{"id":21448,"date":"2013-05-17T13:16:51","date_gmt":"2013-05-17T17:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yurasko.net\/wfy\/?p=21448"},"modified":"2013-05-17T13:16:51","modified_gmt":"2013-05-17T17:16:51","slug":"smokin-al-kokens-origin-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yurasko.net\/wfy\/2013\/05\/smokin-al-kokens-origin-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Smokin’ Al Koken’s origin story"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/strong>. 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.<\/p>\n

\u2018Smokin\u2019\u2009\u2019 Al Koken has ties to Capitals and Washington, D.C., sports going back to 1970s<\/a> – The Post<\/em><\/p>\n

Koken\u2019s Caps responsibilities allowed enough free time to serve as the third sports anchor at WUSA along with Ken Mease and Brenner. Among Koken\u2019s duties was doing live interviews from RFK Stadium during Redskins postgame shows, and out of nowhere one weekend, Brenner threw it back to \u201cSmokin\u2019 Al Koken\u201d at the stadium.<\/p>\n

The WUSA sports desk kept the nickname going over the objections of the station\u2019s news director, who worried that it sounded unprofessional.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever Glenn threw to him, he\u2019d say Smokin\u2019 Al Koken,\u201d said Larry Duvall, then a sports producer at WUSA and now with Comcast SportsNet. \u201cI would type in \u2018Smokin\u2019 Al Koken,\u2019 like it was his official name. The news director would say, \u2018No, no, no, we shouldn\u2019t do that.\u2019 But Glenn said, \u2018Aw, c\u2019mon, keep doing it,\u2019 so we just kept going.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Being nicknamed by Glenn Brenner equals all-time cred in DC sports.<\/p>\n

Today, DC Sports Bog has Al Koken, from the archives<\/a> which features a pre-Smokin’ prior to the first Caps game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,38,95,104],"tags":[1658],"class_list":["post-21448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capitalsnhl","category-media","category-television","category-washington-capitals","tag-smokin-al-koken"],"yoast_head":"\nSmokin' Al Koken's origin story - William F. 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