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Posts Tagged ‘Morning cup-a-joe’
That Beautiful Ex-Girlfriend, Toughness, Suddenly Back in Our Lives, Let’s Not Dump Her Ever Again
28, Jul 2010The era of peacenik puck in D.C. has ended. Mercifully. And emphatically. Good riddance. May it never return. Here’s its tally sheet: zero Cups won, one playoff series won (barely), zero opponents intimidated. (Ever.) Now, we’ll try something new, which is actually something old, which is actually something quite intrinsic to hockey. And which is [...]
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The End of a Precious Innocence
21, Jul 2010Yesterday Greg Wyshynski touted New Jersey General Manager Lou Lamoriello’s savvy manipulations of the league’s player movement regulations over the years. Also yesterday, the NHL ruled that DevilLou had become too clever by half with his work in this area. This morning, one of the league’s most respected accomplished managers looks a heck of a [...]
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What’s a Development Camp All About Anyway?
20, Jul 2010It was fun and amusing for me over the past 10 days to survey various message boards and Tweets for hard and fast assessments of Capitals’ prospects participating in the team’s development camp. Also, newspaper accounts themed in kind. Blogs, not so much. A few observers seemed to have it about right with respect to [...]
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Root Hard for This Hard-Working Camp Correspondent
12, Jul 2010This morning I am gravely worried about the condition of Ethan Hall of Chaska, Minnesota. According to Big Joe Finley of the Washington Capitals, Hall last Saturday, during a purely recreational skate, took a slash from Big Joe — accidental, of course — that was worse than any stickwork by Finley on any Capitals’ prospect [...]
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The good news: the Caps yesterday spent nearly $12 million on their less than intimidating blueline. The bad news: all of it went to Jeff Schultz. Intimidation quotient on the back end remains unchanged. Level of difficulty playing with the puck in the Caps’ end? Unchanged. Now for the really bad news: George McPhee wasn’t [...]
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Storm Clouds Forming in the East
1, Jul 2010There’s a danger with playing it ultra conservative on Canada Day, the first day of unrestricted free agency: what if your power peers in the East don’t share that philosophy? And, what if they act like there’s no tomorrow with their wallets? What if, when it comes to free agency and bettering their rosters, they [...]
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Needed: An Oil Change and a New Set of Tires
29, Jun 2010Too often during the 2009-10 hockey season the Capitals rotated tires with well-worn treads when what they really needed — most especially back on the blueline — was a new set of Pirellis. A pair of Pirelli models named Carlson and Alzner arrived together late — too late (game 7) — to save the sportscar [...]
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Mining for Gems Deep in a Draft’s Bedrock
28, Jun 2010SI.com’s Allan Muir has offered a glowing assessment of the Capitals’ draft work in L.A. this past weekend. George McPhee bolstered his status as a procurer of top-end talent deep in round one, Muir claimed, and the team added skill guys of intrigue afterward. He termed the Caps’ class the “crop we may be talking about most [...]
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A Summer Wish List of Size and Snarl
21, Jun 2010The Flyers and Devils spent the weekend improving themselves. Gulp.
The leadup to the NHL draft brings the greatest week of player movement on the calendar next to trade deadline comings and goings, and so this week we in Washington especially wonder: what does general manager George McPhee have up his sleeve?
We know that neither the GM [...]
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Back[ed] [in] in Black
6, Jun 2010Bruce Boudreau has been a well-perched witness to the opening of the 2010 Calder Cup finals, taking in the action from the Bears’ corner suite in Giant Center. About an hour after Hershey had fallen to the Texas Stars for the second consecutive game on home ice last night, while riding back to D.C. in [...]
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Hershey in a Finals Hole, Fast
4, Jun 2010The underdog Texas Stars made their first-ever appearance at Giant Center a memorable one Thursday night, upending the Hershey Bears 2-1 in the opening game of the 2010 Calder Cup finals and quickly casting startling doubt upon Hershey’s claim to an 11th Calder Cup title.
Could these historic Bears, winners of 60 games during the regular [...]
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When a Ref Blows a Big Call — and Owns Up to It
3, Jun 2010It’s partly for history-robbing moments like Wednesday’s in Detroit, where first-base umpire Jim Joyce individually and insidiously thwarted the rarest of baseball feats, a perfect game, that I support the death penalty.
I’m no seamhead, but you merely had to have a pulse last night around 10:30 to be cognizant of Joyce’s malfeasance. Detroit Tigers’ pitcher [...]
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Radio, most particularly of the minor pro sports variety, isn’t supposed to be a money maker, let alone a cash cow. Try telling that to members of the Hershey Bears Radio Network this week, maestro-ed by John Walton. Late yesterday the Bears’ radio voice sent out word that his network had come to an agreement [...]
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A New Era in DC Sports Deserves a Proper Name
22, May 2010There is a distinctly regal air about Ted Leonsis these days. He possesses what might be called a Midas Touch for troubled sports franchises in these parts. Even as a minority owning, back-bench influencer for the Wizards, he injected a singular bit of buzz to the beleaguered club when he enticed Michael Jordan to D.C. [...]
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Worlds-Weary, and Grumpy
21, May 2010Russia beat Canada at the Worlds in semifinal play yesterday. Ain’t that just swell? Don’t you just feel all warm and fuzzy for our Russians competing over there (wherever they are)?
I only know about the result because I accidentally stumbled upon a story image of it late last night on line; when you’re a hockey [...]
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A Pain Unlike Any Other
17, May 2010Two weeks ago, beginning merely hours after the Habs snuffed us out of the postseason, I noticed a precipitous drop-off in the traffic of colleagues about my office. An appropriate intuition and empathy enveloped them, affording me the imperative buffer I needed from the rest of humanity who follows common, mainstream sports. My colleagues just knew to treat me like a stranger on an elevator.
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SBN Gameday: Could You Be The One?
16, May 2010Today’s soundtrack: Could You Be The One? by Husker Du — only four teams are left and there’s a pretty reasonable argument for each of these teams to reach the Stanley Cup final.Chicago Blackhawks vs. San Jose Sharks, 3 PM ETBreaking down the goals …
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Where’s the Reward?
14, May 2010We are staring square at the very real possibility of the Eastern conference champion being decided between the 7 and 8 seeds this postseason. Such a development would add fresh fuel to the charge that the NHL’s regular season is altogether meaningless. Interestingly, the Capitals’ Mike Green intimated as much when he met with media at Kettler Capitals last week. We have 82 games to get through [next season] before we get another shot [at redemption], the rearguard noted.
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Two storylines this offseason loom of greatest interest to me: in what manner will general manager George McPhee reshape his playoff-failing roster, and will there be an initial domino to fall in franchise relocation space. The answers to that first storyline are weeks, at least, away. However, the past week had brought significant developments related to [...]
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