The final period

Russ Grimm and the other hogs lead Riggo against the Cowboys

I have waited a few days to write about Russ Grimm’s induction into the football hall of fame because I wanted some time to gather my thoughts.  Like just about everyone, I think he deserves to go to the hall of fame.  In many ways, he represents the heart and soul of all thsoe great Redskins teams.  Without him, John Riggins and Art Monk don’t look as good on offense, nor does Joe Gibbs look as good as an offensive innovator.  After all, Gibbs needed an athletic yet strong guard to be able to run all of the counter run plays he utilized. Aside from Darrel Green, who represented the many stout defenses we had from 1982 through 1992, Grimm is indeed the last element to complete the Washington Redskins’ championship tapestry in Canton, Ohio which includes, of course, three super bowls victories. 

Let me just say one more thing about Russ Grimm – he was truly great.  People sometimes ooh and ahh about defenses these days, but the list of folks Grimm had to go against regularly in the NFC East and in the playoffs is quite impressive.  He played against the following players in the NFC East: Randy White and Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Reggie White and Jerome Brown, Lawrence Taylor, Carl Banks, Leonard Marshall.  Add on to that the Bears front four who Grimm matched up against three times in the playoffs with the Redskins winning twice.  This defense included Richard Dent, Steve McMichael, Singletary and Wilbur Marshall – not exactly lightweights dude.  Grimm is definitely deserving. 

The question is, will anyone else from these teams great Redskin teams go? As much as I think my partner Alvin Walton deserves to be enshrined in Canton, I think not many others would agree. 

Some may think Joe Jacoby, but I feel like he will suffer from having had to go mano a mano with L.T. too often and the image of L.T. beating Jacoby on several occassions in the 1986 championship game which we lost to the Giants may be too hard to overcome for some folks.

Gary Clark was indeed great, and will always be a hero in D.C., but if it was so hard for Monk to get in, does anyone really think Clark can get in?  I think Clint Didier should get in, but I bet some of you don’t even know who he is.

Do either Charles Mann or Dexter Manley deserve to get in?  Maybe Manley because he was so dominant.  The only problem is he didn’t do it long enough.  Could Mark Mosely get in? Probably not.

Neil Olkewitz and Monte Coleman were favorites in my household, as in many other homes around here, but they’re not getting into Canton. 

Nope folks, that’s probably it.  Russ Grimm is in a will represent perhaps the only player that gets in from the greatest offensive line in football, if not the most famous.  This will put a stamp on it.  In some ways it’s good.  It’s good to not be able to touch the old days as much anymore.  As much as we wish them back, they’re getting further and furter away.  Of course, all those moment captured in grainy low-definition will always rewind in our minds as long as our hearts continue to beat as one to the our unique fight song. But in truth, maybe seeing the final stamp on our era will remind us that while only 5 men from those great teams are deserving to be among the greatest ever who have participated in the game, it is all those other guys whom I listed above, and many others whom I didn’t list, that truly were the integral pieces to those teams that produced the greatness we all remember so fondly and for which we all yearn.

This doesn’t take away from our five hall of famers and perhaps the Redskins will only return to greateness when we have at least one or two hall of famers on our team. Right now we have none. 

However, rather than always focus on finding the great players all the time, maybe the folks over in Ashburn are coming up with their own lists of all those other great players who played alongside Grimm, Monk, Riggins, Green and who played for Gibbs. Maybe coming up with these lists will help Allen, Shanahan and, dare I say, Snyder identify who on our current team has the potential to be the next Jumpy Geathers or the next Raleigh McKenzie and who perhaps could even be the next Ricky Sandersin or Ricky Ervin or Rich Milot.  These are the kind of players we need to find in order to be great again. 

I think some of these kinds of guys are on our team now and before we start looking for all of the shiny new toys from other cities, let’s try to figure out who is this team’s Jason Buck  – (Lorenzo Alexander anyone?).

With this in mind, let’s see what happens now that yet another off-season filled with hope and skepticism begins to unfold before our eyes.

The mad hatter

OV deservedly soaks in the glory of his hat trick as the Caps take their winning streak to 14 with a 5-4 win over Pittsburgh.

Damn! That was awesome, just awesome. 

I have gone on record saying at the end of the day the streak of now 14 straight games with a victory does not mean that much to me.  But I also said that I did not want it to end against the Penguins. 

Neither did OV.

What a performance.

The refs did their best to make sure the Penguins won by calling a phantom slashing call on Jeff Schultz in the game’s waning minutes thus giving the Penguins a PP, but the gods were on our side.

The Penguins were the better team for the first 20 minutes and the teams were equal in the 2nd period, but in the 3rd period, when it really counted, the Caps, led by OV, were the dominant team.   Pittsburgh had its chances, but Theo made some great saves to make sure none of those chances felt the back of the net.  The Caps kept coming in surges and OV’s two shots, the last one in particular, was so fast that live TV and even replay couldn’t really capture the puck actually going into the net.

This was the kind of game that indicated why I think sometimes people get too excited about the SOG statistic.  Yesterday Pittsburgh had 35 shots on goal, but a lot of them were much more threatening than the 43 Atlanta put on Neuvirth.  No knock on Neuvy, I’m just saying that great teams like Pittsburgh, and the Caps, maximize their true opportunities and because of their skill-level they may not settle for slap shots from the blue line, but work more creatively to get really good scoring chances.  As a result, they may have less shots, but more scoring chances as was the case yesterday.

The whole game turned when Adams drove OV into the boards head first.  Now as a Caps fan who has seen OV and Green both get suspensions for hits on the ice, how could this play not even warrant a penalty, let alone a suspension.  (Maybe the suspension is to come).  Then to top it off, the refs screwed it up even more by giving Knuble an insitigator penalty and 10-minute misconduct.  So now we were without one of our hottest scorers, the guy brought in to battle for goals against teams like the Penguins, for almost 30 minutes of game time and, on top of it, the Penguins get a power play after driving OV head-first into boards on a play that could have seriously hurt him.

What gives?  Then Orpik has the nerve to call Semin a baby after Orpik almost took out Semin’s eye with a high-stick.  I’m telling you the Penguins are easy to hate, very easy to hate.  I’m surprised Sid the baby didn’t ask the refs to pick up the hats a little quicker after OV got his hat-trick last night.

Well, all of my venom has turned into smiles today as we now have beaten Pittsburgh twice on this winning streak.  It was easy to say that it would end against Boston or NY and very plausible that it would end yesterday.  Somehow, it continues.  Now we have three days to enjoy it before the Caps take on the Habs.

Well I’ll be damned

Jason Clark scores two of his season-high 24 points in Georgetown's huge 103-90 win over Villanova in snowy D.C.

There are a lot of exciting things happening this weekend in sports in D.C., not least of which is the Caps extending their winning streak to 13 games last night and possibly, (weather permitting), putting it on the line tomorrow afternoon against the hated Penguins.  There is the Wizards, who put on a remarkable comeback against Orlando last night and were saved by Caron Butler’s heroics. 

However, if you’re like me, the game that really meant the most to local D.C. sports was this afternoon’s game between Georgetown and Villanova at the Verizon Center.   Props should go out first to all the G’town fans who braved the weather to make it out to the game and cheer on the boys against the hated Wildcats.

Georgetown played this game very aggressively from the beginning and after opening up an 23 point 1st half lead, we never let Villanova get the lead under 10 points – the line of demarcation which when crossed results in  my leg beginning to  shake uncontrollably,  me wishing I still smoked cigarettes and my stomach becoming very, shall we say,  uncomfortable.  

There were many heros.  Greg Monroe played an excellent game as did Austin Freeman.  They are both offensive power-packs and they did a lot to bring home the victory.  But the two unheralded members of the Hoyas’ starting five were the stars in my mind. 

Jason Clark was absolutely sick today with his three-point shot and his commitment to defense.  He’s not gonna shoot that well every game, but let’s face it, Georgetown, for the maybe the first time in my life, is a good shooting team.

Julian Vaughn’s biggest contribution today was his muscle down low and his excellent free-throw shooting.  One game after poor free-throw shooting led to our worst loss of the year, Julian Vaughn was the only Hoya to be perfect from the line.   His steady free-throw shooting kept Villanova at bay even after they put on a run to make the game close within the last 6 minutes.

The Hoyas had a greater will to win today.  Villanova looked a little bit like we did against Syracuse and we looked like the better team from beginning to end.  Let’s face it, when we played ‘Nova in Philly, they punched us in the gut in the 1st half, but we came all the way back.  Today, we slapped ‘Nova around in the 1st half, but they were never able to ever get the game close.  The Hoyas have 5 losses this year, but the reason they are still ranked in the top 10 in the country is because we can play with anyone.  When we are on our game, the combination of Monroe’s skill with Vaughn’s brawn, paired with the shooting of Clark, Wright and Freeman is unstoppable.  What still prevents us from being a great team is that we fall asleep sometimes  like we did against South Florida on Wednesday, but if we can put that effort behind us and play with almost as much intensity as we have in our games against Duke, Pitt and ‘Nova, there is really no telling how far we could go. 

Neuvy with 1 of his 41 saves in last night's 5-2 Caps win over Atlanta in slightly less snowy, but still pretty snowy, downtown D.C.

Now to the Caps:  I’ll be honest.  L ast night, I acted a little spoiled.  I never got too worried, nor did I ever get too excited because I kinda thought we were going to win no matter what against Atlanta.  (By the way, did you notice we almost played another NBA/NHL back-to-back if it hadn’t ben for tonight’s game being postponed because of the weather).  We gave up a lot of shots, but honestly, none of the shots were that bad.  Neuvirth had one excellent stop, but for the most part, our guys kept the Thrashers out of the crease and gave Neuvirth good vision on most everything coming his way.

We continue to get balance in our scoring and we played the game like a better team should.  We withstood their early charge, came back to take a 2-1 lead and then put the game away in the 3rd period, leaving the last 10 minutes of the game to resolve only one thing: whether the Verizon red army would walk away with wings or not.  Mike Green’s lob into Atlanta’s empty net from almost 3/4 of the rink away from gave every one in attendance some nice bar snack to look forward to.

The Caps defense did a much better job at keeping their sticks in the passing lanes and the PK was much, much better.  It’s nice to see that the 6-5 win against the Rangers was an aberration in the sense that we didn’t have a ton of stupid penalties last night and aside from Semin knocking in a goal of his own skate, would have kept a decent, a(albeit lessened without Kovalchuck) Atlanta offense to 1 goal.

I have to admit that while I have been a little blaze about this streak, I really don’t want it to end tomorrow against the Penguins.  After that, who cares?  It is amazing how the Caps are able to withstand each team’s best effort night after night and still come away with a victory.  Everyone is gunning at us and yet we still are cruising.  Don’t forget that in addition to winning 13 in a row, we have won 16 of 17 overall.

Butler puts up the game-winner as the Wizards shock the Magic 92-91 in not-at-all-snowy Orlando, Florida

On the opposite end of the spectrum rest the Wizards – a team that is the polar opposite of the Caps not only in record, but in consistency of play.  I don’t think anyone, including me, thought the Wizards were gonna win last night- NOBODY.  Especially since Orlando would have had revenge on its mind since we beat them earlier this year.  Well, the Wizards not only gave them a game, not only came back from a 21 point deficit, but they did it by outscoring Orlando by 22 points in the 3rd quarter.  Then in the 4th quarter, with the game see-sawing back and forth, the Wizards were able to pull it out.  Really, I was shocked.

Let me say this.  Saunders went to Butler and Foye over and over again the 4th quarter which is what I had been calling for during the past 2 weeks. Give credit to Flip also for calling the final play of the game for Butler, not Foye, after Butler blew Saunders off on the final play of the Dallas loss a few weeks ago. 

Butler was great last night and it makes you wonder why he did not assert himself like this earlier in the season.  Why did he all of a sudden decide to just catch and shoot instead of pump-faking 3 times? Why did he not mix his ability to jumpshoot and drive to basket better?  Like I said earlier this week, this team continues to leave me scratching my head.  Sadly for me, they still got me hooked.

Even though I don’t have much to do tonight, being snowed in and all, I’m almost happy the Wiz got postponed because I’m sure they would have come out and played like crap for 48 minutes, not just 24 like they did last night.

Friday the 13th?

Let's hear it for the two stars of the game as the Caps comeback to beat the Rangers 6-5 and extend their winning streak to 12.

Ok, I’ll be honest.  Despite all I’ve seen from the Caps this year, I honestly thought that our goose was cooked after the Rangers scored three PP goals in what seemed to be 3 minutes at the end of the 2nd period. 

Then something amazing happened.  OV netted his 2nd goal of the night – what an amazing goal it was –  simultaneously taking over the scoring and points lead in the NHL, scoring his 500th point and breathing life back into the Caps just as he had done earlier in the period with an amaazing wrist-shot that beat Lundqvist on a Washington PP.  Before that, he started a scintillating passing sequence by feeding Backstrom who somehow behind his back and through the skates of a Ranger defender, fed the puck to Knuble which good ole #22 then netted to get the Caps back even.

Yes folks, if Theo won us the game last time around, we can all thank our captain oh captain, the Great 8 for this victory.  Well him and Nicklas Backstrom.  (When are the Caps gonna extend his contract already?)

While Ovechkin and Backstrom’s performances last night were a thing of beauty, our PK was as ghastly a horror show as one could imagine.  On most occassions, the Rangers scored within 10 seconds of having the man advantage.  I can’t explain it.  We had no pressure on the point, no sticks in passing lanes.  It’s like our PK reverted to earlier in the season when we beat the Thrasers 6-5 in October.   On top of it, Theo was not on his game as he was giving up a lot of juicy rebounds and generally, aside from a couple of great saves, didn’t seem to be totally in control last night.

(Speaking of the Thrasers, I think it’s funny that now that Kovalchuck is going to the Devils, a lot of folks are picking them to be the favorites to get to the finals from the east.  I’m not saying we’re a lock to do it, but I am slowly getting an anti-Caps sentiment out of ESPN, especially led by Barry Melorse, and some of the Canadian folks on the NHL network.  If you read the Post’s blog, you know that Alan May has recently discussed TSN big-time anti-Caps feelings. I’m fine with all of that. Something else to get OV and the boys charged up).

Tom Poti is playing out of his mind recently.  I don’t where it came from.  Maybe he’s just healthy again like he said.  Keep it coming.

Let’s face it though.  As sweet as this winning streak is, if we continue to take so many penalties, we are going to start losing games in bunches.  Some of our laszy stick penalties from the beginning of the year are returning.  Backstrom and Semin both had one last night and Shaone Morrison’s interference call was dumb play on his part.  Chimera’s delay of game was bad luck, but it still hurt us.

There’s another way to look at all this.  After the games against Boston and Detroit, some folks were saying that we didn’t deserve to win because we got badly outshot, but our PK and goaltender saved our butts.  Last night, our PK and goaltender did not save our butts and we still won.  This team can win in a bunch of different ways and that’s gotta encourage us all.

Last night was an exhausting game, at least for me.  When Backstrom scored to make it 6-5, I couldn’t believe my eyes when there were almost 15 minutes left in the game.  Last night felt like two games. 

Despite all my concerns, it feels good to be a D.C. sports fan right now since we haven’t had a team play like this since the 1991 Redskins.  Let’s see what happens starting in April.

I’ve been sick

In what may be one of the saves of the year, Theo dives to paddle away a shot from the Bruins in the Caps' 4-1 victory on Tuesday night.

Yes, starting Monday night, and perhaps precipitated by the Wizards’ disheartening 4th quarter collapse against the Celtics and through late yesterday evening, punctuated by a TERRIBLE loss by Georgetown and an even worse 3rd AND 4th quarter collapse by the Wizards, I was indeed very sick.  So sick that I couldn’t even write about the Caps winning 4-1 against Boston and capturing their 11th straight game after playing one of their worst 1st periods all season.

Yes, all this happened while I was sick.  So, to all of our readers, who check in daily to see what true sports junkies like me and Walton think about our teams, I’m sorry that B2BR was tacit.

I can’t add anything to the Caps’s victory over Boston other than to say when we were only down 1-0 after the 1st period, I had a very good feeling that we could pull it out.  Only because we played so badly and I felt like we had seen everything Boston was going to throw at us.  Of course, Theo was destined to make more great saves (one is displayed above), but it was clear that as the 1st period was going that he was getting stronger in goal, moving more quickly and positioning himself even more effectively.   You could see as the game went on that his lateral movement in goal got faster.

You know that Tortorella is a prideful S.O.B. and that he is gonna have the Rangers pumped up to beat us tonight. Each game is gonna get tougher on this streak and while it truly is something to behold, I fear what will happen when it ends.  I guess it would be great if it lasted until the Olympic break and then it could end of natural causes.  We shall see.  I know I’ll be tuning in tonight.

Before last night’s game against South Florida, the Hoyas had positioned themselves perfectly to be a #2 seed in the NCAA tournament and could reasonably place themselves into consideration for a #1 seed if they won 2 out of 3 against ‘Nova, Syracuse and West VA in upcoming weeks.  That added to a strong Big East tournament could have seen us surplant ‘Nova or Syracuse as #1 seeds.  This of course assumed that we beat all the teams in our conference that we were supposed to beat.

Well that didn’t happen last night.  Georgetown came out in the 2nd half last night and assumed that South Florida would go away quietly since they trailed the Hoyas by 9 points.  The Hoyas played slow, tentative and lazy and were beaten in a game which could cost them a #2 seed.

While we do have an extremely strong RPI and do have quality wins, last night’s loss and the loss to Old Dominion could loom large in the future.  Now, it’s possible that both those teams make the tournament, but not likely.  In my mind, in addition to a strong Big East tournament, the Hoyas now have to win 2 out of 3 against the Orange, ‘Nova and W. Va to regain a #2 seed.

We shall see.

In consecutive losses to the Knicks and Celtics, the Wizards have turned the ball over too much, have had fewer assists and have been out-rebounded by both opponents.  The Wizards actually played a good game against Boston on Monday night until the 4th quarter.

When I was  a kid, I used to comment about how certain NBA teams would run plays for the same player over and over again in the 4th quarter.  Coaches would feed the ball to the hot player and even though the other team knew what was going to happen, there wasn’t much you could do about since no zone defense was allowed.  Even though zones are allowed in the NBA, teams still employ this strategy.

Why don’t the Wizards?  In the 4th quarter against the Celtics, it was clear that Miller and Butler had the hot hands, yet Jamison kept taking shots.  Saunders has got to run play-after-play for either Miller and Butler in this situation.  Yet another head-scratcher about this team…..

By the way, as great a scorer as I think he is, it is somewhat painful to see how little of an impact Jamsion makes on a game when the ball is not going in the basket for him as we’ve seen in the last few games.

So, just as  I mentioned when G’town played Pitt and the Caps played the Penguins a couple of weeks ago, we had a couple of other city vs. city back-to-backs.  I guess this kind of stuff matters to me because I imagine that in those cities, there are folks just like me who are fans of all the local teams and may notice the same trend.

For the record, if you count the NBA and NHL, we are tied 2-2 with Boston.  Similarly with New York, combining the NHL and NBA (let’s not count the Redskins to prevent us from crying), we are tied 2-2.  Let’s hope the Caps tilt the score in our favor tonight.

A Cold Day in Hell – the weekend wrap-up of D.C. sports

The top line celebrates a goal by our top player in the Caps 3-2 victory over Tampa which tied the team record for 10 consecutive wins.

Alex Ovechkin saved my hide. I almost jinxed the Caps on Saturday when I said that I couldn’t see how they could lose. Tampa gave them a good run of it, but with the game on the line, (not to mention a possible boycott of this blog), Ovechkin skated powerfully across the middle of the ice and sent a wicked wrist shot into the Tampa net.

For all the accolades the Caps have gotten recently, and deservedly so, who would have ever thought the Caps would win 10 games in row when it hadn’t been done in over 25 years? Not many folks. People would have said that there’s no way the Caps defense or goal-tending could hold up over 10 games. Well, they have.

We’ve allowed 21 goals during the winning streak and have scored 52 ourselves. Pretty unbelievable.

In fact, in the month of January, we have only given up 35 goals during 15 games and have scored 78. Not as awesome, but still pretty good.

I found it interesting yesterday that under the pressure of maintaining our winning streak against the last team to beat us, in the final minutes of the game, OV came up huge with another signature goal, while Lecavalier, the Tampa team captain, came up small, being excused from the face-off circle with 2 seconds left in the game and his team desperately needing a face-off win to get one last chance to tie the game. To make matters worse, he must have said something pretty bad to get himself a penalty which essentially ended the game by shifting the face-off to the other end of the ice in front of the Tampa net.

Besides, Steckel would have probably won the draw anyway.

The Caps got a little lucky with a few shots going off the post yesterday, but got unlucky with a puck bouncing over Fleischmann’s stick with an open net staring him in the face, not to mention that the refs called a phantom hook on Backstrom which led to Tampa’s 2nd goal.

Julian Vaughn dunks on Duke as the Hoyas rout the Blue Devils 89-77 in front of Obama, Biden and 20,000 screaming Hoya fans.

On Saturday, Georgetown’ stifling defense forced the Blue Devils into a lot of turnovers and some cold shooting. The Hoyas on the other hand dominated on the offensive end – they had two unbelievable streaks: one where they made 10 shots in a row and another where they scored on 13 straight possessions.

Our starting line-up was great and slowly, but surely, our bench is getting better. Benimon is becoming more of a force on the glass and Hollis Thompson is beginning to hit some shots. You don’t have to have a very deep bench to be a championship team, but you have to have something. Right now, we have a little something.

I’ll be honest in saying that while I was psyched to see Georgetown pound Duke, led by one of the biggest jack-asses in sports in Coach K, I didn’t get all the hype for this game. I guess Duke is a big name and all, but I honestly thought the Hoyas were a better team coming into the game and obviously the game proved that.

This game did not make up for our losses to Syracuse and ‘Nova and the really big games on our schedule start this weekend when ‘Nova comes to town. If we beat them, it will not only put a smile on my face, but prove our merit as a big-time team.

Finally, the Wizards beat the Knicks on Saturday night. The hero of the night was Mike Miller who seemingly hit every big shot for the Wizards, made every big assist, made every big rebound and was the only person determined to try to stop David Lee of the Knicks.

It was amazing to see the contrast in atmopshere between the Wizards game and the Hoyas game, but I guess that is to be expected. D.C. is a big basketball town and when big basketball games happen to one of its teams, like it did for the Hoyas on Saturday afternoon, people show up. (By the way, anyone wanna go with me to the ‘Nova game with me this Saturday?)

Anyway, back to the Wizards. Mike Miller was basically the point guard for the team during the 1st quarter, which has to rank as one of the three best quarters we have played all season. I wonder whether Miller should play that role more often. Because of his contributions, the whole Wizards starting 5 finished + for the game while the whole 2nd team finished -. (I actually thought Blache and Young played pretty well though). Anyway, I’ve been saying it all year, Mike Miller is the most valuable player on this team and whatever happens to the rest of this year, the Wizards should place re-signing him at the top of their “to do list” for next year.

Now, can Miller lead us to victory against the Celtics – who just got their hearts crushed by the man who doesn’t like to leave “anything in the chamber” (by the way, is Kobe Bryant going to get suspended or is David Stern just annoyed?) – only on a cold day in hell.

Mike Miller, who did practically everything on Saturday night for the Wiz, boxes out ex-Wiz Jared Jeffries as Jamison corrals a rebound in the Wizards 106-96 win at Verizon.

What’s gonna work?………TEAM WORK

Mike Knuble assists Nicklas Backstrom score the Caps 1st goal last night in their 4-1 win over Florida. Knuble himself had two goals to bring up his total to 12 goals in the last 11 games.

It’s funny because last night, there were periods of time, just like there were against Anaheim on Wednesday night, where the Caps did not look like the better team on the ice.  Yet, just as against Anaheim, the game was even.  Then as I continued to watch, I realized that Florida, like Anaheim, was absolutely playing it’s butt off and at the end of the day, it still couldn’t muster more than a tie against the Caps.  Then, just as they did against Anaheim, the Caps turned on the jets and allowed us in the waning minutes to ponder not whether the Caps would win, but whether the Caps would treat another sell-out crowd at Verizon center to a set of free wings. 

No wings, but two more points for the Caps.

The big news of the night was Mike Green’s injury which thankfully does not seem that severe.  As I write this, news is out that Green will be suspended for 3 games for his elbow against the Panthers player.  After seeing the replay, I think Green did allow his elbow to leave his body a little bit, but since he is a 1st time offender, I don’t get such a harsh penalty. 

What bothers me more is that the Panthers player was not whistled or suspended for a hit that in my opinion was much like the one OV was suspended for a couple of months ago.

It’s almost like the league wants to suspend the Caps since we are the most high-scoring and exciting team in the sport.  By suspending the team that draws the most fans in the NHL, the league is saying that it won’t tolerate hits it deems to be over the top.  The problem I have with this, like all such penalties, is that other players who commit much dirtier plays, (a.k.a Mike Richards in Philly), knock players out for the season without reprecussion.

Double standards are a bitch and we seem to be falling on the wrong side of a lot of them here in D.C. recently.

Other than that, the Caps game last night represented another very satisfying victory. We’re gonna lose one of these days, but the way the boys are playing, it’s hard to imagine it’s gonna be tomorrow against Tampa, the last team to beat us.   (I can’t believe I just jinxed my own team).

Neuvirth was great last night and the defense is continuing to do a great job of clearing folks away from the front of the net.  Florida really likes to dirty up the game and the Caps did not allow the Florida forecheck to execute.  Our defense kept the puck moving and the offense was its usual potent self. 

When we scored right after Florida tied it up, you could sense that Florida, who had worked so hard to get their only goal, lost a lot of life.    The intensity on all 4 lines and commitment to sound defensive hockey that the Caps demonstarted again last night was awesome to see. 

These days, we harass opposing teams when they have the puck and share the puck when we are on the attack. We clear the net on defense and attack the net on offense. We kill penalties and score on the PP.  It’s complete team hockey.

Let’s do a little stats timeout for the Caps:

We have the #1 and #2 players in the NHL in +/- in OV and Schultz.

As I’ve mentioned before, we have the best +/- as a team in the league.

OV is second in goals and second in points.

We have three players (OV, Backstrom and Semin) in the top 15 in points.  (San Jose does too by the way).

We also have three players (OV, Green and Backstrom) who are in the top 7 in assists.  (San Jose cannot boast about that).

We’re #1 in goals scored and #12 in goals against which is not too bad. (By the way, San Jose is #2 in goals scored and #4 in goals against – not too shabby).

Anyway, we all know, as well as the Caps, that right now it’s all about tuning up for the playoffs and staying healthy.  #1 seed in the East or the President’s trophy would be nice, but as San Jose and Boston showed last year, #1 seeds  don’t mean sqaut in the playoffs.

Hope I didn’t jinx us for tomorrow………………..

Dagger!!!

Little man B celebrates his game-winning, last-second shot as the Wizards beat the Nets 81-79.

The Wizards beat the Nets 81-79 last night.  What is the real story though is how I was able to watch this whole game after I turned off the Caps game at around 10 pm last night.  Fighting of fatigue and the little voice that kept telling me that I would never be able to get back the 90 minutes of my life I would spend watching this game on my DVR,  I was actually able to watch this entire game.  

You may call me insane.  I like to think of myself as possessing great spiritual fortitude.

 Last night’s games against the Nets was one of the most un-remarkable sporting events in recent history.  The highlight of the game definitely was hearing Buckhantz bust out his “Dagger” as little man B, Earl Boykins, drained the winning jumper with less than 1 second left in the game. 

The sad part about all of this is that “Dagger”, as far as I know, was first used by Buckhantz for Arenas and he used it for game-winning shots that were a helluva lot more important than the sad display of basketball I watched last night. 

And as great as Little man B has been for the Wiz this year, he’s no Arenas.

Props to the Wizards bench for playing tough, smart, unselfish basketball and basically beating the Nets’ starters by themselves.  Let’ see what happens tonight against the Knicks.

Tidbits from section 406

Now for those of you who read this blog, you know that I am a season-ticket holder for the Redskins and after each home game, I like to write about things that were happening at the stadium that folks at home may not have been aware of as well as my view of the game from the stands, which is quite distinct from what you see on television.

Today, I want to talk about what goes on at a typical Caps game. 

First of all, Verizon is much smaller than FedEx so you can see and hear things that are happening all around the arena.   As such, you can hear a variety of different things coming out from different pockets of the arena. 

Let me start from the beginning:  During the Star-Spangled Banner, Caps fans like Redskins and all other D.C. and Baltimore fans, scream “O” when the singer gets to the line at the end of the song ” O Say does that star-spangled….”.    I believe that this tradition comes from the Baltimore Orioles fans who injected the “O” to emphasize who they are rooting for at the game.  This tradition has spread throughout the area.  Caps fans add a throaty “Red” when the singer gets to “And the rockets red glare” in the national anthem- of course representing the central color of the Capitals.

Cowbells are allowed into the arena which I think is awesome.  Fedex should do that.  So people play the cowbells all night.  The jumbotron even has a skit from Saturday Night Live imploring the fans to play more cowbell.  Anytime a Caps player gets on a breakaway or if OV just is skating up-ice with the puck, the cowbells go off. 

Now, when the opposing team scores and the PA announcer gives credit to who scores and who got the assists, rather than sit back in sullen silence, Caps fans wait ’till the announcer is done and then yell “Who cares?”

This next one is a little tricky, but I have seen it happen now three times at Caps games, but when the Caps reach four goals and after the PA announcer gives the breakdown of the goal, fans behind the visiting goalie chant this:  “1, 2, 3, 4, it’s all your fault”.  For each goal the Caps score after 4, the number goes up. This is usually followed by the crowd tauntingly yelling the goalies name.  On Wednesday night it sounded like this:  “Gi-guere. Gi-guere.” 

Now this year, there is a new tradition which is if the Caps score 5 goals, all the fans get free wings.  So the Caps wisely have turned this into a rallying point during games.  So after Semin scored the Caps’ 4th goal on Wednesday night, the Jumbotron staring imploring us ot chant “We want wings”.  It added yet another level of excitement to what at that point had become a blow-out.

Then of course there is the excellent organ player who doesn’t have to play generic arena songs like “Zorba the Greek, If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands” and other such classics, but rather plays unique chants for the Caps.  The songs go in rhythm like:  “C-A-P-S Caps, Caps, Caps.”  Or, “Let’s go Ca-pi-tals”. 

Then there is the famous dood with the bull horn who plays his horn three times and is greeted with the rest of the crowd screaming “Let’s go Caps”.  In addition to this, there are various sections of the stadium all doing any combination of all three of these chants I just mentioned when there is no bull horn or organ playing.  Most of the time these chants are not synchronized creating an even greater effect of mayhem.

Then there is the ‘Unlesh the Fury’ video whic his saved for close games in the 3rd period where the crowd goes extra wild, screaming their heads off to support the team in the final minutes of a game.  Last game, the jumbotron, with about 4 minutes left and the Caps ahead 5-1,  instead played a long “  Victory” video.  And sure enough, when there was a moment of the video where a little kid screamed at the top of his lungs, the crowd in perfect unison sung along with him.

At the end of the game, the three stars were announced as S. Morrision, OV and Semin from bottom to top and each came out, thanked the crowd, skated to a spot on the ice and threw a puck gently into the stands for a souvenir.  Pretty cool.  Many folks stayed after the game was done, rather than shuffle quickly out of the stadium, to cheer our heros on.

Most of these chants and traditions have been started by season ticket holders, but it’s cool that someone like me who has now been to 8 games in the last two years can pick up on what is going on a be part of the fun.  I’ve been to Caps games in other cities and I’ve never seen anything even close to this.

Every team in every city thinks their fans are the best and I think there are a lot of good fans out there.  Not only are the Caps fans great fans, but I have never been to any kind of sporting event where the crowd is as unique in their interaction as they are at a Caps game.  It’s worth checking out. 

If anyone has any amendments or additions to what I wrote, please mention them as I would like to learn more about the craziness that occurs when folks rock the red.

Looking pretty sweet from section 406

Once again, Alexander Semin dominates as he scores two goals, (the 1st of which is pictured above), in the Caps 5-1 win over Anaheim last night at Verizon.

Silly me to let my wife’s psycho-babble get me worried that the Caps would lose last night. 

Silly me to worry that the Caps would play down to a hungrier opponent.

Sill me to worry about a team winning when the team is as good as the Caps. 

Well, I may have to amend that last statement. 

I went on the radio with LaVar Arrington yesterday and told him and the greater D.C. area about all the reasons why I am confident the Caps have a chance to win it all this year.  I told him about OV and Schultsz’ excellent +/-.  I told him about our balanced scoring.  I told him about how we are doing a better job at keeping opponents to 2 goals or less and when we do that, we have only lost once out of 28 games this year.  All these things are true.

Then I lied to him and said I would not be dissapointed if we don’t win the Stanley Cup this year.  I actually said that I would be ok with the season if we made it to the Eastern Conference Finals.  I should be ashamed of myself for making such a bold-faced lie to the millions of people listening at the time.

‘Cause let’s face it, right now the Caps are winners.

Last night, Neuvirth was excellent.  He let a few rebounds out, but mostly he smothered the puck.  The one goal he let in was on a rebound which maybe he should have corralled, but frankly, if the defense had done a better job of clearing the zone and covering their men, that goal would have never happened.  Aside, from a couple of bad clears, one by Bradley and one by Green, from what I could see, there were no other mistakes made on the ice by the Caps last night.

So while they played almost mistake-free hockey, the Caps  kept the pressure on and the damn finally burst in the 3rd period. The goals happened so fast that we hadn’t even finished cheering Morrison’s goal when Knuble scored and when we had just sat down after celebrating Knuble’s goal, Semin scored.  (The 1st and 2nd goals happened so fast that the announcer re-started his breakdown of Morrison’s goal – flashing his picture up on the scoreboard and the whole nine yards –  since the whole announcement was thwarted by Ovechkin’s beautiful fake which led to #22’s latest goal).  

For the third game in a row, Alexander Semin is the 1st star and is the one pictured here in a post.  You almost wish you could save all of team’s play, including his, for April and May and hopefully June, but all the same, it was a pleasure to see how amazing he played.  He should have had an assist on the Caps’ 1st power-play when he made an incredible pass to Eric Fehr whose shot was stopped point blank by Giguere. 

Other than that it was nice to see Neuvirth play so well, nice to see Pothier return, nice to see us win so many faceoffs, nice to see the boys move the puck as well as they did and nice to see the defense again play a solid game where it looked like not that many of Neuvirth’s 30 saves were really all that hard. 

It’s a lot more fun to leave games with a win then a loss.