Erica and I had a great time the other night at the Capitals vs. Blue Jackets game. We had forgotten how much we missed it. Some observations:
The concession lines were very slow moving and not enough stands were open — it was just like RFK! Hopefully, their learning curve will not be as bad as the learning sphere at RFK. They used to be pretty good.
The pre-game entertainment was an earnest, if corny, attempt to get everyone excited. I have wonder what was going through the players heads while they were skating around in the dark with lasers and flames going off while holding some sort of glowing globe. Might want to skip this next year Ted.
Turnout was faily strong, though thousands of fans got in for free. I would say there was a good 13,000 – 14,000 people actually in the arena. It wound up being a pretty good crowd.
Alexander Ovechkin is now known as Alex.
Ovechkin made his presense known early by slamming a Blue Jacket into the board, 20 seconds into the game, damaging the plexiglass assembley. It took about five mintues to get put back together.
Both Ovechkin’s goals came in the second period, on our end of the arena.
Meanwhile, in Jersey, the other Next Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby did not score a goal last night, but got an assist while being routed by the Devils, 5 – 1.
Captain Jeff Halpern had three assists, which is two more than Crosby.
Play was a little sloppy. Lots of penalties too.
Speaking of penalties, the Caps killed a BJ’s powerplay while having a 5 – 3 disadvantage. They later scored coming of a 5 – 3 advantage.
Olie Kolzig stopped 35 shots, though he did not look like he was in command. On an unrelated note, when did he stop officially going by “Olaf?”
After this season, the Caps really have to do something about their uniforms, the black has got to go. I am pulling for a combination of their original (red, white, blue with stars) and their current (Capitol dome, eagle) themes. Leonsis almost changed the uniforms years ago (the excellent site NHLuniforms.com has the example in year 2000) but relented when he heard from lots of mothers who did not want to have to buy new stuff.
Hockey fans are much more talkative on Metro following games than baseball or football fans or well, anyone.
The Capitals revamped their Web site. It is a little better than before and it is blue instead of black, but overall it is still lacking.
In the “how much time is left…one minute remaining, one minute…thank god!” chant I was 1 for 3, getting it in the second period.
It was great hearing Stompin’ Tom Connors again after 18 months
