Commissioner Gary Bettman addressed D.C.’s bid to host the Classic thusly:

“We could not help but be impressed by the fan interest and the possibilities in Washington, D.C., so our plan is to do an outdoor game in Washington in the next two to three years. We think that will be an excellent venue, opportunity, market, fanbase for us to connect with with this event as well.”

But for now, Caps fans, start looking for hotels (or friends’ couches) to ring in the new year in Pittsburgh. For more, including reactions from Dick Patrick and Mike Knuble, check out the Caps’ official announcement here. And sign up here to get ticket information from the team once it’s available.

It’s been a while since we first fell head over heels for hockey, and for the Washington Capitals in particular . . . but there are new folks discovering the Capitals all the time, experiencing that new-relationship thrill with their new dance partner.

Mrs. OrderedChaos’ coworker Megan has never been to a Capitals game. Her brother is a hockey fan living in Upstate New York, but her family overall is pretty new to the sport. With her mother visiting this week, Megan decided that taking her mom (and herself) to a Caps game was a perfect activity for a visiting family member — so tonight the Capitals aren’t just hosting the Boston Bruins, but also a few brand-new fans.

Megan immediately asked my wife about hockey etiquette, and what to expect at the Verizon Center. To Mrs. OC’s credit, here are the basic rules she immediately laid out for her friend without hesitation:

• Wait for a whistle/stoppage in play to return to, or leave, your seats.
• Wear red.
• Stand up and high-five your neighbors whenever the Caps score.
• Lean back–if you lean forward (particularly in the upper deck), those behind you can’t see.

What’s the first thing Megan did upon receiving the Caps sweaters last week? Took photos of herself wearing the jerseys to taunt her brother, a Philadelphia Flyers’ fan.

It’s pretty darned cool to see a new hockey fan so excitedly embrace her hometown team — and combining that enthusiasm with taunting a Flyers fan, well, that’s just heartwarming.

So if you happen to see Megan in the stands, welcome her with a high-five or a LET’S GO CAPS.

And if you have any advice you’d want give a new Capitals fan beyond the list above — arena etiquette, team traditions, anything you think a newly-minted fan should know — feel free to add them as comments!

Photo by the Associated Press

It was one of the more improbable comebacks in Washington Capitals’ history. Down 3-0 entering the third period today to one of the best lineups in hockey, and with the world’s best player banished from their lineup early on, the Caps summoned 20 of the gutsiest minutes of their season in Sunday’s final frame, knotting the game at 3 thanks to a stirring three minutes of overwhelming dominance, going on to prevail 4-3 in overtime before a suddenly sullen United Center sellout and a national television audience.

With the victory the Capitals reached and passed 100 points on the season in just their 69th game. More importantly, they passed a high-profile gut-check with resounding success, overcoming an opening 40 minutes of lethargic and uninspired play with a third period for the ages. They outshot the Blackhawks 11-1 in the final 20 minutes. In overtime, they triumphed on an end-to-end strike from their super Swede, Nicklas Backstrom.

But much of what is discussed about Sunday’s game will focus on yet another Alexander Ovechkin act of aggression. Ovechkin was ejected little more than midway through Sunday’s matinee for a boarding penalty against Brian Campbell.

“I don’t think it was a real good check. He just kind of fell, and it was a dangerous moment,” the Capitals’ captin said. “It was not a hard hit. I just wanted to push him,” Ovi added.

“I didn’t hit him hard. I pushed him, but he fell bad. It probably looks bad. I thought it was going to be two minutes, but the linesman came to me and said ‘Game over.’”

Here’s where some amazing luck arrives. Sunday marked Ovechkin’s 41st game since his last boarding penalty, and per league rules, any player who goes half a season without a repeat offense has his offender’s slate wiped clean. So Ovechkin will at least avoid an automatic suspension. League enforcement czar Colin Campbell, however, could review the play and impose a subsequent suspension on the left wing.

But it was a comeback to remember, and the OFB team reflected upon it with a few early St. Patty’s celebration sodas:

pucksandbooks: Three key achievements now seem to suggest a potentially historic hockey season in D.C.:  the third period comeback from two goals down against the defending Stanley Cup Champion Penguins at Verizon Center on February 7; the team-best 14-game winning streak of mid-January into early February; and Sunday’s stunning three-goal, third period comeback in Chicago, against the Cup-contending Hawks.

It may be true that much of the national television viewing audience Sunday knew little of Nicklas Backstrom’s fast-rising standing as one of hockey’s most impressive talents. He became a good deal better known, however, based on his overtime heroics.

What was so notable about Backstrom’s game-winner was how close he came to earning game-goat status instead. He coughed up the puck near his own blueline at the end of his shift, and Troy Brouwer went in on Jose Theodore on a virtual breakaway. But Backstrom didn’t give up on the play, and his stick-check of Brouwer may have saved the game. That he gathered the puck in the far corner and proceeded to maneuver his way 200 feet around the through Hawks and scored unassisted made him Sunday’s first star.

Jason Chimera had I thought his best game as a Washington Capital. When the rest of his team seemed sheepish and shell-shocked at Ovechkin’s departure, Chimera skated his arse off, and made life difficult for Chicago’s defenders with regular bull-rushes from the outside. He showed me real leadership with Washington’s captain gone.

OrderedChaos: The Washington Post declared that Sunday’s matinee match-up “may be a preview of the Stanley Cup finals.” After the thrilling ending in Chicago today, NBC must be salivating at that prospect.

What a stunning comeback for the Washington Capitals — a team-defining victory on a national stage. The Caps managed to play just 20-something minutes of good hockey, yet came away with two points, passing the 100-point mark with 13 games remaining. Mind you, their opponent was no cellar-dweller either, but rather the class of the West.

Alex Ovechkin’s early ejection clearly rattled the team (the call, borderline in even Mike Milbury’s opinion, is what it is). Bruce Boudreau and his charges were slow to adapt, though to be fair, losing Ovi isn’t an easy mid-game adjustment. By the third period, though, the team had mustered an impressive momentum that seemed to shock the suddenly reeling ‘Hawks.

Nicklas Backstrom sealed the win by proving (again) that he’s among the best in the league. His initial fumble at the blueline he swiftly remedied with an impressive backcheck, then finally an end-to-end rush that yielded the game-winning goal. He quarterbacked the 3-on-2 break to perfection, calmly coordinating the rush while speeding up the ice. I’ve watched the sequence several times, and his finishing move at the end is one of the prettiest goals of the year. But the play taken as a whole? Even better.

Since the Olympic break, it’s safe to say that the Cardiac Caps are back. Sure, the team sometimes lets an advantage slip through its fingers, but at the same time no opponent’s lead is safe — and more often than not, it’s the Caps leaping in celebration at the end of each roller-coaster game.

Gary: These are not your father’s Caps. Heck, these aren’t even your Caps from just a couple years ago. There was a time when you would throw in the towel down two or three goals — like with pre-lockout NHL hockey. Not so any more. The Caps are seemingly especially dangerous falling behind by multiple goals deep into games. Even without the two-time MVP, this team is able to roll through three goals in under three minutes to tie a game and then put it away in OT. Once it puts its collective mind to it this team is dominant, with an exciting style and fast-paced tempo. These are the days you’ll tell your kids and grandkids about (while sounding like that crazy old man/woman).

DC Sports Chick: It’s too bad that today’s game will be overshadowed by all the outrage over Ovechkin’s hit on Campbell, because it truly was a contest for the ages.  I was in the car this afternoon and couldn’t see it, but I was able to get the Chicago feed of the game via satellite radio. It made me remember games from not so long ago when the Caps would have the lead and other teams would battle back to win it, on a seemingly regular basis. It’s encouraging that the Caps are now the ones to turn the game around in their favor; the win is even more of a statement that they can get it done without their star player.  Today’s game was a sign of positive growth for the team and tells the world that they’re heading in the right direction.

Alex: Chicago is an equal among top teams in the league, and their first two periods had me worrying about what might happen in a post-season matchup in June. But then I saw that teams as good as Chicago (and Washington) can struggle at any given time in a game. The Hawks’ stifling every Caps breakout attempt and puck possession in the first two periods were intimidating . . . as were the referees’ early calls, but Washington’s active defense and composed forwards in the third period and OT helped DC overcome the greatest of challenges, being down 0-3 going into the third period to a top-3 team in the NHL. Goaltending wasn’t too shabby, either.

The Capitals continue on the road this week with three games in the Southeast. Those games, much like the ones they faced against division foes at home last week, present potential problems with incentives almost as small as the crowds watching them will be. It was interesting for us this weekend to hear Mike Knuble point to meaningful games among the team’s final 14 in the schedule and point to showdowns with Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Boston while not mention any from the Southeast.

Knuble on playing out the string and developing urgency: “There is not much talk about the Presidents Trophy. It is more about your overall play, you are not going to worry so much about your record. The good thing is we are going to be made to rise to a challenge. We are going to see Pittsburgh twice, Chicago and Boston, who is trying to get into the playoffs. We are going to see five or six games where you have got to play playoff caliber hockey . . . or you will get run over. It is here, it is in the room, we are not grasping at air. We just have to come out and play stronger and [there has got to be] more urgency. We have to realize the playoffs are coming and you just don’t flip the switch once the playoffs come.”

I had a chance to pose some questions to Sherburne this week about his new film, which is available on DVD for purchase now, just in time for the holiday shopping season.

OFB: What was the inspiration for pursuing this project, and did the success of ‘Pond Hockey’ play a role?

Sherburne: While interviewing John Mayasich for ‘Pond Hockey’ we learned bits of the 1960 story. Fast forward a few years, and with the 50th anniversary [of the 1960 team] coming up, we dug into it more and realized what a fascinating piece of hockey history it was. And yes, absolutely, the response to Pond Hockey proved that there were plenty of rink rats hungry for more hockey movies.

OFB: How many of the ’60 guys did you actually get to interview? What surprised you most or stuck with you most about what they had to say?

Sherburne: We interviewed 11 of the surviving 16 members of the team (the original squad was a lean 17 players, one coach, one general manager and one trainer). Two things really stuck in my head after talking with these guys. One, their humility. I think hockey players in general are more humble than many athletes, but these guys were gold medalists . . . they had a right to be a little arrogant. Instead they were gracious, humble guys who were proud of the opportunity they had to play for an Olympic medal. Two, there was so little fanfare for this team. Sure, there were a few hometown parades, but John Mayasich accepted his gold medal on a Sunday and was back at work Monday morning selling TV ads. He kept his gold medal under the front seat of his car. Jack Kirrane had to take a leave of absense from his regular job as a firefighter. When he came back as an Olympic champion what thanks did he get? He was passed over for a promotion because of a break in service. There were no White House visits, no Wheaties boxes and no speaking tours for these players.

OFB: If you had to distill the special quality of our ’60 team into a single sentence, what would that be?

Sherburne: This team had two things going for them: one, they were good enough to win the gold medal and two, nobody knew they were good enough to win the gold medal.

OFB: When you spoke with the ’60 guys, to the extent that you asked them, what were their thoughts on the ’80 Miracle team and the coverage they’ve enjoyed and the niche they’ve earned relative to ’60? I mean, did you two sense any resentment or anything that could be characterized like that?

Sherburne: There’s certainly a big difference in the recognition the two teams have gotten over the years and these guys are aware of it, but there’s no sense of bitterness. If anything, they just marvel at the hype surrounding any modern athletic achievement. These guys were playing to win no doubt, but back then sports were sports. That generation grew up in the shadow of World War II, so heroics had a different meaning back then. And those guys will tell you, nobody was cheering harder in 1980 than the members of the 1960 team.

OFB: It’s been said that ’80 could never happen again. (I believe this.) Could ’60, do you think?

Sherburne: It’s been 50 years and it hasn’t yet. As you mention, even ’80 wasn’t the same as ’60. The Olympics are simply different now. That said, will the United States ever be favored to win gold in ice hockey? So winning the Olympics again…it might take another miracle.

A good many  OFB readers joined us at the Avalon Theater last year for a screening of ‘Pond Hockey,’ but with this film Sherburne and Haines entered into an agreement with the United States Olympic Committee that doesn’t allow for commercial screenings. That doesn’t mean, however, that they can’t come to D.C. and host a free screening of the film, and given the evening we had together a year ago, they are thinking about that. But why wait? The new DVD can be in your hockey home this holiday season. Here’s the trailer for ‘Forgotten Miracle’:
 

Forgotten Miracle Trailer from Houndstooth on Vimeo.

I watched Wednesday night’s Detroit-Dallas game on the NHL Network within a morbid context. On my commute home last night I read ‘Detroit: A City on the Brink,’ published last month in The Week magazine. I recommend it as must-reading for all hockey fans and every American.

The narrative in this piece is nothing short of harrowing. Most Americans I think have a general/vague notion of how tough times are in Michigan generally (the nation’s highest unemployment rate — by far) and Detroit most particularly. But I wonder how many know just how truly desperate times are in the Motor City? This is how the Week’s dissection of Detroit begins:

“Outside the city’s downtown core of office buildings, Detroit looks like a postapocalyptic nightmare. The collapse of the auto industry, political dysfunction, and epidemics of crime, drugs, and arson have battered Detroit like a slow-motion hurricane, leveling entire neighborhoods and causing a major chunk of the population to flee. Nearly 30 percent of the city, an area almost the size of San Francisco, has been abandoned to “urban prairie”—vast, depopulated stretches of high grass and shattered asphalt. An Asian plant species sometimes called “ghetto palm” sprouts from the remains of abandoned buildings, where wild pheasants are occasionally sighted. The torched skeletons of homes are commonplace. In the 1980s and ’90s, demolition permits outnumbered building permits by more than 10–1. Nearly 30 percent of the city’s remaining housing stock—more than 100,000 units—lies vacant.

Wild pheasants roaming downtown?

(To be fair, wild pheasants could be said to be governing our Metrorail system.)

The data about Detroit is more than damning — it’s jaw-droppingly frightening.

• In July, the median Detroit home price was $7,000. “That’s not a typo,” the Week points out.
• The Detroit public school system today is so bad that it is under emergency control of the state.
• Detroit’s population in 1950 was 1.85 million. Today it is 770,000 — or about the size of Winnipeg.
• Half of Detroit’s children live in poverty; one-quarter of the adult population didn’t graduate from high school. The median household income is about half the national average.
• “This is a whole city that is poor,” says Wayne State University professor Robin Boyle.

Even the little good news in Detroit is bad. When the homicide rate dropped 14 percent last year, a mayoral candidate quipped, “I don’t mean to be sarcastic, but there just isn’t anyone left to kill.”

You may have seen the news of just this week of the sale of the Pontiac Silverdome, longtime home of the NFL’s Lions. It was built in 1975 for $55 million. A Super Bowl was played there. It sold on Wednesday for less than $600,000.

A colleague in my office yesterday pointed out to me a gross irony about Detroit’s demise. He asked me if I’d seen Clint Eastwood’s remarkable film ‘Gran Torino.’ I told him I had. He then asked me if I knew where it had been shot. I didn’t. The movie concludes with a white-knuckle, intergenerational, shoot-’em-up showdown. I won’t spoil it for you in case you haven’t seen it, but the film’s producers needed a neighborhood in which fantastic destruction could take place without anyone really noticing. They chose Detroit, and in point of fact the city has become a popular Hollywood destination for shooting similar destructive sequences – there’s no around to much care about the havoc.

Without injecting too much partisan political science into this tragic tale, does Detroit’s story give you any pause at all about one-party control of a large municipality, uninterrupted, for decades?

I’m not sure how much the NBA would miss the Pistons, the NFL the Lions, or Major League Baseball the Tigers, but I’m quite sure that the NHL would miss the Wings. They aren’t just an Original Six franchise, and the home away from home of Mr. Hockey, among numerous other hockey legends; in a very real sense the Wings are the flagship franchise of the league. But if a city is dying — and Detroit most assuredly is — how can anyone reasonably forecast a long-term future for any sports team there? Put another way: were Detroit with its existing population and poisonous socio-economic conditions today without a pro sports franchise, where among all American cities do you imagine it’d rank as an expansion candidate?      

Professional sports teams lost in a city in our contemporary experience always suffered from egregiously bad management and or ownership, and so we had easy scapegoats, but today Harvard economists are at pains to forecast a when and how of a durable turnaround from the catastrophic economic constriction here of the past couple of years. Worse, it’s generally believed that the U.S. will lag behind the rest of the globe in the recovery. Sports in our culture has ever been a distraction from tough times; today it’s naive to think it can’t be caught up in them.    

Dallas defeated Detroit last night at the Joe, 3-1. But that’s the least of this city’s worries.

• It’s an astounding statistic: the Caps have led in every single one of the 21 games they’ve played this season.
• For the wrong reason there’s a can’t-avert-your-eyes quality to Matt Bradley’s fights, as he so often engages true heavyweights and thereby comes out on the worst end of so many of them, and this again happened in last night’s first period at Madison Square Garden. You watch Bradley’s battles and hold your breath that he doesn’t get hurt too badly. Bradley’s a middleweight, and he backs down from no battle, and I’d be one to suggest that his extraordinary sacrifice midway through the first period carried a significant bearing on the Caps’ play the remainder of the period and throughout the second frame. He departed the ice looking like a Halloween night massacre at the hands of Aaron Voros, and then of course came back and had strong shift after strong shift, capped by his brilliant play along the boards — directing the puck through the legs of Wade Redden, New York’s $8 million dollar man — before water bottling a beauty behind King Henrik. Officially Matt Bradley was identified as the game’s third star, but he was hands down no. 1 on my blog.

At the end of his engagement Bradley appeared to ask a linesman if he was bleeding! A Toro Voros lawnmower had ridden over his face. If you are newly conscripted in the Red Army and not quite fluent with the role that violence plays in our sport, I’d be one to suggest that the Caps may well not have prevailed last night absent Bradley’s aggregate sacrifices. Hockey requires warrior effort and sacrifice, particularly in a game between two evenly matched clubs, and last night the Caps got just that from Brads.

• Beast (Bradley) and the Beauty: I was introduced to Charissa Thompson in high definition on last night’s broadcast. Youth movements well serve hockey teams, and apparently they do so as well for hockey television broadcast teams. No wonder Ovi wanted to get back in the lineup for this game — he was interviewed by her twice last night. It’s going to be a warmer winter than I imagined.
• I call it Mike Green’s lateral ballet coiling action at the point, when the puck comes back to him with time and space and he begins his effortless, ever so agile hot-steppin toward a shooting lane, five defenders more or less helpless at that point. Sergei Gonchar was lethal on the pinch and especially on the weakside one-timer goalies never saw, but he could never butterfly across the blueline like Greener does.
• Once again I liked what I saw from Mathieu Perreault, particularly in the faceoff circle. Did you notice how MP created a terrific scoring chance in period two while carrying the puck down the right wall, with two Rangers’ defenders perfectly positioned, with a simple saucer flick of his wrists that bounced the puck dangerously across Lundqvist’s crease and among his linemates? He can make something out of nothing, which premiere playmakers tend to do. Terrific feature on MP that ran on NHL.com yesterday.

photo by Bruce Bennett, Getty Images

• Cheapshot punk Sean Avery sucker-punched Semyon Varlomov in the head in plain view of the Zebra 20 feet away, John Erskine responded as he should have, and our guy was banished to the box. A Brian Pothier penalty followed not long after, the Caps couldn’t kill both, and the game was unjustly tied. Which made Matt Bradley’s late-game heroics all the sweeter.
• The scoresheet shows Ovi with just a single shot on goal (a successful one at that), but you’d have to label it a fantastic return performance. He had 7 hits that seemed like 70 ferocious ones against skaters in blue shirts. In fact, when the Rags were seriously pressing in the Caps’ end midway through the final frame Ovi went up the ice at last with the puck and made like the proverbial bull in a china shop, stalking Lundqvist with his powerful drive wide strides, swirling back again dangerously behind the cage, and then going on a one-man missile mission of hitting Rangers who’d taken the puck away from him. They were like bowling pins falling down. The shift reversed the game’s momentum.    
• A great road game by the Caps? You betcha. They weathered an early Ranger storm, seemed bolstered by Bradley’s bravado, carried the play for pretty much the game’s middle 30 minutes, overcame some third-frame zebra malfeasance, and perservered against a quality club.
• Bruce Boudreau became the fastest coach to 100 wins in Capitals history, and the 4th fastest in NHL history. I hope he got interviewed afterward by Charissa.

With tonight’s win, Head coach Bruce Boudreau leaves tonight’s game with a 100-45-19 record in 164 career games behind the Capitals’ bench. He is the fifth Capitals head coach to win 100 games and the fastest to reach that milestone. He is the fourth fastest coach to reach 100 wins in NHL history, trailing only Tom Johnson (138 games), Mike Keenan (152) and Terry Crisp (158).
Information provided by the Caps Media Relations Department

Goalie Jose Theodore has returned to Washington for personal reasons, and the Caps have recalled Michal Neuvirth and Jay Beagle ahead of tonight’s game against the Rangers.

“He’s got to learn the situations of the game still and when he can try [fancy] moves like that,” Bonzai observed, alluding to the failed Semin razzle-dazzle against the Islanders earlier in the week that led to a breakaway score on Jose Theodore.

“He will.”

“He’s better in all areas [of the ice].”

Bondra didn’t refute any of the litany of concerns I identified in Semin’s game, but he stressed the winger’s unique gifts and the improvements he’s seen in the past couple of seasons. He also suggested that hockey players from all cultures have varied learning curves and time tables for their maturation. Bondra noted that he roomed with Semin on the road way back during the Russian winger’s first season in D.C., during the 2003-04 season. Semin played 52 games with the Caps that season, scoring 22 points, but one night he returned to his hotel room 5 minutes past curfew, and Bondra let him know about it.

“I said to him, ‘This is not how it’s done,’ and it never happened again. This is why I think he will learn.”          

Peter the Great also told me he believes that Semin’s shot ranks among the very best in the world.

“Only three guys in the world shoot like that — Ovi, [Ilya] Kovalchuk and Semin.”