We Can (and will, and must) Get Through This

It’s been a while. Almost a month, actually. The last post on DCO to this point was before a bitterly disappointing Capitals’ Game 7 vs. the Penguins. That ended not quite as we’d hoped, but that game’s repercussions are perhaps as nothing compared to the Game 7 that went down tonight, a Game 7 that will cause we DC fans such pain as perhaps cannot even be fortold yet this early into the crisis.

So, this is bad. Maybe not Tony-Romo-with-a-Lombardi-Trophy bad, but very, very close. We’re in for a dark summer and early fall, my friends, months of gushing talk of “destiny fulfilled” by “the next one”, of “adversity overcome” by the same, of the audacity of free agent Marian Hossa to spurn a young hockey diety to play in Detroit, etc. Further, the next hockey season may well be difficult as any accomplishment by Alex Ovechkin or the Caps will find some beer-swilling yinser from Wheeling or Charleston, or maybe even on occasion Pittsburgh proper, bloviating about “the debate being over” as to who is the more superior player for all time, Sid or Ovie. This dark cloud may even hang over another probable trophy windfall by Ovie at the upcoming NHL awards ceremony, as the above-mentioned cretins will remind us of the one, perhaps two, honors not yet on his resume.

But it is that word, “yet”, that gives us hope, and let’s cling to it even at the onset of this dark night. The well-positioned Caps, not quite as lucky in the obtaining of #1 and #2 picks as these (gag) champion Penguins but close to their level nonetheless, will, soon, bring the discussion/debate back to even ground. They will do this, of course, with a Cup of their own. Perhaps a couple. We at DCO believe this, partially because we have to, but mostly because we really, really do. This tiresome-as-it-is “Ovechkin vs. Crosby” debate is laughingly far from over, being so early in the careers of both, and with each respective team only now rising to elite levels after years of last-place finishes and at least one near-move to Kansas City (looking back now, how sweet would that have been?). Who knows, maybe someday Alex will even rise enough to not be so arbitrarily and automatically attached to the horrible beard-grower in southwestern PA. A few 70-goal seasons should do it.

The Hershey Bears won yet another Calder Cup tonight, so that should blunt this crushing blow to all that is good and not ruined by excessive fawning in the world. All that talented AHL goodness flowing through DC and resulting in championships in the coming years will blunt it further, until June 12, 2009, will be remembered as just another goofy sky-diving birthday for an aging ex-president and not for the atrocity that occurred in Detroit, and the gushy coronation that ensued.

It will take some time, and it may be painful, but we will get past this.

Now how about those Nats?