The Washington Capitals made their seemingly traditional first round exit on Monday and while that is still being discussed (remember, D.C. isn’t a hockey town at all) I’m post, for posterity, recent coverage of rink side broadcaster, Smokin’ Al Koken. Dan Steinberg has been profiling Koken, who was “present at the creation” of the Caps, on DC Sports Bog but all in a long feature.

‘Smokin’ ’ Al Koken has ties to Capitals and Washington, D.C., sports going back to 1970s – The Post

Koken’s Caps responsibilities allowed enough free time to serve as the third sports anchor at WUSA along with Ken Mease and Brenner. Among Koken’s duties was doing live interviews from RFK Stadium during Redskins postgame shows, and out of nowhere one weekend, Brenner threw it back to “Smokin’ Al Koken” at the stadium.

The WUSA sports desk kept the nickname going over the objections of the station’s news director, who worried that it sounded unprofessional.

“Whenever Glenn threw to him, he’d say Smokin’ Al Koken,” said Larry Duvall, then a sports producer at WUSA and now with Comcast SportsNet. “I would type in ‘Smokin’ Al Koken,’ like it was his official name. The news director would say, ‘No, no, no, we shouldn’t do that.’ But Glenn said, ‘Aw, c’mon, keep doing it,’ so we just kept going.”

Being nicknamed by Glenn Brenner equals all-time cred in DC sports.

Today, DC Sports Bog has Al Koken, from the archives which features a pre-Smokin’ prior to the first Caps game.