Hockey Night In DC

Last Saturday, I joined my partner in crime Patrick at the Washington Capitals-Pittsburgh Penguins game at the Verizon Center in DC. Jaunts to the District are not uncommon for us, but usually we go to attend concerts. It had been two seasons since we were in the crowd for a meeting between these two rivals, when Alexander Ovechkin was a crackling rookie and Sidney Crosby's voice was cracking.

That previous game was also on a Saturday; we had seats in Section 225, which is quite close to the ice and more importantly, more suffused in general with actual Capitals fans. The higher up one ventures, the more Pens fans one will encounter. This time we were at the end of row Q in Section 423, the next to last row in that section. Inevitably our eyes and ears were besieged by boisterous Pittsburgh rooters, invading the house and disrespecting the workmanlike furniture. Not to mention futzing with the central heating, the bastards.

If you're not acrophobic, Section 423 can actually be a cool place from which to watch. Our view was nearly unobstructed, with only the right corner of the rink at the far end blocked somewhat by the overhead scoreboard. Also the announcer was pretty much incomprehensible at that distance, but that's what they have the captioning on the screen for.

In the last row, just behind us, sat three Penguins supporters who looked and sounded to be in their twenties. All wore black Pens jerseys (Crosby, Malkin, Lemieux). Each took turns being either innocuously dumb or enragingly stupid.

"Fuck Ovechkin!"

"Crosby's the best player, ever!"

"HAHAHAHA!" (One guy kept doing this at any example of Caps bad luck or failure; in the third period, he was heard to laugh loudly and then explain to his friends, "I don't know what's going on, I just heard the crowd booing."

My personal favorite, coming at the end of a highlight reel of Ovechkin's top 10 career goals as screened on the scoreboard as the greatest goal ever played repeatedly to cheers: "You're showing stuff from two years ago? We've got highlights from last week!" He then followed through with the following example--nothing. YAH RAR ARGH!

Joining them in the last row was a young woman attending her first hockey game. She expressed amazement at the sheer volume of Pens fans in the house, brazen and brash. One of the drunk dudes, eager to fill up the slate, informed her "Pittsburgh sports fans travel really well. Steelers, Penguins."

I leaned over to Patrick upon hearing this.

"Because there's almost nothing to do there. We've been there. What was the highlight? Gazing across whatever river to look at the majesty of Heinz Field. Sports, that's it! That's all they have. DC has culture...diversity...and other shit, some not so good, but you know...it's the nation's capital. I can understand why the fans of the teams here don't travel. There's actually shit here to do and everyone gets fucking ESPN."

Only once were the three amigos engaged in verbal battle, when a nearby Caps fan insulted the Pirates. He was laughed off with "That's baseball!" A Penguins fan sitting near me muttered, "Did better than your team."

Three things here I would like to address.

1. I do agree that other sports should not be brought into it. If I go see the Mets and Nationals play and the Nats actually win, I wouldn't expect a Mets fan to snarl, "Yeah, well...Rangers! Jagr! He actually wants to play for us!" (I'm one of the 14 Capitals fans who does not despise Jaromir Jagr--he's the best European player to grace the NHL, to my mind--so that would especially would not work. It would be better to evoke Esa freakin' Tikkanen.)

2. Pittsburgh Pirates, 2007 season: 68 wins, 94 losses, last in division
Washington Nationals, 2007 season: 73 wins, 89 losses, fourth in division

Know your sports if you're going to open your mouth. Otherwise just keep your yap shut and go back to fantasizing about the day your grassroots campaign finally pays off and Kevin Stevens is inducted into the Hall of Fame.

3. Stop wondering why the crowd "woot woot"s at former Cap Sergei Gonchar when he touches the puck and I'll stop wondering why certain among your number wear football jerseys to hockey games. Unless it's a Mike Collier #44, this practice is unacceptably lame.

On to the game.

The Caps scored first but ended up on the losing end, 2-1. They looked fantastic in the first period, actually working as a team to create opportunities, but progressively had difficulty maintaining focus. As the game wound down, the team--fired up by two fights--was haphazardly firing shot after shot, with little thought to strategic attack, emboldening Pens goalie Marc-Andre Fleury with every save he made. I thought Nylander was brought on board to assure these desperate times were not revisited. Of course one cannot underestimate the absence of young phenom Alexander Semin, scratched from the lineup again.

On the plus side for Washington, Ovy went points-less but was all over the ice, with many a chance to score and hitting little Pingus over left and right (including, most thrillingly, a mid-ice crash into Crosby that electrified the entire building). Goalie Brent Johnson played his ass off. Both netminders were superlative in the game.

Nothing got the fans more into the action, more hyperaware of the back'n'forth lightning bolts streaking the ice than when the action stopped for fisticuffs. The first was best: heavyweights Georges Laraque and Donald Brashear. As you can see here, Laraque came out with not only power but balance, able to land good shots on Brash (aka, the 87 who matters) and force him to his knees. But to the credit of the Caps bruiser, he was able to regain his composure and drop the would-be emperor with two great lefts to the head.

Later, Matt Pettinger fought young Penguin prospect Jordan Staal. This is the fight that provoked one of the men behind me to scream, "Come on, he's only 19!" S-S-Saigon.

I love hockey fights, myself. When they come, as these two did, in the final period of a close game between two rival squads, the energy level for everyone in the building skyrockets and you can practically see the ice glow as the game continues. As your central nervous system accelerates, so too does your perception of what happens around you. Everything is going faster, all sound seems louder, the stakes are immediately higher. Every puck hanging around the goal line, never quite making it in, is like being stabbed in the gut (and oh yes, that happened a couple times to the Caps). Every pass, shot and save is crucial; anytime, something could happen to shut the hated rival fans up or to send them into paroxysms of ecstasy.

In the end, salvation for this fan came in--

The game being so close. Nothing worse than being blown out and having to hear some moron in a Tom Barrasso throwback yell "o-ver-rated!" at Ovechkin everytime he's on the ice, like that isn't some of the richest irony of all time.

The Zamboni. Charles Schulz knew it, you should too. The Zamboni is a wonder of the world. Sitting back and observing the resurfacing snail-trail it leaves on the ice is not unlike sitting under a wise looking old tree.

The Mites on Ice mini-game in between the first two periods. Two teams of youth league players show off their skills to the amusement and glee of fans who haven't already rushed to the toilet and/or Papa Johns. One woman nearby could not stop expressing "how cuuute" she thought it was. Patrick was off getting Chinese at this time and thus missed out on her opinion. Which I think he still is kicking himself for. He was able to see, however, the best goal of the entire night, when a red-jerseyed Mite shot the puck into the back of the net...and then immediately followed it headfirst after losing his balance. All of this happening in what seemed like slow motion after twenty minutes of watching grown professionals streak up and down the ice, which really gave it the extra absurd boost.

P.S. to all Penguins fans. Sidney Crosby is not, repeat not, going to break all of Wayne Gretzky's records by the time he's done all the skating, shooting and simping he has to do in the league. So what if Gretzky said that he would? Of course Gretzky would say that, he's not only the best player in NHL history, he's also the league's premier ambassador. He'd say anything to promote the good and great things and people in and about the sport. It's good copy. But he doesn't actually believe it. Jesus Christ could come back for the sole purpose of strapping on the skates and not break the Great One's marks. Seriously, now. No one is getting 200 points in a season again, for starters.

Alexander Ovechkin Sidney Crosby Washington Capitals NHL Pittsburgh Penguins