen Four next spring, and the Frozen Four Organizing Committee will visit Kettler on Wednesday, conduct a meeting there, and take in that day’s scrimmage. I have plenty of questions I’d like to put to them.
(7) The Big Finn with the Big Game. Oskar Osala had a big year in 2007-08 with 18 goals and 35 points in 53 games with the Espoo Blues in Finland’s top pro league. The 6 ‘4, 217-lb. left wing was named the Finnish League’s Rookie of the Year. He also shined at the 2007 World Junior Championships, where he shared the lead in goal scoring with 5 goals in 6 games. A lot of folks from Hershey are excited to see him.
(6) Not that Carlson, but John’s Big and Physical Too. No relation to Jack, but John Carlson may well make a name for himself in pro hockey, too. The Caps may have landed another late first-round blueline gem last month with Carlson, who’s already blessed with a pro physique. His coach with the Indiana Ice of the USHL said of his defenseman, “without a doubt, he’s going to be a star in the NHL.”
(5) Media Matters. All of HockeyWashington was stunned by the breadth, depth, and overall quality of media coverage of the Caps this past spring. This week at Kettler — where there will be stories to tell — is an opportunity to see if that was anomalous. After all, the Redskins don’t report to training camp for another two weeks. Bloggers will be out at Kettler covering, and we hope to reprise our coalition from Entry Draft Friday and live blog this Saturday’s camp-concluding scrimmage.
(4) Where’s Big Joe? Joe Finley, Hurting Force, isn’t in town this week. The 2005 first-rounder showed a lot of promise at last summer’s Development Camp, and he also shook a lot of plexiglass with his corner work. The Capitals are going to great lengths to make this week appealing to Washington youths, and Finley’s instincts for violence may not have been a good fit for that agenda. He’ll be returning to North Dakota for his senior season with the Fighting Sioux this fall.
(3) They Harken from a Scorer’s League. The leading scorers from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League each of the past two seasons, Francois Bouchard and Mathieu Perreault, will be present. Perreault in particular, with his dazzling stickwork-in-a-phone-booth and world-class agility and hockey sense, ought to be a fan favorite this week.
(2) Prior a Priority. Capitals’ Goaltender Coach Dave Prior has spent 11 seasons in Washington. He may not have a more important one than the one ahead. He will break in yet another no. 1 goalie in Jose Theodore — the team’s third in just the last six months — and perhaps just as importantly, in Simeon Varlamov and Michal Neuvirth tutor two of the organization’s finest goaltending prospects in 15 years. That work begins this week.
(1) Speaking of Goalies . . . It would be comforting for Capitals’ fans to see both Varlamov and Neuvirth stop every shot that each faces the entirety of this week.
Monday Morning with George McPhee
On Monday morning we joined Tarik and Corey and a few other media outlets out at Kettler Capitals Iceplex for a pre-draft gab session with Capitals’ General Manager George McPhee. We put a tough question to him:
“A two-part question for you. The team’s enjoyed terrific success at the draft the last four or five years, particularly relative to say your first years here. How do you account for the remarkable discprepancy in success? Also, do you conduct a lessons learned on drafts with your scouting team after say 5 years’ time — lessons learned in terms of hits and misses?”
He told us, “That’s a very good question. I agree with you that our drafting recently has been a lot better than early on.
“A lot of it has to do with experience. We hired a young staff, and it was going to take them some time to get up and get going. And that’s a lesson you learn as a manager. We had a young staff, and we’ve constantly tried to upgrade our systems and how we do things, and we do review every draft.
“We do it basically three years out. At our January meeting we go through who did we draft three years ago, and I try to take notes after every draft — what we were thinking going in; what happened in each round; what happened before each pick; what did we want to do and what did we do; who said what. And then we pull out all those notes three years later and start talking to our scouts about it in our meeting. And if you do it right it’s really helpful. You learn a lot from it.
“In the early years the scouts were sort of walking on eggshells when we were doing it. But if you do it right and people are comfortable with being accountable you get better. And we have been getting better. We’ve found different ways to process information we’ve been getting for the drafts.”
McPhee also was asked about picking much deeper in rounds beginning this June after choosing from a lottery perch the past couple of drafts. “It’s always hard picking,” he said. “If you’re picking in the top four or five, you better get the right guy — you can’t miss [on] them.”
“You don’t get to pick in the top three or four or five very often — if you are, somebody else is going to be making the picks pretty soon.”
This Ain’t a Bet on Big Brown
About the worst-kept secret in Washington these days is that Alexander Ovechkin later today will accept the Hart Trophy as the league’s MVP. You know already of leaked t-shirts that speak to the feat. The Capitals earlier this week announced that tomorrow they’ll host a showcasing of NHL trophy hardware and a free skate out at Kettler during mid-day. Now comes word that should AO prevail tonight he’ll appear before D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty tomorrow to receive the key to the city!
What a letdown should Jarome Iginla instead win the Hart!
Ain’t happening.
Here’s how the Caps’ communications pros relayed the word late yesterday:
“In the event that Alex Ovechkin is awarded the National Hockey League’s Hart Trophy naming him the league’s Most Valuable Player on June 12, DC Mayor Adrian M. Fenty will present Ovechkin with a key to the city during a fan celebration.”
The ceremony, should it be suitable to acknowledge, will be in front of the John A. Wilson Building at 1350 Pennsylvania Ave. NW at 4:00. Alex and the mayor would be joined by Ted Leonsis, George McPhee, and the Ballou High marching band.
Friday Skate at Kettler, With Trophies
Take the day off on Friday and hit the ice:
Washington Capitals fans are invited to beat the heat with a free public skate on Friday, June 13, at Kettler Capitals Iceplex and view major NHL trophies on display from the Hockey Hall of Fame.
The ice will be available for a free public skate from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The trophies will be on display on the mezzanine level between the two rinks from 12 to 1 p.m.
The Capitals’ Top 10 Storylines for 2007-08
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 ›
A Uniform of One Color for an Army’s Offseason
The Capitals unveiled their new uniform look early last summer, but it’s this offseason that will fully showcase just how successful the makeover was.
Saturday afternoon I stopped by the Kettler-Capitals’ pro shop to see a buddy there working a weekend shift sharpening skates and moving merchandise, and the movement of goods this spring, he reported, has been brisk.
“It’s been a zoo in here the last few weeks,” he told me.
Fans seemed to appreciate the new look just two or three games into the preseason last September. Until then, they’d seen only photographs of the fashion upgrade in action-less stills. Once vivid, high-def-in-digital game imagery of the new threads was published on line, praise for the makeover was widespread. The team modernized its on-ice look, but not lavishly or outlandishly or, most importantly, faddishly, and there were clear but subtle acknowledgements back to the original threads. It was a look that appeared to be the best of the old blended with a hip new.
More fans wearing more of the new color and look became apparent at Verizon Center after the end-of-the-year holidays in 2007, and as the team turned its season around by late winter in 2008, even more of the red, white and blue filled the home rink. The new look was fast becoming a smash hit.
When the stretch-run became white-red-hot, so too did the look of the nation’s capital. The team declared “Red Outs” for the final week of regular season play, and the fans responded fanatically. The uni-color solidarity within the Phone Booth continued into the postseason. Comcast’s Lisa Hillary told me during one home postseason game that Verizon Center looked distinctly like Calgary’s Red Mile of playoffs past.
Planned or unplanned, the team’s return to its original colors has afforded an opportunity to market the old with the new. On my visit to the Kettler shop Saturday I saw rack after rack of red, but the names and numbers on the t-shirts were both old and new. Semin, Clark, and Ovechkin were joined by Hunter and Langway. My father, who wore his red senior’s hockey sweater to two postseason home games, will later this week be receiving an old-school, old-logo-ed red t-shirt bearing Rod Langway’s nameplate and number on its back, along with instructions to wear it both while mowing his massive yard and barbequing for Saturday night houseguests. He loved Langway.
I have plans for some heavy-duty recreating this summer. I’ll be sweating a lot in red.
Saturday was gorgeous in D.C., and the moreso to be navigating the route back from Kettler-Capitals toward Maryland on the GW Parkway. The first Saturday of being eliminated from hockey’s postseason is always a painful one for me, but under that Chamber of Commerce sky Saturday, with my sack of red as companion, I felt immense pride instead of pain, and I began thinking about Washington’s hockey hardcore as well as the new converts this spring showcasing their pride in the hockey team this offseason. There is so much to be proud of.
Our Army should be arriving at neighborhood pools this offseason covered up in red. Yard work should be conducted in a ‘Rock the Red’ tee. Jogging, rollerblading, dog walking — all of it should be completed while identified as Ovie, Olie, Huntsy, or Langway. We should attend rock concerts at Nissan and Merriweather and Rock the Red there as well.
Let’s Red-out the region this summer. The Washington Post is watching.
At Kettler the Day After
You can cross one name off your list of free agent concerns for the Capitals this offseason — Head Coach Bruce Boudreau. Speaking with reporters at Kettler-Capitals Iceplex just moments after wrapping up a season-concluding meeting with the team this afternoon, the coach confirmed that he’d had discussions with General Manager George McPhee about a new deal. He didn’t want to speak in specifics, and he wanted to defer to the GM for a more formal acknowledgment, but he did say, “I’m gonna be coaching the Caps a little while.” He was smiling.
The coach also confirmed that Alexander Ovechkin played hurt in his first playoff series. He suggested that some struggles the left winger experienced at times in the series were related to the injury. After the game last night Ovechkin did tell Sovetsky Sport’s Dmitry Chesnokov that he had played games 6 and 7 on painkillers. When Chesnokov pressed him for more details about the injury, AO replied, “I cannot tell you that.”
The coach remains in awe of his star. Alluding to Ovechkin’s extended stay in D.C. that was secured earlier this season, he said, “Thirteen years for that guy — maybe it should be 18!”
Nicklas Backstrom, it was announced while we were gathered at Kettler, has been named a finalist for the Calder Trophy.
The coach is going up to Hershey tonight to take in game 4 of the Bears’ opening series with Wilkes Barre-Scranton. The Caps’ affiliate is in a 3-0 hole in that one. When asked how he thought he’d spend his first offseason as an NHL coach Boudreau said that he didn’t quite know but added, “This is the environment I feel comfortable in.”
Both the coach and the superstar were effusive in their praise for Washington’s hockey fans. Ovechkin wants the city’s fans to pick up next season where they left off this. “I hope the fans support us the same way [next year]. The atmosphere was unbelievable.”
Boudreau pointed to a pronounced difference in the arena from fall to spring. “I’ve really seen it pick up since I came here,” he said. “[There were] an amazing amount of jerseys in the crowd last night.”
Matt Cooke, on Tom Poti’s overtime tripping call: “You’d like to see them call something that wasn’t a marginal call, something that takes away a scoring chance.”
Lastly, the coach acknowledged that he’d had a private and very personal conversation with Olie Kolzig. He didn’t offer much about its substance, but he did say, “[Kolzig's] one of the classiest men I’ve ever met in this game.”
The goaltender’s Kettler locker, for what it’s worth, still had his nameplate in place.
The Branding of a Winner in Washington, the “Good Hockey Market”
Little commented upon during this Capitals’ Renaissance is how many people around town are taking notice:
Lots.
Suddenly, the downtown rink is packed. The team’s new look is a red-hot hit with the home crowd. The sports section fronts of the city’s newspapers are each week ablaze in full-color hockey victory imagery. Even the TV numbers are up. There is buzz about hockey in Washington.
“This is a good hockey market,” Jim Van Stone, Capitals’ Vice President of Ticket Sales and Service, told me during the Caps’ 3-2 win over the Rangers on Sunday. “There’s a huge amount of hockey fans in the region, and what we’re trying to do is convert them into Caps’ fans.”
It’s a big tent revival taking place in Chinatown, and the numbers of the converts are growing.
The Capitals’ players are doing their part out on the ice, and the team’s marketing professionals have devised some creative sales packages that have fueled an impressive surge in group and partial plan sales. But “the buzz” about hockey in town — the one driving thousands more into the stands, toward the souvenir stands and stores, and before their television sets at home — seems to have its origins in a remarkable and broad confluence of positive events for the organization.
Go back to last June and the launching of the revamped look of the team. Caps’ fans long hungered for a return to the team’s original red, white, and blue colors, and the team not only listened but carried out the makeover in an appealingly clean and restrained contemporary design that, judging by its red wave prevalence within Verizon Center, appears to be popular across gender and age.
There’s an understated, classic look to the new look that seems synchronous with its founding predecessor — perhaps best illustrated among the array of fashionable baseball caps seemingly on every hockey head in Verizon Center. January home games most especially seemed to showcase that Santa Claus trafficked thick in these parts in Capitals’ red, white, and blue. This new look is largely responsible for the team’s merchandise sales being up 40 percent this season over last, according to Tim McDermott, Capitals’ Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer.
It’s great to look marvelous, but now the Caps’ are a good looking winner. Washington loves nothing so much as a front- runner, and a Caps’ ticket sales staff that for years had to pitch an at times far-off seeming future can now point to a present that includes things like sweeping the Ottawa Senators and vying for first in the Southeast division. Paid admissions this season, McDermott told me, will be up 15-20 percent over last season.
And if winning weren’t enough, the team’s sales staff gets to market a set of young stars catching the notice of the entire hockey world.
“We are fortunate to have what we call our four young guns,” McDermott told me, alluding to Alexanders Ovechkin and Semin, Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green. “You can honestly and very objectively sit back and say that for the next 10 years this is a team that’s going to compete for the playoffs, this is a team we hope that will compete for the Stanley Cup,” he added.
So the Caps are not only winning but doing so with young star power. It’s a fantastically appealing headlining quartet — a Rat Pack on skates — and a core of the team positioned to play together many years. Who wouldn’t be lured in by that? Hence, Gang Green, Ovie’s Crazy 8s.
And to this already potent marketing mix management has added the immensely quotable and feel-good story of hockey perseverance in Bruce Boudreau. He dresses a bit oddly, he’s chock full of fabulous tales, he never fails to deliver a money quote after games, and from his gaudy stint of winning in Hershey he’s vested in most of the Capitals’ young core. He just seems the right guy for the part.
Home crowds here typically start out discouragingly small in October and November, no matter the team’s forecast or its early season success. Then, come January, after the Redskins’ season is completed, there’s long been a healthy improvement in puck patronage. But there’s something different about this season’s mid-winter attendance improvement: its vastness.
Ovechkin in Caps shirt - photo by Sovietsky Sport
Nada.
As if Hanna Montana was in the house.
Perhaps even more interesting was a new demographic among them: college students. No fewer than 2,300 area collegians took part in the Capitals’ Student Rush program last Friday night, by which they can access tickets at admission rates even college kids can afford: $25 for seats in the lower bowl, $10 upstairs. How did the Caps lure thousands away from campus keggers on a Friday night? With winning, but also with aggressive and well-placed branding, particularly in social networks like Facebook and MySpace.
“Our street teams have actually been on the campuses,” Van Stone told me, alluding to Caps’ staffers who this season have regularly been out promoting the team at Metro stations, area businesses, and now college campuses, distributing t-shirts, pocket schedules, and even hot dogs to promote $1 Dog Night.
Verizon Center as the world’s largest frat house? You have to admit, the Friday night atmosphere in there has changed — and for the better — of late. And while college-budget-friendly admission rates to see Alex Ovechkin are inducement indeed, the hordes of collegians may also be responding to the team’s youth: in their ages, the likes of Ovechkin, Backstrom, and Mike Green, among others, are their peers.
The swell in popularity isn’t restricted to game attendance, either. According to McDermott, Comcast viewership for Caps’ broadcasts is up 37 percent this season over last. That viewership is virtually certain to increase during the stretch run, too, particularly if the team remains in contention for the Southeast title.
It was predictable that the team’s winning ways would garner some level of interest from sports Washington, but not to be overlooked in the equation is the perhaps redefining, landscape-altering, sublime performance of Hart Trophy candidate Alexander Ovechkin. The Caps and this city simply have never seen his likes in the team’s sweater before. Nor for that matter has the rest of the league.
Sunday afternoon a camera broadcasting a feed to Verizon Center’s state-of-the-art, high definition center-ice scoreboard honed in on Ovechkin on the Caps’ bench. Ovie being Ovie, as soon as he realized he was on camera, he beamed that gap-toothed grin of his and the arena erupted. Of course soon thereafter he scored a goal, and the team came back from a 2-1 deficit and prevailed in overtime against the Rangers. Ovechkin’s hold on HockeyWashington — which is expanding — is irrefutable. And thanks to Caps’ management early in 2008, that courtship will endure past next decade. Van Stone and McDermott confirmed for me that fans are purchasing ticket plans for this season — as well as putting down deposits for next — while citing the new deal for Ovie as a reason.
So with the arena virtually full, revenues up all around, and the team in first place these days, the branding work must largely be finished for the Caps, right? Wrong, claims McDermott.
“What I’ve learned is that we have to be prepared for success, to capitalize on it,” he told me. “That means that we can’t ‘go dark’ once the season is over. We have to find a way to connect with hockey fans here even in the offseason. That’s what we’re thinking about now, ideas for doing that.”
“The rebuild is over,” the team’s owner conspicuously claimed at the onset of training camp last fall. Now it appears that Ted’s team — the one on the ice as well as the one off it — is buiding an infrastructure to make Washington a durably built hockey town. Tickets, if you can believe it, are already becoming scarce.
Training Camp for Washington Sports Editors
Morning Cup-A-Joe
Their dilemma is existential: what now?
To the disappointment of Wizards’ fans, and the horror of Dan Steinberg, Agent Zero recently hinted at the likelihood of shutting it down this season to recover fully from his knee injury. Nats’ pitchers and catchers don’t report south for weeks. We’re many months away from Tiger’s return to town.
Customarily, this season in the D.C. sports calendar dictates that sports editors assign their staff the research and drafting of obituaries for American sports legends solidly on life’s back nine. Long lunches. And vacations.
We at OFB, however, think that with the arrival of Redskin-free Januaries, henceforth and inaugurating with this one, the region’s hockey bloggers, in a joint endeavor with the Washington Capitals, ought to conduct a training camp for MSM sports editors.
To introduce them to the sport of hockey.
In a very real sense, it’d be analogous to the fantasy camps the well-heeled, middle-aged, and portly participate in across all sports. Making no judgment on the physical well being of our MSM editors, it’s abundantly clear that their cognitive acumen with respect to hockey is, shall we say, under exercised. As such, the heart of our camp would feature a fully developed Capitals University for the editors. JoeB is particularly busy at this time of year, but given the claims of this cause, I’d anticipate some creative schedule juggling on his part and ultimately his cooperation.
Orientation would have to start with the most basic of basics: a Mapquest route from WaPost and the various network broadcast studios in the District to Kettler Capitals. Initially, the editors would be picked up and led to the facility by various Caps’ players in a caravan, but as part of a camp final exam, the editors would have to demonstrate their ability to navigate their own way to the Capitals’ new home.
Early on, too, it would imperative to dispel some false assumptions long held by the editors. For instance, on Day One of camp we’d have one of the region’s meteorologists present Dopler data conforming that no reporters covering Caps’ games actually freeze from the experience. Indeed, at Verizon Center, there’s the greater likelihood of visitors suffering heat stroke. It is simply not true that the Caps travel to Saskatchewan to contest their games outdoors December through March.
As part of camp, the editors would be taken on field trips to the region’s rinks — Reston, Ft. Dupont, Columbia and Cabin John — where they would be asked to view the thousands of youths, male and female, clogging the weekend clocks morning, noon, and night with the playing of hockey. They would be asked to sit in the rinks’ stands among players’ parents and interview them about families’ devotion — in finances, time, and travel — to the sport of ice hockey. The tongues the hockey families would speak in would be foreign to the editors, and so bloggers and Caps’ communications professionals like Mike Vogel would be strategically stationed in the stands to facilitate translation.
Back at camp, VIP speakers would address the editors. An emissary from the Canadian Embassy would allege that his home is not in fact a 51st American state or territory, but instead a sovereign nation which celebrates the awe-inspiring playgrounds that nature etches across his home’s landscape for half the calendar year. Executives from cable television providers would arrive and testify to the fact that indeed thousands of Washingtonian households spiritedly subscribe to NHL CenterIce and the NHL Network.
High priests of puck like Don Cherry and Barry Melrose would lunch and cocktail hour with the campers and lead chalkboard Xs and Os and endearing narratives of the sport’s legacy. Melrose would even suggest that here in Washington there is a viable Jack Adams candidate.
Craigh Laughlin and Joe Reekie would lead a discussion of conflict resolution in hockey, and how the United Nations Security Council is not involved.
A professor of comparative literature and linguistics from the University of Maryland would attend and identify the sliver of contemporary professional athletes who commonly speak to the press in complete sentences, often thoughtfully. He will introduce the editors to the concepts of humility and modesty that commonly lace these orations.
The District’s Chief of Police would brief the editors on the needlessness of bringing along weapons of self defense into the players’ rooms during interviews.
Necessarily, camp would conclude with a screening of ‘Slapshot,’ and accompanying consumption of beer would be mandatory.
To prepare for camp, we who conduct it might want to view the film ‘300,’ for in this quest we face the same odds for victory as the Spartans.
From Ruthless to Toothless
A certain husband stopped by Kettler today to catch some of the Caps’ practice. He took video of Donald Brashear playing instructor (and generally being silly) to some of his fellow teammates. Imagine if all of the Caps started to fight like Brashear- the Flyers would have nothing on them. (For additional video from today’s practice, check out this link.)
Rink of Fire
Just got word of a Zamboni catching fire at Kettler Capitals this morning right before the Caps were to skate.
This hasn’t been a good season for the big rigs.
Update: No injuries. The machine was pushed off the ice. Hydrolic fluid, however, pooled on the ice and had to be cut out.
No word if a replacement rig was being summoned from Hershey. Â
The Hockey Rink of Madison County (Va.)
It’s exciting for us to receive messages of hockey appreciation from readership up in Hockey’s Home, in Canada, but perhaps more so when we receive it from an unlikely outpost of puck passion. Yesterday we received this outreach from reader Robert in Etlan, Va., a relatively small community in the Shenandoah Valley:
“We live in Madison County which is about 1.5 hrs. SW of the Beltway. We have a population of only about 14k. About 12 years ago a couple of brothers who grew up playing ice hockey in Canada decided to turn an unused public tennis court into a roller hockey rink. They and others built the sideboards from plywood and 2×4’s. It started small but now we have 3 divisions with almost 100 players.I was never a hockey fan, let alone a player; after all it was too warm here and roller blades hadn’t been invented yet. But now my kids are big fans and are counting the days until the season opens although my daughter’s broken arm (from soccer) may prevent her from being goalie until January.The operation is now being partially supported by the Parks and Rec Dept., and while our surface is in pretty rough shape, I think we can get by. Maybe next year, we can raise enough funds to get a really good resurfacing job.As far as I know, we are the only street hockey league in our area. And I think people who participate in such leagues either playing or watching are far more likely to want to become Caps fans and go to the games, buy paraphernalia, listen to the games or order NHL Center Ice from the satellite company, as we did last week. By the way, my 11-year old son has memorized the spelling of all the Russian players in the NHL.
Anyway, I called the Caps the other day and asked a Caps rep if there was anything the Caps could do to develop some sort of relationship between the team and our league. He did say they offered to sell tickets for the mezzanine area for $19 if we could get 50 people who wanted to pay that. That’s nice but I’m not sure we could get 50 people. In previous years a large group of us has attended a Richmond hockey game which costs about half as much. We don’t have Fairfax-type incomes here. (Our web site, incidentally, is http://www.madisonhockey.com/)
In sum, I’m not real sure what I’d like the Caps to do, but I think they have a vested interest in seeing leagues such as ours that have developed such enthusiastic supporters of hockey out of thin air, do well and prosper. I’d also like to see our parents and players develop an identity with the team.
Any ideas?”
Robert:
Firstly, thank you for sharing with us your community’s new-found love affair with hockey. We never tire of hearing such tales. One of the beauties of hockey is that it has many enticing off-ice iterations: floor hockey, commonly played in school gymnasiums across the country; roller; and one of the most underrated of all recreational pastimes, street hockey.
Up north, in the States and Canada, fenced-in tennis courts are commonly flooded in winter and skated upon. This winter, the four of us are gonna keep our fingers crossed for a cold stretch of weather to settle in on Etlan one weekend so that perhaps some of its 100 hockey players can lace up some skates — that rink of yours should be used all year ’round! We also think it’s fantastic that Etlan’s Parks and Recreation Dept. is actively maintaining it in support of hockey.
The Caps are heavily involved in growing hockey in the surrounding community — we receive word of each and every one of their visits to schools and hospitals and civic gatherings, and hardly a week passes without such a visit. We’re not sure if they’ve undertaken a trip out west in your neck of the woods, but based on your description of the game there and the people supporting it, they should.
Obviously, it’d be a big investment in time and resources to get a segment of your community to Washington for a Caps’ game. Still, we hope one weekend it happens. Remember, too, that there’s a terrific experience in taking in say a Saturday morning skate by the team at Kettler Capitals, which is free and open to the public all season long. A bit further up the road, in Hershey, Pa., the pro hockey experience is family budget friendly and among the best in all of hockey. Lastly, the Caps at the end of each season hold a sale of their equipment, and that allows recreational hockey players (and souvenir collectors) access to great gear often at great prices.
We’d like to hear how the season progresses in Etlan, so please stay in touch. And if you do flood that outdoor rink, we know of at least one OFBer who’ll point his Jeep west toward the Shenandoah Valley on a Saturday morning and join in the fun.
A Well-Built Band of Brothers
Cup'pa Joe
This display of conspicuous camaraderie occurs within a larger context worth reviewing. Back in mid-summer, as management moved and shook the roster up for the better, we first learned of guys being eager to get back in their gear and out on the ice together at Kettler Capitals. And it actually happened, in impressive numbers, weeks ahead of the official start of training camp. Guys wanted to skate here, together.
At camp’s kickoff, on Media Day, captain Chris Clark shared a bit of his outreach efforts to his teammates spanned across the globe. He wanted them back in town early, to put the distractions of moving and settling behind them so that their collective focus could be on the important new season immediately in front of them. It was, it appears, an easy sell.
Now captains of course lead by example, and with regard to Clark, his leadership this summer extended beyond the norm. He re-signed with the Caps, at compensation and contract length irrefutably more modest than what he’d have fetched on the open market next summer. In a conference call to discuss the deal, he referenced his wanting to be a part of what the Caps were building. “I wanted to be a part of it, [of] where we’re headed,” he said. There is no guarantee of on-ice success in this season or of those ahead, of course, and yet Clark, his body memorably battered within the rebuild, wanted to lead the effort.
“We’ve got a great room” is truly a common refrain in this sport and especially this league, but there has been something distinctive about the Caps’ claim of one. Going back fully three seasons, back all the way to the early hours of the dispiriting selloff and roster overhaul, we first heard claims from some of the building blocks and even some of the roster placeholders about the caliber of the Caps’ room. That quality was certainly forged to no small degree by Olie Kolzig. But it also has to have been enhanced by a handful of recent draft classes, many of the members of which acclimated themselves to the world of pro hockey together, in recent years, in Portland, Maine, and Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Even more remarkably, the chemistry has been enhanced by free agent acquisitions conspicuous for their team-first ethos: Matt Bradley, Ben Clymer, Brian Pothier, and now, it appears, the entirety of the 2007 free agent class. Free agents in the modern era of pro sports typically arrive carrying high price tags and big egos and rarely meld seamlessly into their new environs. We aren’t hearing any of that in D.C. these days. In fact, as the Caps mature from basement dweller to contender, the growth carries some personnel anguish: some of the glue of the past couple of seasons will be cast aside, to make room for greater talents. This training camp, we are learning too how this reality is affecting the affected.
The chemist is named George McPhee. Ultimately the verdict on his tenture in town will be rendered on wins versus losses, sooner rather than later. But as GM he’s succeeded on a vitally important if under-reported upon front: assembling smiling faces and committed collectivism in shared car rides and summer shinny.
There’s an irony to the chemistry found in NHL locker rooms: no other U.S. sport knows the global diversity of the NHL’s athletes gathered on a single team, and yet no other sport knows its I’ve-got-your-back-at-all-times ethos, first through fourth lines, from Flin Flon-ner to Finn. It’s a criterion never acknowledged in fantasy leagues (reminding us of their superficiality), and yet nothing is more important to a team.
Reflections on Training Camp’s Opening Week
Capitals Training Camp 2007
The pause in on-ice action is a good time to take stock of what the Caps have achieved thus far in what I believe is the most important training camp in the organization’s history. I made a point during my visits to survey the hockey-savvy heads also taking in the daily doings at Kettler, from print and broadcast reporters to fellow bloggers to fans in the stands, and herewith I’m blending their leading storylines of camp to date with my own.
- Proud Papa. I’ve regularly seen Owner Leonsis as training camp spectator during the past 10 days, and while it’s true he’s no longer involved with the day-to-day operations of AOL, he remains a busy communications man. I think what’s happened with his training camp interest level mirrors that of the rest of us: the quality and depth of the organization on display is so impressive you are fairly compelled to make the trip out there and simply revel in the turned corner of the team’s competitiveness.
- Nylander to line 2. Two years ago Michael Nylander left Washington as a very good hockey player. This fall he’s returned but done so appearing to be more a star. He’s a dynamic playmaker, in supreme condition. And while almost everyone in hockey this summer forecasted an Ovechkin-Nylander top-line pairing, way back in July Head Coach Glen Hanlon very publicly stated his intention of experimenting with top-6 forward combinations, and thus far in camp, the conspicuous chemistry appears to have melded among Alexander Semin, Michael Nylander, and Nicklas Backstrom as Hanlon’s second unit.
- Slick Swede Part II. Speaking of Backstrom, he is irrefutably gaining comfort on the North American-sized sheet of ice — making progress “on a daily basis,” to quote my friend Mike Vogel. At the World Championships in Moscow in May, former Cap and Swedish National Team Head Coach Bengt Gustafsson told us that Backstrom would make that transition successfully and reasonably swiftly, and he was right. Tim Leone up in Hershey thinks it in Backstrom’s, and the Caps’, best interest for him to have a cup of coffee with the Bears this season. Ain’t happening.
- It’s my puck, and I’m keeping it. The Caps don’t (yet) have a dominant shut-down defenseman, so Glen Hanlon’s strategy for improved defensive play this season rests with his club maintaining possession of the puck more often than in the past two seasons, when often they chased it around the rink in futile fashion. If you have the puck more often than your opposition, your goalie isn’t get apt to face 40 or 50 shots each night, and surrender five or six goals most nights. So far, this strategy appears to be taking hold. In training camp’s scrimmages and through the Caps’ first three preseason games, you can see more puck possession and fewer netminders collapsing from fatigue.
- Captain, My Captain/Son of Kono-Dahlen-Halpern. I’ve changed my views on cloning, because of Chris Clark. Meaning no disrespect to Dale and his retired sweater, but should Clark captain the Caps to a Stanley Cup title in one of the next three seasons, he will have to be regarded as the best and most important captain in team history, having guided the team from the barrens of an unprecedented bottoming out to the promised land. And sitting here in September 2007, I wouldn’t stand in line to wager against it. (See Carolina ‘05-06, Tampa ‘03-04.)
It is Chris Clark’s team-first, two-way versatility that has Glen Hanlon fantasizing about a two-way, impact third line along the lines of the great Steve Konowalchuk, Jeff Halpern, Ulf Dahlen trio of a few years ago. That line, you’ll recall, was so dominant that Ron Wilson opened just about every game with it. It was also one that was a lynchpin to the Caps’ postseason participation. The coach has told the media that he’s looking for 60 goals from his third line this season, and given the defensive acumen of Clark and Boyd Gordon, and Matt Pettinger’s offensive pop, it’s natural to invoke the KDH comparison.
I’m also not wagering on Clark’s offensive production diminishing, dramatically, by virtue of his dropping down to line 3. As he noted himself on Media Day, he’s spent the past two seasons taking shifts against the likes of Zdeno Chara and top defensive pairings. Less so, it would appear, beginning this season.
- Deep Depth. The Caps this weekend have 35 players battling for spots on the opening night roster. It’s reasonably easy to forecast another five cuts, but the leap from about 30 to 23 is another matter. To put it charitably, the Caps’ are in uncharted territory, post-lockout, in terms of the skater quality they’ll be showcasing out at Kettler in week two of camp. This is the most basic and encouraging sign of the overall success of the rebuild.
- Three games, three leads. Through three exhibition games, the Caps have only once fielded a fairly veteran lineup — last Thursday night in Ottawa. They opened in Carolina, against a comparatively veteran Hurricanes’ lineup, dressing only John Erskine and Mike Green on the blueline as guys with significant NHL experience from last season (and with BJ in net). In all three games the Caps have played significant stretches with a lead (twice with two-goal leads). There remain mistakes (penalties) and concerns (penalties) aplenty, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that Coach Hanlon’s strategy of playing a more puck possession game is abundantly evident. In order to win more often, a team must first establish competitiveness, then achieve leads in games. The Caps have accomplished both early in this preseason.
The next step is to close the deal once you have the lead.
- When did Toronto’s print media come to work in Washington? For the first time in my hockey life, I wake each day knowing that with my morning coffee I need to visit the web sites for both of Washington’s big newspapers in order to follow coverage there of Caps’ training camp. There are files there basically every day. And good ones. Additionally, blog files there. This is as it should be, but to our print guys — and most especially the Times’ Corey Masisak, who’s only taking on the beat of a departed legend — good on you.
- Sharp-dressed men. It’s not anywhere near as important as the talent upgrade, but in this the autumn of uniform mischief, the Caps have showcased the best-looking new threads in the entire league. And it’s not even close. I’ll be particularly grateful when those snazzy white uniform system tops are rightfully returned to wearing on home ice.
On Friday, They Rested
No Ovy or Captain Clark on the ice today at Kettler. They were given the day off. The team, Nate Ewell told me, got back in town from Ottawa near 2:00 this morning.
Also, Tarik has word that Flash will be John Hancock-ing his name to a new, two-way deal any moment now.
Opening Day in Hershey: The Talk Is of Titles, Not Just Playoffs
Hershey Bears Logo
One of the first things I noticed was that the Capitals’ new crest rests opposite the Bears’ on Giant Center’s center ice. I also noticed the AHL training camp’s size: on opening day it is modest in personnel relative to an NHL camp — a total of 33 skaters (and just three goalies) dressed for Bruce Boudreau and his staff during two sessions this morning and afternoon. More of course will join in the days ahead, as the Caps make more cuts.
And just a handful of fans perched themselves down low for today’s opening session at 10:00 a.m.
I was roaming around the dark Giant Center concourse all alone near 10:00 when by accident I spotted Tim Leone of The Patriot News and the Bears’ John Walton above me. They knew a confused newcomer when they saw him, and diverted their path and came downstairs and escorted me to a productive work area.
Leone and I juiced up our laptops in Giant Center’s press box before heading down close to the glass to try and make out the identities of the skaters. The Bears neither name nor number their training camp sweaters. But before we left the press box Leone pointed to an odd-looking box in the middle of his laptop screen into which he was typing.
“A blog [for the Patriot News] I’m now responsible for,” he told me. “I blame you,” he added with a smile.
As we watched Head Coach Bruce Boudreau put the mostly anonymous Bears through a rigorous skate I had the thought that while there is perhaps less glamour at camp in Hershey there is every bit the drive and passion among the camp invitees and the coaches possessed by their NHL counterparts. Boudreau today looked and sounded like his charges were in the midst of a mid-January lo