To read the reactions left only here related to the Caps’ plans, announced over the weekend, to introduce SpiritBabes to the team’s home games next season, you’d think management announced that Verizon Center was hosting 41 brothels next winter.
It’s too warm in there for brothels anyway.
Would that the peasants took up pitchforks and torches in these numbers when the league bleep-canned hockey jerseys for Reebok’s tuxedo vests a year ago.
Count me among those with a more inclusive spirit — one who will approach the scheme with an open mind. I take the owner at his word (”I am a family man with a wife and daughter“).
I was all prepared to write about my first one-on-one chat with Hershey Bears’ head coach Bob Woods on Saturday when this fracas broke out later that day. No wonder Washington is consistently regarded as a sex-appeal-less city.
In reality, though, all the NHL is doing is catching up — modestly, I might add — with football’s spirited sidelines. Or Fox News. In a culture of seriously foxy FoxNews, is this really anything to get all that worked up about?
But by late yesterday we’d received pointed clarification from the Capitals on the matter: “The squad won’t be ice girls in the traditional sense . . . It’s also not a dance squad, a la the NBA. It’s more of an evolution of the entertainment team we have had in the past” [the one that most in the stands thought was remarkably annoying -- I'm all for evolving that].
Still, I found it riotously funny to learn that Bruce Cassidy had contacted the team’s sales department Sunday seeking a full plan for next season. And Smoken Al Koken — has he been revived since Saturday’s news?
Actually, you can make a compelling argument I think that hockey, particularly in markets like Washington, is much more in need of some sultry spirit than is the NFL. Mr. Leonsis, in defending the move on Sunday, noted that it was with new revenue in mind that the team pursued the idea. In case you hadn’t noticed, television ain’t exactly throwing mad dough at the NHL’s 30 clubs these days. Meanwhile, the league’s salary cap has mushroom-clouded by more than $15 million in just the three seasons since the lockout.
It’s swell that we’re all in love with this rockin’ garage band called hockey, but the band still has to be paid, and if Hooters-Lite (not Hustler) wants to underwrite the Friday night jam session, I think the beer will still taste cold. Count me as one who wants a hockey team’s practices, scrimmages, and camps to remain free and open to the public, year round.
Anyone remember the millions the NHL spent on its post-lockout relaunch television advertisements — you remember the ones, the “My NHL” spots featuring the hockey locker room beefcake, rather shirtless, massage-motivated by a Fox News anchor in the pre-game? I remember thinking the first time I watched it, ‘My, how shirtless this hockey player is, and my, how little I now want lunch.’ Now that was profane, and brought to you by Bettman & Co. I’m confident that Ted doesn’t have quite that in mind.
I’m not sure what revenue the Washington Redskins’ cheerleaders bring in to the team, but whenever they make community appearances you seldom hear of Puritanical protests accompanying them or of anyone having a real lousy time at them. In fact, once in a while, the tight end marries the babe. Maybe the SpiritBabe will marry the bachelor blogger.
The Capitals, and hockey in Washington, need increased exposure (if you’ll pardon my word choice). If the Caps’ SpiritBabes are going to be out and about town during and after seasons hence, perhaps toting along a few congenial players with them, it’s bound to improve the team’s visibility, as well as that of the sport.
And in our recessionary times, where is the acknowledgment of the idea’s job creation ???
There’s been all manner of hyperbole associated with this past weekend’s high-pitched hue and cry reaction. For instance, some have alleged that the aisle ladies in their shimmer and shake will distract from the play on the ice. On nights when the Caps lay an egg, I agree — and let’s hope so. On those nights especially I’ll be glad for Verizon Center’s new state-of-the-art, high-rise, high definition, center ice scoreboard. But really, if the Alexanders are barreling down the ice on a two-on-one scoring chance, how many men’s and women’s eyes will be fixated on tight fannies in the stands?
And what of the selectivity of outrage in this instance? When it’s Mites on Ice, all are quiet, despite the fact that with that exhibition the laughter is generated at the expense of really, really short people. But raise the specter of pretty girls prettying up the District’s rink, and all hell breaks loose.
The only genuine harm that can come from this scheme is if, to quote the wit of one of the few in this town with a sense of humor, who imparted it in the maelstrom of message board madness yesterday, “they come down to the Johnny Walker Club after the game and are attracted to out-of-shape middle-aged men.”
When Messrs. Vogel, Parker, Rucki and I were taking in the World Championships in Moscow in the spring of 2007, we had no shortage of aisle-jiggling accompanying our blogging endeavors (see photo above). I think I can speak for the four of us in saying that we got our work done just dandy. In point of fact, the real distraction in terms of Moscow hotties diverting our gaze came with the middle-of-the-night trollop parade through our hotel’s lobby (where we were blog drafting), aided and abetted by bellhops on the cash take.
Baltic beauties in boas and hip-high black boots. Naughty, naughty Nikitas! Sorry, that was the indulgence of reverie.
Anyway, over in Moscow, we learned that NHL scouts were in favor of off-ice girls.
!
Perhaps since Alexander Ovechkin has to spend the next 13 seasons skating here we should let him be the arbiter in the matter.
Ten years ago today Joe Juneau scored what many Washington hockey fans consider to be the most significant goal in Capitals’ history — a game and series-ending, Wales Trophy earning tally, one catapulting Capsdom into delirium, 6:24 into overtime, on the road, in the Eastern Conference Finals’ game 6, giving the Caps a 3-2 victory over the Buffalo Sabres and sending the Caps to their lone appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Next I asked Juneau what made that band of ‘98 Caps such a special team.
If Friday night was a sudden shockwave to the league standings, Tuesday night at Verizon Center was a sonic boom and a one-color kaleidoscope of unity delivered by a region ignited by an amazing sports story. One sensed within a rapidly enlargening hockey supporting community here a collective hunger to get behind a buzz-generating team. The Redskins lost more than they won under Joe Gibbs II. There’s a pedestrian quality to the Wizards — no longer really bad, but never really good, either. The ‘Nats are rebuilding and years away from contending. On Tuesday night in Verizon Center sports Washington was represented in unprecedented volume and unified uniform.
By now you realize that the Caps secured their 70th point last night, equaling their totals for last two seasons, with still 15 games remaining. The rebuild is indeed over. 
The Caps met Montreal for the second time in three nights. Given that the early headline on NHL.com was “Habs Go for Home-and-Home Sweep,” the Caps had something to prove Thursday night. They also were seeking to avoid consecutive losses in regulation under Bruce Boudreau.
