Dateline, Philadelphia, January 5, 2012. Three Philadelphia Flyers fans are wanted by Philadelphia police for their role in beating two New York Rangers fans in the immediate aftermath of Monday’s Winter Classic. One of the victims was beaten quite brutally and hospitalized. Video of the assaults emerged. (You can watch it easily enough; I urge that you don’t.) The more seriously maimed victim, turns out, is a cop, an Iraq war vet, a Marine, and a Purple Heart recipient. He had the temerity to attend a big hockey game in Philadelphia wearing the colors of that day’s adversary. You know, just as has happened with every game in every arena and stadium on the continent the past 40 years. But in Philadelphia, this hero of his country was beaten for it, brutally.

I like to think that somewhere in her eternal rest Kate Smith is restless and nauseous.

To me there is something distinctive about this instance of violence relative, say, to that we witnessed in Vancouver after last June’s Stanley Cup finals. Both outbreaks are abhorrent to be sure, but there is in our sport something enduring and singular — and brandished as a badge of honor, even — by the bellicose and beer-swilling  in orange sweaters, somewhat a minority of the overall Flyers fanbase, I think, who for at least a generation have taken it as a blood oath to violently defend their allegiance.

There are fights in the stands at many rinks and ballparks, I know. But it’s really only with one civic outpost that news of them seems to be met with . . . a wildly warped sense of pride.

You see, yesterday I had to endure a soberly stated justification by a Flyers fan — a high school classmate of mine — for what transpired in Monday’s assault: that somehow the Rangers fan, likely loose of victory-bragging tongue, deserved his fate. My Flyers’ partisan high school buddy is a Duke graduate, a Gulf War vet (Marine), a lawyer, a husband and a father. And he thinks as he does in this instance. So I say he’s card-carrying member of a warped culture. I’ll still call him classmate and friend, but yesterday I wondered: just how eager would the hospitalized Rangers fan Marine be to share a foxhole with my Flyers’ friend, and would my friend really have articulated the defense he did with me in front of his daughters?

You want to say that only a tiny sliver of the Flyer fanbase could and would go perp like this, but afforded over many years ample opportunity to disavow themselves of the reputation, collectively they’ve passed. They like the reputation not just of their skating heroes being bullies but of being bullies themselves. That sweater, its wearers want you to know, represents a good deal more than division titles and Stanley Cups won. And it’s been that way for years.

I can’t say that I can recall an instance when the executive leadership of one of Philly’s professional sports teams has led some public initiative to counteract the city’s pride in its twisted embrace of being bullies. Instead, the culture of Philadelphia seems almost to celebrate that their football stadium — and theirs alone in the republic — erected a makeshift courthouse on site to address violent attacks that have become a staple of sports patronage there.

There is a seemingly lone voice of reason up there in all this — the Broad Street Hockey blog. Those bloggers did what the Flyers should have: reluctantly, but courageously, they pushed out video and narrative of this super sad story and condemned the violence. “We say so often that we don’t deserve our reputation as awful monsters moonlighting as sports fans, but when this sort of thing happens, it completely undermines everything we say on the subject,” they blogged.

By about 5:00 yesterday this story had gone viral — Fox News, NBC.com, Puck Daddy were all weighing in on the malevolence. Out of curiosity I visited the Flyers’ web site to see if the public relations damage had occasioned any concern from the team. Maybe the team wanted to intervene and assist the victims’ families in some way. Nope. A band of cretins wearing your sweater pummeled a Purple Heart vet, in broad daylight, fellas. Would it really be beneath you to show some moral leadership and remind your community that this isn’t really behavior that ought to be replicated, again, or even celebrated? This morning there is acknowledgment of injury in Philadelphia on the team’s web site — Kimmo Timonen got dinged (upper body) during last night’s game against Chicago.

I like to think that two forms of justice ultimately will visit the assailants in this crime — the formal one meted out by the courts, and then the other seldom detailed but widely understood, enacted, well out of sight, against those who harm those who sacrifice to keep us safe. More importantly, I hope at long last a story that makes you cry will occasion a leadership long lacking in a bully culture.

The setup: Each blog submitted a list of questions to be answered by the other site. The results: well, you’ll have to be the judge.

So what do Detroit Red Wings aficionados want to know about the Caps? Well, below are the literary pebbles (yeah, definitely not gems) that make up some of our team’s responses to the TPL questions. To read their answers to our set of questions, like what we’d see out of Mike Babcock (and his flowing locks) in an HBO 24/7 type show, check out the other half of our exchange here at TPL.

TPL: Every Winter Classic road team has lost in the Cup finals that same year (PIT 08, DET 09, PHI 10). Given the overwhelming sense that history is not on your side this year, do you think it’s still worth playing out the rest of the season? Are the Caps destined to lose in the Cup finals?

TPL's Rob, left, during a typical day in Detroit

OFB’s Mike: Traditions are made to be broken. Now excuse me while I go burn my Winter Classic jersey.
OFB’s Alex: About a month ago I would have been completely unsurprised by another Caps’ first round exit, but, especially since the trade deadline, I have been impressed to the point of pulling my Stanley Cup prediction out of the recycle bin. And that was Canucks in six versus the Caps. Damn!

TPL: How much job security does Boudreau actually have? He’s had some ridiculously talented teams fall very short of expectations. Is it Cup finals or bust this year?

Mike: No. Might be conference finals or bust, though.
OFB’s Lis: This franchise owes Boudreau a lot (see Caps: November 2007 vs. Caps: March 2011), and Boudreau seems to have more job security than Pat Sajak, frankly, compared to most of the NHL. However, with this year’s trade deadline moves, I think there’s more pressure on his shoulders, because he has the personnel to get to the Cup finals.

TPL: Leonsis and Ilitch, our respective owners, have very different styles in terms of blogger engagement. Is it nice having an owner who is actively engaged in discussing his own team or would it be better for them if he were a bit more detached?

Mike: Yes, a thousand times yes: an engaged owner is fantastic. Sure, there have been times we’ve gone against Ted’s grain and rankled him a bit — and paid the price. But overall, an owner like Leonsis is a rare and wonderful thing for any sports fan.

TPL: Across the DC sports market, where do the Caps rank in terms of the local teams?

Lis: Let’s see – sandwiched at different points over recent seasons between Albert Haynesworth, Gilbert Arenas, and the “Natinals,” the Caps have managed to remain the D.C. team with the best record and the least amount of coverage (except maybe for D.C. United).

TPL: Neuvirth? Holtby? Varlamov? If/when they’re all healthy, who’s the guy for the playoffs?

OFB’s Andrew, Dissent 1: It has to be Neuvy. I tend to like technical goalies more than athletic ones, and Varly also has a big x-factor: his problems with injuries. People call Matthew Stafford a china doll, but Stafford doesn’t have anything on Varly, who seems to only be able to play for a few weeks at a time. Neuvy has shown he can play under pressure–see his play against the Penguins. That said, Holtby is quickly jumping up my personal depth chart, and I know Lis has some thoughts on his potential—well, it is really a “love affair”–but I’ll let her explain.
Lis, Dissent 2: Welcome to the OFB civil war. Holtby will be the best goalie of them all, hands down, but Varlamov, if he’s healthy, should get the start. He responds better than anyone on the roster to NHL playoff pressure. Yeah, there have been a few bad outings, but he’ll be playing this year with a much more solid defense and a team that shouldn’t be dragging the series out to 7 games.
Mike, the Voice of Reason: Varly has the biggest upside, but never seems to be healthy. Neuvy is the most consistent. Holtby’s hot right now but makes the other two look like grizzed vets. Thus: Go into the playoffs starting Neuvy, with Varly as backup. Let Holtby lead the AHL Hershey Bears to the Calder Cup, and bring him back to DC next season.

TPL: Do they have Buffalo Wild Wings in D.C.? …and if so, what’s Boudreau’s favorite flavor of sauce?

Alex: There is in fact only one Buffalo Wild Wings inside the Beltway (and several others around). We “understand” Gabby, on his annual April vacation, discovered the robust wild wing flavor.
Mike: Based on the HBO 24/7 series, I’d say Boudreau’s favorite wing sauce flavor is Cookies n’ Cream Ice Cream.

TPL: True or False: Jason Arnott, at this advanced stage in his career, is a better fit to replace PJ Crowley than he is on the Caps current roster.

Mila Kunis, Natalie Portman - photo via awardsdaily.com

Mike: False; in fact, by Detroit standards, Arnott’s career is just beginning. Though I did hear Lidstrom is a strong candidate to replace Regis.
Lis: Plus, Arnott’s been the Ronald Reagan to ending Alex Semin’s Cold War. So keep Arnott in hockey, please.

TPL: True or False: The movie Eastern Promises was based on Semyon Varlamov’s upbringing as a Russian mob boss before he broke into the NHL.

Lis: False, but we do suspect Semyon gave Robert Pattinson his big break by turning down the role of Edward in Twilight (see Varly’s roster headshot on Caps’ website).

TPL: ….and on a Black Swan-related note, Mila or Natalie?

Alex: This is more difficult to figure out than Macaulay Culkin. Seriously, what was he thinking? However, blue-wigged stripper Alice in Closer is making me think twice about Portman.
Married Mike: Neither. Pre-married Mike: Both

Now check out TPL in the hot seat.

The team itself showed up big time, in primetime, under the lights and in the rain. Boudreau said following the win that it was more than “just a game” – there was a desire to show people who were completely foreign to the sport how exciting it can be.

Even for the lifetime Caps fan, however, the game delivered excitement. A John Erskine fight, a Capitals comeback goal in the second period from Mike Knuble after the Pens’ Evgeni Malkin scored on a breakaway, holding Sidney Crosby pointless, and unanticipated  superpower from Eric Fehr should all make Capitals fans feel off to a good start in 2011.

Memorable episodes often seem pass by at the speed of light, and the Capitals’ Mathieu Perreault – who, since he’s split time between the Capitals and their AHL affiliate’s rosters this season, had to live with the uncertainty for several months of whether he would be in the Caps’ locker room for the Winter Classic — agreed that this game went by at a faster pace than most.

“Yeah, I think it went by pretty quick,” Perreault said, but added, “I think we enjoyed, really enjoyed our time.”

Perreault also acknowledged the side effects of the rain that came down frequently throughout the game.

“You got to keep things really simple,” Perreault said of playing on that type of ice surface. “You can’t try too much ‘cause [the] puck won’t follow and just bounce everywhere.”

But, in the end, “It bothers me more when I was on the bench than on the ice,” Perreault said.

“You had to sit on the edge of the bench,” Knuble chuckled, explaining that sitting at the back guaranteed a wet seat. He added that the ice actually felt different — indicating for the better — after the second period.

Perreault, still bearing the scars of a broken nose from last Sunday’s game in Carolina, also spent a brief moment down on the ice after an encounter with one of the Penguins’ players left him helmetless and caused a minor nose bleed.

“I think that guy know maybe I had a broken nose, and he’s trying to get my nose, and I was just trying to get out of the way,” said Perreault. In typical hockey-player fashion, however, he dismissed the injury.

“I’m alright,” he said.

If the Capitals showed up tonight, so did their fans. Alex Ovechkin’s postgame comments on the Caps crowd at Heinz Field may not quite be numerically accurate, but, on a road trip that saw its fair share of noticeably awkward demonstrations, the Capitals captain still found the bright side.

“You can hear when we score goals how many people was fans of Washington,” he said. “I can see a thousand people in one spot, a thousand people upstairs, it was really unbelievable. When it was the National Anthem, and they are screaming, like, it was unbelievable.

There’s only one downside to the Capitals’ victory this evening: in a sport known for its superstitions, it’s important to remember that each road team in the Winter Classic made it to the Stanley Cup finals that same year, only to lose.

Perreault, however, is looking at the bright side of the curse and perhaps breaking it.

“We don’t think about it – I mean, all the teams get in the finals, so it’s a good thing, so that means we’re going to get in the finals, maybe, we’ll be the first ones to win,” Perreault said.

One thing’s for sure: we can’t wait to see the next episode of HBO’s 24/7.

Mike Green Ice Crew: The defenseman helps Capitals coaches and fellow teammate patch a hole on the ice at Heinz Field.

Mike Green said after the Caps skated Friday afternoon (by 5 pm, it was still in the 50′s) that he probably skated in weather this warm before as a kid, but never with his full gear on for a full practice.

“It was different — it was getting hot out there,” he said. “It was tough to breathe out there.”

Mike Knuble leads the Capitals out of the locker rooms and to the rink for the team practice at Heinz Field.

The ice took the hardest toll, and Green had to lend a hand patching a veritable crater in the ice near one of the blue lines.

Nicklas Backstrom said he thought he’d skated in weather this warm as a kid, but he admitted the ice was soft.

The first Capital to step out on the ice was Eric Fehr, though Brooks Laich wasn’t far behind. Mike Knuble led the Capitals out of the locker room, although Backstrom said the order was random.

“We just told each other we go out together, so it looks good,” Backstrom said.

Knuble said so far today that he hasn’t experienced any butterflies like those first few years in the NHL. He said it took him about three or four years in the league before nerves matured into a more focused anxiousness.

“You stop getting nervous, that means, I guess, you’re not respecting the game,” Knuble said. “To do you’re best, you’ve got to be anxious a little bit.”

The Capitals also had a family skate after they completed practice today (the Penguins did the same). Matt Bradley was on the ice briefly with the Capitals when they first came to the rink, but he did not practice with them.

The NHL has also announced that, due to the rain in the forecast, the league will delay puck drop tomorrow. The new start time is 8 pm, which means you’ll get the best of two sports worlds — night lights and outdoor hockey.

Nicklas Backstrom practices at Heinz Field.

• Myles told us that getting prepared for the Winter Classic has actually been about a four-to-five month project. Miniscule details have to be approved, even down to the nature of a sticker that gets affixed on a helmet.

• NFL gear that Myles has in store for the guys — should it be needed — includes the eye-black football players commonly wear to combat the sun and glare, and wide receiver gloves for warmth.

• Again, something Corey mentioned in his piece and Myles also confirmed with us was that the benches are heated. But of course the challenge this weekend for both the Caps and Pens appears to be less about staying warm and more about remaining dry.

• The Caps have been going through “dress rehearsals” for this Winter Classic since December 17th, which basically means wearing different parts of the January 1 uniform in practice.

• Glare and wind. These are the outdoor conditions that Capitals players have most commonly referenced this week as concerns/challenges related to the game. Even in overcast conditions glare can be an obstacle. Those of you who attended Wednesday’s outdoor practice in Chevy Chase, Md., noticed how liberally all Capitals skaters applied eye-black; that’s to address visions issues related to sun and glare. And Bruce Boudreau noted that even something as seemingly modest as a 2-mile-per-hour breeze alters the passing and playmaking conditions NHLers are used to indoors.

• Ironically, the presence of 70,000 spectators at Heinz Field Saturday isn’t expected to pose a communications challenge for Capitals’ coaches and trainers and their players on the ice. The rink is set well within the stadium, well away from spectators. Moreover, in previous Winter Classics — and especially with the 2003 Heritage Classic that inaugurated all this outdoor fun — fans have been so layered and bundled up it’s difficult for them to make noise with anything but their voices.

“I literally burst into tears,” she said, recalling the Red Wings-Blackhawks outdoor game.

The mother of the Capitals’ remarkably impressive young rearguard realizes that dream this Saturday, when her son — still an NHL rookie — will be an important part of the Washington Capitals team that travels to Heinz Field to play the Penguins in this year’s Winter Classic. It’s  a massive stage for any NHL player, but Angela says she hopes the one piece of motherly advice John remembers throughout his career is something her father shared with her about staying grounded.

“I tell John what my father always told me: remember who you are,” Angela said.

Of his take on playing in the Classic, she says, “He knows it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

The game will bring out the tough as well as the tender side of Angela and other supporters in the stands. Hockey players are notoriously tough; but while John Carlson plays outside in likely inclimate weather, his mom stands and cheers in it.  And she’s prepared to do that again January 1^st, should gameday buck meteorologists’ current April-like predictions  of rain and instead follow in previous Winter Classic tradition.

Angela  said the coldest she’s ever been watching her son play the game was during his time in youth hockey, when John and his brother would have back-to-back games.  Though it was an indoor rink, there were no stands, so Angela spent the games standing on concrete close to the playing surface and remembers being so cold that she could barely lift her legs to get in the car afterward.

Then there was last year’s World Junior Hockey Championship in Saskatoon, where her son would eventually score the game and gold-medal winning goal for Team USA, when 35 degree-below weather greeted her every time she stepped outdoors.

The main constant in Carlson’s big career moments seems to be the presence of supportive family members to witness them. Carlson has had family present for last year’s World Juniors in Canada, the Calder Cup Game 6 in Hershey, Pa., in the spring, when the Bears won the Calder on home ice for the first time in nearly three decades, and now a sizable Carlson cheering section — of  almost 30 — at Heinz Field, where they’ll be well armored for this year’s Winter Classic with footwarmers, handwarmers, and ski apparel, should the forecast call for it.

“We basically broke out ski equipment,” mom said when asked for tips for Caps fans on how to stay warm if they’re attending the outdoor game.

The biggest Winter Classic-related challenge for the rookie has been some of the off-ice logistics, such as coordinating with the team to get tickets for those coming to watch him play.  Two tickets were issued to each Capitals player, but there was also a block of seats and hotel rooms that the Capitals had set aside for family and friends. Angela said the Carlson group will be spending New Year’s Eve at one of the hospitality suites in the hotel, though Caps nation hope to be celebrating a victory the following evening as well.

College hockey has gotten into the outdoor fun in recent years. Wisconsin defeated Ohio State 4-2 in the first-ever hockey game played at Lambeau Field back in February of 2006, with Hershey Bears’ forward Andrew Joudrey scoring in the game. Beantown puck rivals Boston University and Boston College faced off at Fenway Park this past January a week after the Winter Classic between Philly and the Bruins. But college hockey — heck, any level of hockey — has no precedent for what’s coming its way this December in Ann Arbor.

Heinz Field of course is home to the Steelers, and that begins and ends the NHL’s association with football next New Years Day. The goalposts should have been ditched, goal nets placed in the end zones instead, and the substance of the presser should have focused on past, present and future animosity as it relates to one of hockey’s great rivalries.

In an era of UFC, some Hatfield and McCoys in skates would have worked magnificently out on Heinz Field last week, but it wasn’t to be, because there’s a huge hit or huge miss tact the league takes to marketing our game. On the one hand we receive gems such as the pitch-perfect, highly amusing and entertaining 30-second spots that run throughout the season on the NHL Network. Some celebrate hockey’s inter-generational appeal, others the physical and emotional sacrifices associated with the pursuit of the Stanley Cup. Still others are just laugh out loud funny. The success of those spots is attributable to their celebration of hockey’s intrinsic spirit. Last week at Heinz Field the league took the opposite approach. All of the longstanding spirit of the Caps-Pens was AWOL. It was a great opportunity missed.

Touting the Caps-Pens rivalry isn’t to diminish the other great rivalries in the NHL, but next New Years Day represents the first instance of the league marrying its great new success, the Winter Classic, with one of its great storylines of every season. The Associated Press believes this is the greatest rivalry in all of hockey:

“The rivalry already is so good — the teams’ seven-game Eastern Conference playoff series two seasons ago was one of the NHL’s most compelling in years — Crosby doesn’t believe it will intensify by moving outdoors.

“I don’t think you can imagine it being more intense than it already is,” Crosby said.

The megawatt presence of Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby to these franchises has only catapulted the rivalry into must-see moments for sports fans generally. It’s a wonder this game didn’t inaugurate the Winter Classic.

But last Tuesday we had images of Sidney Crosby and Mike Knuble holding footballs and yucking it up. Why?

Here’s what ought to have transpired out on Heinz Field instead last week: key figures from the current teams should have been joined by alumni from Caps-Pens battles of yesteryear, and players present and past should have taken turns relating anecdotes of their great and fierce battles as they related to this rivalry.

photo by the Associated Press

On Sidney Crosby’s first-ever visit to Washington years ago I had a chance to interview him in the visitor’s locker room after a game, and the very first thing I asked him was to what extent was he aware of the Caps-Pens years-long poisonous relations. I was pleasantly shocked at his reply. He told me that he spent a fair portion of the previous summer pouring over vintage Caps-Pens games, precisely because so many in the Penguins’ organization had prioritized the rivalry for him. He spoke eloquently of the rivalry’s meaning even as a newcomer to it. I almost liked him for that.

Ironically, away from Heinz Field, Pittsburgh’s Max Talbot got to the heart of the matter by going on local radio and launching the latest missile in this ice war. He reiterated his hatred of the Washington hockey team and its star. Talbot’s radio rant was this Winter Classic’s most salient and sellable moment to date. It was a  moment that no doubt made Gary Bettman and his marketing team cringe, while all hockey fans savored it. That moment should have teed off an in-kind roundtable of reflection down on Heinz Field about what will make next January 1 so special in the young legacy of the Winter Classic. Instead we saw mostly a bunch of Canucks tossing around a football and firing pucks between the wrong set of goalposts, looking silly.

Let it be a teaching moment for the league’s marketers: for the league’s showcase event of its regular season, trust in the intrinsic value of our great game, as you sometimes do, and most especially capitalize on one of its most compelling features: warriors, generation after generation, bearing a common crest, going to war against a hated neighbor. The names and numbers of the warriors in this special engagement change, however the hatred never abates. There’s a fierceness and intensity to the matchups between these storied rivals that I think is unrivaled anywhere else in the league, and next New Years Day, the battle takes place in a Roman Coliseum-sized setting.