100 Things Capitals Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die: Stanley Cup Edition
416
100 Things Capitals Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die: Stanley Cup Edition
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781641252140 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 03/12/2019 |
| Series: | 100 Things...Fans Should Know Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 416 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Save the Caps
It's hard to blame some Capitals fans for taking the whole experience for granted. They have been spoiled for much of the last decade by a perennial Stanley Cup contender that is led by one of the greatest goal scorers in NHL history (Alex Ovechkin) and one of the best playmakers of his generation (Nicklas Backstrom).
Their favorite hockey team has built a home sellout streak north of 360 consecutive games. All but one of those home games have been played at a privately funded arena in a once desolate but now vibrant part of downtown Washington, D.C. The other home game over that stretch was staged before a capacity crowd of 42,832 at Nationals Park, where the Capitals — during their 40-anniversary season — hosted one of the NHL's marquee events at the 2015 Bridgestone Winter Classic.
Washington has become a desirable destination for free agents and one of the NHL's most successful U.S. markets. For the modern-day Capitals fan, this is normal. In some cases, it's all they know.
But during the early 1980s, the whole thing would have seemed like a pipe dream.
In fact, if not for a series of events in the summer of 1982, none of it would have been possible. Back then, the Capitals were essentially on life support, a miserable team on the ice with eight consecutive losing seasons since its inception and a struggling club off the ice, with more than $20 million in losses, according to owner Abe Pollin.
In their first eight years, the Capitals went through eight coaches, three general managers, and five captains. They missed the playoffs in each of those eight seasons, the last three of which saw 16 of 21 teams qualify.
Attendance was also thin at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, where the Capitals averaged 10,726 fans during their first eight years (59 percent capacity). Of their first 320 home games, only 19 were sellouts.
"The Capitals to date have been the major disappointment and the major failure of my business career," Pollin told the Washington Post in November 1981.
According to Pollin, the team couldn't survive for much longer. So, in conjunction with the NHL, he looked at his long-term options during the 1981–82 season. Relocating and folding the franchise were real possibilities, as was merging (and relocating) with an existing club.
Perhaps following the lead of the Atlanta Flames, who moved to Calgary in 1980, Pollin scheduled a meeting with government officials in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in June 1982. The meeting was cancelled at the last minute, though, and never rescheduled.
"I take full responsibility for the sorry state of the Washington Capitals to date, and I underline to date," Pollin said. "It has not been for lack of commitment, lack of effort, or lack of pouring bucks into the team, many millions of bucks."
On July 20, 1982, Pollin revealed four conditions that had to be met to ensure the club's viability in Washington.
The criteria included the sale of at least 7,500 season tickets for the 1982–83 season, complete sellouts for the first 10 home games, a reduction in the Capitals' rent to the Capital Centre from 15 percent to 10 percent, and a reduction of the Prince George's County entertainment tax.
Pollin wanted the PG County amusement tax reduced from 10 percent to one-half of one percent over the next three years.
If the conditions could be met within 30 days, Pollin had a group of investors on standby that would purchase a share of the team and help keep it in Washington. Dick Patrick, who has remained with the organization for more than three decades, was among those investors.
"The challenge is laid down to all segments of the community," Pollin said.
Spearheaded by a small group of season-ticket holders, a "Save the Caps" campaign grew into a tremendous monthlong endeavor as local fans, businesses, and media did their part to ensure that the team would stay.
Save the Caps telethons were held from the Capital Centre and broadcast on WRC-TV with legendary sportscaster George Michael emceeing the events. Local celebrities, including Washington Redskins head coach George Allen, stopped by the makeshift set and urged fans to support the ticket drive.
The goal of selling out the first 10 games was reached when a group of businesses stepped up and agreed to buy any unsold tickets for each of first 10 games of the season.
A rent reduction of 33 percent was granted at the Capital Centre and although the season-ticket drive fell about 1,900 tickets short, Pollin let that slide when two other businesses stepped up and ensured two more home sellouts.
The only question mark remained the necessary entertainment tax break from PG County.
If the Capitals did not receive the tax relief, plans had already been put in place by August 1982 for the team to merge with the New Jersey Devils for the 1982–83 season.
"We will definitely make the deal if Abe Pollin doesn't get what he needs," Devils owner John McMullen told the New York Times. Negotiations for such a move had been ongoing for weeks.
But on August 24, 1982, Pollin made one final push before the PG County Council.
"At this time, Prince George's County is effectively without a hockey franchise," Pollin said. "My new investors and I are trying to, in effect, bring a new hockey team to Prince George's County. ... With passage today of CB-143-1982, my investors and I will consider all four conditions as having been met. A favorable vote today will result in the Washington Capitals taking the ice against the Philadelphia Flyers on October 9 at our regularly scheduled home game."
The council soon voted 10-to-1 in favor of the tax break. The Capitals were staying put.
"I'm pleased, very pleased," Pollin said. "This has been my most difficult month as a sports franchise owner."
A difficult chapter in Capitals history had passed, but nobody could have predicted at that time the sudden turn the franchise would soon take on the ice.
Patrick came on board as an investor, but, by design given his hockey background, was soon involved in the Capitals' hockey operations. Patrick's grandfather, Lester Patrick, was the longtime head coach and general manager of the New York Rangers, and his father, Muzz, played for the 1940 Stanley Cup champion Rangers.
"Looking back, it's amazing that it ever happened," Dick Patrick said in 2017. "I wasn't involved with the Caps previously. I didn't know Abe Pollin, really. I knew that they had played eight years and I knew that they had never made the playoffs.
"I think Abe had just enough with hockey and the people he was working with. So, he asked me to be executive vice president and have the hockey people report to me. I thought that was great. Today, I don't think that would ever happen. He barely knew me. His franchises were so valuable, and it took so many people to run them. So, he said, 'Why don't you get a new general manager?' So, I was basically given the green light."
Within a week, Patrick hired Calgary Flames assistant general manager David Poile as the Capitals' new GM. Ten days later, Poile completed the biggest trade in franchise history, acquiring Rod Langway, Brian Engblom, Doug Jarvis, and Craig Laughlin from the Montreal Canadiens for Rick Green and Ryan Walter.
The deal went a long way in changing the identity of a team that would reach the Stanley Cup Playoffs in each of the next 14 seasons.
There was a regular season Patrick Division title in 1989 and a maiden trip to the Wales Conference Final one year later. In 1998, months after an in-season move to the MCI Center in downtown Washington, D.C., the Capitals reached the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in team history.
And by the start of the 2005–06 season, the player who would emerge as the greatest in franchise history was on board in the form of Alex Ovechkin.
As the memories and success stories, many of which you will read about in this book, continue to pile, it is worth remembering that if not for a successful Save the Caps campaign in 1982, it's possible that they might not have happened at all.
CHAPTER 2Ovechkin Debuts
There's a scene in the movie Slap Shot where Charlestown Chiefs captain Johnny Upton is introduced to his new teammates, the Hanson brothers.
"They're fucking horrible looking!" Upton says of the goofy-looking trio with their thick glasses and long hair.
The scene played out in Jeff Halpern's head when he first met prospect Alex Ovechkin in August 2005. Halpern was one of several Capitals players skating in Laurel, Maryland, that summer in the weeks leading up to training camp.
"I remember the first time he shows up, he was wearing cut-off Daisy Duke jean shorts that would have been too short on a girl," Halpern said. "And he had these monstrous, Incredible Hulk legs sticking out of them. His shirt was too tight, he was wearing flip flops, and it didn't look like he fit into his clothes.
"And with all the billing of this guy being the savior of our franchise, I'm looking at him thinking, 'Seriously? This is the guy? He's going to carry us?'"
His English was raw and his fashion sense limited, but Ovechkin quickly showed that he could play. He impressed at training camp and capped off the preseason with five goals in the final two games.
"It wasn't just that he was scoring in the preseason games," said general manager George McPhee, "but the goals were coming easily for him. We just thought, even in the preseason, he was scoring some big goals — like real goal-scorer's goals. We thought, 'Boy, this guy sure looks like a special player.'"
After netting a hat trick in the preseason finale against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Capitals fans eagerly anticipated Ovechkin's regular season debut.
The Capitals returned to the MCI Center on October 5, 2005, for their first regular season game in 550 days after a lockout wiped out the entire 2004–05 campaign. There was a curiosity factor coming into the season with the NHL implementing a series of rule changes to help boost scoring, plus so many fresh faces with new teams.
Nine players were making their Capitals debuts on opening night, but with no offense to incoming veterans Matt Bradley, Andrew Cassels, or Chris Clark, the 16,325 fans in attendance were mostly there to witness the most-talked-about NHL debut in team history.
"Capitals fans were buzzing about Alex Ovechkin on their way to the rink that night," said CSN Mid-Atlantic play-by-play voice Joe Beninati. "Hockey fans were thinking about it because they had drafted Ovechkin in the summer of 2004 and the whole time, you had this great new toy that you wanted to try, but that you'd been told you had to wait to play [with]."
But once the puck dropped on the 2005–06 season, fans didn't have to wait long to see what all the fuss was about. Skating on a line with Halpern and Dainius Zubrus, Ovechkin was in the starting lineup against the Columbus Blue Jackets and created a lasting memory on his first career shift.
As Columbus defenseman Radoslav Suchy went into his own zone to retrieve the puck, Ovechkin skated past veteran Adam Foote, who was playing in his 800 career game, and crushed an unsuspecting Suchy into the end boards. Forty seconds into his NHL career, Ovechkin delivered a thunderous hit that was so hard it dislodged the stanchion between two pieces of Plexiglas. The game was delayed for a few minutes as repairs were applied, but the crowd helped pass the time with a standing ovation.
"That first game stands out," Zubrus said. "I remember, here we are all thinking that he's a goal-scoring guy who can put up a lot of points, and obviously, he was, but then on that first shift he runs the guy through the glass and we just looked at each other, like, 'Oh wow. What do we have here?'"
Halpern admits that he had his concerns going into opening night, not only because of the off-ice culture shock Ovechkin was dealing with but also because of how he carried himself on the ice. The opener against Columbus was less than a week after Ovechkin scored twice in a preseason game against the Philadelphia Flyers and riled them up in the process.
"He scored a goal and he skated by their bench and winked," Halpern said. "And Philly had a really tough team at the time. So, we felt he was clueless. I guess he didn't realize how excited he was to score goals at the time, but we were just hoping not to get killed after that. So, going into opening night, I thought he was a good player, but you wanted to know that he could [fend for himself]."
The first hit of his career, which came at the end of a hard 40-second shift, quieted some of those initial concerns.
"He just exploded from that first shift," Halpern said. "Physically, you don't expect a rookie to come in like that. And not only did he steamroll everyone he faced that year, but anyone that tried to hit him would get knocked down. Real strong, sturdy guys would try to run him, and he'd just knock them down. That first game, he laid out the Columbus defenseman right off the bat and just how easily the goals came to him was impressive. It was like, 'Wow, this guy can do everything.'"
In the second period, Ovechkin opened his personal scoring account, netting the Capitals' first goal of the season. Twenty-three seconds after Columbus took a 1–0 lead, Ovechkin was parked in the high slot when he blasted a one-timer from Zubrus and beat Columbus rookie Pascal Leclaire for his first career NHL goal.
Less than five minutes later, Ovechkin scored on the power play with Halpern feeding him from in close for the quick finish. Ovechkin became the first player in Capitals history to score twice in his NHL debut. He was also the first No. 1 pick with two goals in his first career game.
"That's how the whole season was," said Zubrus, who scored the game- winning goal in an eventual 3–2 Capitals win. "He surprised everybody. We knew that he was good, but I don't know that we all knew how much of a game-changer he was going to be."
Forward Brian Willsie, who played all 82 games during the 2005–06 season, also remembers the first game against Columbus setting the tone for Ovechkin's memorable rookie year.
"He was ultra-competitive all the time," said Willsie, "and he was always going 100 miles per hour. And then during the first game, it's like, 'Oh, wow.' He's finishing every check, putting guys through the wall, and you're asking, 'Can he really keep this up all year? Can he score goals at this rate? Can he hit guys at this rate?' And he did. He had no trouble keeping up at that pace, and it was amazing to be a part of it and watch him grow."
CHAPTER 3NHL Comes to Washington
Abe Pollin had never seen an NHL game before. And yet, here was the Washington businessman drumming up support from U.S. Senators and House representatives in the early 1970s to bring an NHL franchise to the nation's capital.
Pollin already owned the NBA's Baltimore Bullets and wanted to move the team closer to Washington. Having made his fortune in construction, Pollin planned to build a new arena in Landover, Maryland, about 10 miles from D.C.
The Bullets would fill some dates, but the owner needed another tenant. Bringing pro hockey to an area that hadn't even housed a minor league team in more than a decade was suddenly very appealing.
Enter the expansion-happy NHL, which ballooned from six teams in 1967 to 16 by 1972.
On June 9, 1972, the NHL added two more clubs with expansion bids from Washington and Kansas City beating out such markets as Cleveland, Indianapolis, Phoenix, and San Juan.
The Washington team was later nicknamed the Capitals, a decision made by Pollin after he vetoed the original results from a name-the-team contest. The most popular choice among more than 12,000 votes was Comets, but Pollin preferred Capitals. Other names under consideration included Cyclones, Domes, and Pandas. Imagine for a moment if the Capitals- Penguins rivalry had instead been a battle of Pandas and Penguins.
Pollin paid the $6 million expansion fee, saw the Capital Centre go up in 15 months, and watched from afar as the Capitals took shape before their inaugural season in 1974–75. Perhaps he would have been better off not watching them at all.
To put it mildly, the expansion Capitals had a rough time. More than 40 years later, their 1974–75 season remains the worst in NHL history.
Washington won eight times in 80 tries. Their 8–67–5 record produced 21 points — the fewest by a team that played at least 70 games.
They lost four games by double digits and allowed 10 or more goals seven times.
"The losing just snowballed," said defenseman Yvon Labre, whom the Capitals selected from Pittsburgh in the 1974 expansion draft. "It was very difficult."
The Capitals set futility records across the board. No team has had a lower points percentage (.131), allowed more goals (446), or had a worse goal differential (-265). Along the way, they set new league benchmarks with a 17-game losing streak and a 37-game road losing streak.
They are the only NHL team to have been shut out (12 times) more often than they won (8 times). They're also the only team to have had more coaches (3) than road wins (1).
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "100 Things Capitals Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Ben Raby.
Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Craig Laughlin,
Acknowledgments,
1. Save the Caps,
2. Ovechkin Debuts,
3. NHL Comes to Washington,
4. Juneau Sends Capitals to 1998 Stanley Cup,
5. Poile's Bold Move,
6. That Was Classic,
7. Dale Hunter's OT Winner vs. Flyers,
8. Alexander the Greatest,
9. Capitals Move to MCI Center,
10. Capitals Win 2008 Southeast Division,
11. Retired Jerseys: Labre, Langway, Hunter, Gartner,
12. Capitals Discover Bondra,
13. Winning the Lottery,
14. Holtby Ties Brodeur,
15. The Canadiens Challenge,
16. First Playoff Appearance,
17. The King Is Dead,
18. Growing Pains for Early Prospects,
19. Saint Nick,
20. Nicklas Backstrom Time Line,
21. Natural-Born Leader,
22. The Captaincy,
23. Workaholic Caps Break on Through,
24. Maryland Native Makes the Capitals,
25. Druce on the Loose,
26. A Brouwer-Play Goal,
27. The Swedish Embassy,
28. See the Capitals on the Road,
29. Tommy McVie,
30. Could Pat Quinn Have Coached the Capitals?,
31. Barry Trotz First Meets the Capitals,
32. Dale Hunter Trade,
33. Holtby Emerges as Fourth-Round Gem,
34. Veterans Bellows and Tikkanen Join '98 Capitals,
35. Roger That,
36. The Goal,
37. Olie the Goalie,
38. The Stanley Can,
39. Easter Epic,
40. Deadline Blockbuster,
41. Attend Practice at the Kettler Capitals Iceplex,
42. Joel Ward's Unlikely Journey,
43. Stevens Checks In,
44. Ace Bailey,
45. Caps Deal Can't-Miss Kid,
46. The Feisty George McPhee,
47. King of Capitals Broadcasts,
48. Early Trips to Philadelphia,
49. Snowvechkin,
50. Ovechkin's 50-Goal Seasons,
51. See the Hershey Bears,
52. Game Over Green,
53. Bedeviled: Caps Let One Slip Away in '88,
54. Halak, Canadiens Upset 2010 Capitals,
55. Mike Marson's On- and Off-Ice Battles,
56. After Olie: The Kid Goalies,
57. Attend Capitals Prospect Development Camp,
58. The Original Voice,
59. A Comeback 13 Years in the Making,
60. The Forgotten 60-Goal Scorer,
61. Niskanen and Orpik Come to Town,
62. The Wild Thing,
63. That's a Stretch,
64. Tim Taylor's Skate in the Crease,
65. Play Poker with the Capitals,
66. Ovechkin "Nose" Goal Scoring,
67. Best Men,
68. Jagr Bombs,
69. To Russia with Love,
70. Holtby's Coming-Out Party,
71. Washington's First Taste of Pro Hockey,
72. Mr. Outdoors,
73. Japan Trip,
74. Comeback Kids Go Streaking,
75. Fan Favorites Move On,
76. Brian MacLellan's Long-Awaited Promotion,
77. Capitals Deal Bondra for Laich,
78. The Capitals' Miracle on 33rd Street,
79. Island Time for the Big Cheese,
80. Unleash the Fury,
81. McVie's Weight Scale and the Capital Mile,
82. A Mystery Fit for a Net Detective,
83. See the Capitals Play Outdoors,
84. Capitals Go 3-D,
85. Holtby Pays the Price of Success,
86. 20/20/20 Vision,
87. Listen to "Hockey Diaries",
88. Capitals Host 1982 All-Star Game,
89. Capitals All-Star Game Highlights,
90. Hunter's Cheap Shot,
91. Fedorov Joins Capitals in 2008,
92. The Loch Ness Monster Arrives,
93. Baltimore's Bid for the NHL,
94. The Dueling Hat Tricks,
95. Five Alive for Gusty and Bonzai,
96. Esa Tikkanen's Game 2 Miss,
97. Visit the Capitals' Hat Trick Display,
98. 20 Minutes of Fame,
99. The Chimeracle on 34th Street,
100. See the Capitals Win the Stanley Cup,
Sources,