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?

Of Demons and Darlings

It’s been almost month since the Caps were so perfectly poised to bury one of those exhaustively referenced playoff demons. That particular hell-spawn was the memory of 2-0 and 3-1 series leads lost (the 2-0 specifically being the winning of two opening road games), typically while being the underdog. The beating of the underdog Rangers, who had taken those two very series lead against the higher-seeded, mostly favored Caps, went a long way to washing the vile tastes of 1995, 1996, and 2003 from our mouths (amongst others).

In a season seemingly dead-set on giving the franchise a fresh start in its post-season history, it was perhaps only appropriate that the one-time consensus Eastern Conference Champion New Jersey Devils would so gloriously choke away a lead with just over a minute left in Game 7 to give the Caps a second round date with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The “coincidence” of this event happening just moments after sageful Sergei Fedorov had buried the Rangers in the Caps own Game 7 should not be ignored.

So yes, the Capitals can expunge another painful part of their past tonight by improving the franchise’s playoff record against the Pens to 2-6. Be ready to hear that record screamed incessantly by insecure Iron City drunkards should their vaunted squad be defeated. Nothing like ancient history to salve the wounds of the present.

A win tonight makes us forget silly things like OT penalty shot pucks skipping playfully around Joe Juneau’s stick and harmlessly into the waiting pads of Ken Wregget, buzz-killing 7-0 Game 1 defeats on home ice, wackily deflected OT goals, Petr Nedved, and, yes, seemingly commanding series leads lost.

There is even more at stake, however. The Caps can do the rest of the league and hockey fans outside of the Pittsburgh/West Virginia area a huge favor tonight in vanquishing those darling Penguins, that team never lacking for a pep talk from whatever hockey pundit feels a warmth in his bosom for Sidney Crosby on any given day.

It’s a chance for the Caps to rescue us all, at least for five months, from a world where any mildly irritating, NHL-decreed-destiny-defying setback for the Pens is characterized as “adversity” (also known as “losing a game” or “incurring a penalty” for any other team), which of course is eventually “overcome”, where any Pens’ minor success is lauded as “resiliency”, where another manifestation of Sid’s petulant, entitled-brat schtick in complaining about hat-trick hats is characterized as the Pens captain being ”ever the competitor”, where instances of trash-throwing on DC ice are met with disdain and instances of the same in Pittsburgh are ignored, where the true resiliency of a Caps' rookie goaltender is questioned even as his counterpart in black and gold allows one laughable goal after another, and where increasingly tired arguments (some admittedly presented here) of which fanbase/organization has more “class”, which team posesses more loyal, less-bandwagony fans, or which team boasts more whiners, fall almost unanimously in favor of the Penguins. It's the Caps on the short end of these arguments now, but a Pittsburgh victory and it will soon be the Bruins/Hurricanes or Ducks/Red Wings/Blackhawks/any team daring to stand in the way of Gary Bettman reverently handing Sid a trophy.

This is the monster the Caps can slay tonight, along with their oft-mentioned demons, and oft-mentioned (usually snarkily) ancient history with the Penguins, a history with which exactly zero current Capitals were involved in any way (regular resident of the healthy scratch list Michael Nylander doesn’t count). It's a chance for a fresh start for us all.

Beat the Penguins, save the (hockey) world.

Hope and Sanity From...

The Penguins seem to officially be darlings again, almost unanimously picked to advance past the speed-bump Capitals. Remember when the Pens were going to miss the playoffs, and we were all ready to be spared from having to hear Sidney Crosby and his enabler hockey pundits talk about “overcoming adversity” or “facing adversity”, perhaps the most over-used phrases (with “it is what it is” coming in a close second) in all of sport? Those were nice days, days in which we might have dreamed of the Pens merely being relegated to talk of moves to Kansas City, days in which they might have again been abandoned by their supposed non-fairweather fans, who are of course superior to the all-bandwagon crowd filling Verizon Center.

However, in all of the renewed christening of the golden boy and his golden team, there may be a voice of sanity in the unlikely mulleted form of Barry Melrose. We all remember Barry, right? He made a trip to Washington mere days before his 16-game tenure behind the Tampa Bay Lightning bench ended. Well, over at 5-hole.com, amidst a summary of overwhelming predictions of a second-round Penguins’ triumph vs. the Capitals, Barry and Pierre LeBrun stand alone as the only prognosticators willing to vouch for at least the possibility of a Washington victory.

What’s the point, you might rightfully ask? Well, a look back at predictions for Round 1 of the playoffs will reveal Melrose as the only one out of 18 expert predictors (including a monkey, who, incidentally, likes the Caps’ chances) who forecast Anaheim to knock off presumed Cup finalist San Jose. So he predicted, so it came to pass (and note the Capitals vs. Capitals phenomenon amidst the Yahoo! experts).

Maybe this guy is on to something. Maybe he knows something the rest of the expert hockey-predicting world doesn’t. Maybe he realizes that just because a #2 seed took a game or two longer than expected to knock off a #7 seed which possessed one of the East’s best defenses (if one of the worst offenses) and a goalie with series-stealing capability (as we were many, many, many times told), it doesn’t necessarily mean they are doomed by the prospect of facing Brooks Orpik and M-A F.

So, thank you, Barry (and, to a lesser degree, Pierre, since you predicted it would take the full seven games for the Caps to advance and face the Hurricanes in a paradox-causing all-SE-Division Conference Finals), for not falling blindly into another premature coronation of the Penguins. Your prediction is a refreshing WAS in an otherwise bleak world of PIT.

Caps' Success is Begetting Bitterness, Lunacy

A curious thing may be developing here as the Capitals continue to slay dragons atop various division and conference standings: they are drawing some ire. It’s as if the team is supposed to be a perennial punching-bag, a franchise everyone else can comfortably turn up their noses at, and lazily bring them up as a candidate for contraction. Now that such talk can no longer conveniently be turned to whenever the team’s name comes up, some people are throwing daggers and slinging mud.

First, let’s look at Boston coach Claude Julien, and his pouting after Alex Semin beat the Bruins with a slapshot from well beyond the blue line: “I've heard them say that they're in our heads. They do a lot of talking. They're one-goal games. They could have gone either way. By all means, I don't think they scare us.” The simple fact is three out of the four games between the two went the Caps’ way. Sounds like perhaps some overreaction to Brooks Laich’s comments prior to the game about a victory over the Bruins scoring some psychological points should the teams meet in the playoffs: "Maybe they finish ahead of, maybe they don't. But now they're wondering, you know, 'We can't beat those guys.’” Maybe we wonder about Julien’s coaching acumen if he chose to complain about Laich’s apt analysis after the game instead of maybe using it as a means to try to coax his team with the shrinking first-place lead into actually beating the Caps in regulation for once.

As it is, his little rave-out after yet another loss to the Caps reminds us of Donovan McNabb’s equally insane insistence that the Eagles were better than the Redskins despite the latter’s sweep of the former in the season series. The after-the-fact bitterness in both cases illustrates the animosity our teams can expect to face as they rise (or prepare to rise) to heights the rest of the sports world seems to think they should not.

Speaking of such sentiment, by now we all know about Don Cherry’s insane Ovie-related rant. The bald absurdity of it all is self-apparent, and the motive behind it all even more so with the mentioning of poor down-and-out Sidney Crosby immediately before the Ovechkin celebration bashing began. People are on to the overrated-ness of Sid, realizing the greatness of Ovechkin, and Cherry and other Sid anointers are unable to deal with it.

It’s interesting that Cherry held up soccer players for ridicule because of some of their goal celebrations and then likened Ovehckin’s celebrations to those. We think a far more telling comparison between the two sports would be comparing this:



To this:



Now we get the analogy. Thanks, Don.

As has been pointed out pretty much universally since this nonsense hit the airwaves, the timing of Cherry’s idiocy is curious, coming at a time when Ovechkin’s star is very much on the rise and the sheen is coming off Sid exponentially as his whining, tantrum-throwing, and baffling suspension-less cheap-shotting increase (also curious that many of the Ovie clips shown have been around for at least a couple of years, and only now apparently has the outrage come forth in Cherry’s Canadian-centric mind). NHL players, at the very least, are starting to fully embrace the anti-Sid movement. Hopefully NHL marketers will come to their senses as well, and maybe even NBC will start to show a few more games not featuring the Penguins.

In the end, we at DCO are heartened by these anti-Caps developments, as it indicates that the Capitals will likely not be inundated with irritating darling-ism, such as been heaped upon every Penguins’ team since Cherry’s Messiah broke into the league and lost the Calder trophy to Ovechkin. Maybe they’ll just be allowed to go about their business bringing a Cup to DC, and to making the town a permanent residence for other trophies with names like Hart, Richard, Ross, Adams, Norris, etc.

Larry Brooks (kind of) Makes Amends

One day after we called for a Pulitzer for Dan Wetzel based on his marvelous accounting of the Great Dallas Implosion of 2008, we are treated to more journalistic magnificence from an unlikely source: the New York Post’s Larry Brooks.

Today Brooks argues, with 100% accuracy, that the NHL is doing itself and us all a great service with its never-ending Sidney Crosby glorification. He says that Alex Ovechkin could be a useful talent to promote (amongst others also shut out by the blinding light of Sid’s supposed combination of the greatness of Gretzky-Mario-Howe), and might even be the game’s best player (heresy alert!), despite what the well-documented fraudulence that is fan all-star balloting might indicate.

Whether this latest article is Brooks’ way of apologizing for his November 25, 2007, ill-conceived, ill-mannered, illogical assertion that Ovechkin should sign somewhere other than Washington (read: New York) as a restricted free agent, or is some under-handed way to somehow try to resurrect that long-settled issue, we at DCO always welcome any calling-out of the NHL and its Crosby hype-machine malarkey. Of course, that anti-DC rant of a year ago (recycling the tired and apparently now-defeated argument that DC is a backwater hockey town, unworthy of any stars, and that New York should have them all, etc.) precludes us from bestowing any honor like the DCO Hall of Fame upon Mr. Brooks, but we appreciate his jocking of Ovie nontheless.

Besides, is this really the poster boy image the NHL wants (yes, this is from well over a week ago, but we must never let it die):

Skins' "Collapse" Really Not That Bad

Give Dan Wetzel a Pulitzer. Maybe the award is only for newspapers, and Yahoo! Sports online contributors are not eligible, but give this guy something for his brutally accurate and downright lyrical piece entitled “Cowboys, not Lions, were top flops.”

It’s so rare that a couple dozen paragraphs put such a profound perspective on an NFL season. While the Jason LaCanforas of DC gleefully revel in a Redskins 8-8 season and never cease to remind us of the “disastrous” decisions made by the ‘Skins collective braintrust, Wetzel reminds us of how much worse off the Cowboys are.

Some gems from this beautiful calling-out of the frauds in Dallas:

“The Detroit Lions became the first team to go 0-16 in league history but the most disastrous season in the NFL this year belongs to the Cowboys.”

“[The season] was a train wreck of melodrama, mistakes and misplaced priorities. For Dallas to finish 9-7 and out of the playoffs with that much talent is an epic failure.”

“Tony Romo continued to fall apart after Dec. 1” (my birthday; what greater gift?)

“Repeated late season collapses – the Cowboys have lost their last nine regular-season finales, and have done nothing in the playoffs – are in this team’s DNA.”

Perhaps most importantly, Wetzel reminds us:

“At midseason, owner Jerry Jones even mortgaged some of the team’s future to get more talent. He traded a first-, third- and sixth-round draft pick to Detroit for receiver Roy Williams. Like most of Dallas’ moves, it didn’t pan out. Williams caught just 19 passes in 10 games.”

So it seems there are other owners/pseudo-GMs out there capable of making poor decisions about trading draft picks! One would be correct in mistakenly thinking such dundering was limited to Washington, with all the previously referred to optimism-hating abounding in local publications.

There you have it: Dallas is worse than 0-16 Detroit, making the 2008 Cowboys The Worst Team of All-Time (relative to expectations).

Remember when the ‘Boys were 3-0, virtually anointed by ESPN as a 16-0 Super Bowl contender, lauded as unstoppable, with all melodrama left far behind them, and a lock to destroy a weak Redskins team at home? A less lazy blogger might dig up some damning quotes from the likes of Chris Berman, Peter King (what’s he going to do with no Romo or Favre in the playoffs, by the way?), et al, but that blogger doesn’t live here anymore (as evidenced by his first post since before Thanksgiving).

What about more failures much more spectacular than the Redskins 8-8 record?

The Broncos lost their last three games to gag away a division title, which they eventually lost to an 8-8 team.

The Bucs lost their last four to go from 9-3 and in command of their division to 9-7 and in the same could-have/should-have boat as the Cowboys.

The Jets, those Titan-killers of November 23 that spawned so much all-New-York-Super-Bowl frenzy, lost four of their last five as Brett Favre nicely evened out his TD/Int ratio to miss the playoffs, sending Peter King and John Madden into a depression from which they may never recover.

Washington at 8-8 doesn’t seem that bad anymore. That 6-2 start was just a teasing taste of things to come. Plus, now the Skins get another crack at the Lions next season, and a revenge date with the Rams. They finished where many thought they might, unlike that team of fraudulent false gods in Dallas.

Alex Semin Enshrined in DCO Hall of Fame

What does it take to bring a blog out of its posting slumber? How about a Sovetsky Sports interview with Alexander Semin, brought to us by the Puck Daddy blog? About halfway in to this Q and A session with rising Capitals’ star only now catching NHL-wide attention, a question is posed regarding Semin’s place in the Ovechkin/Crosby/Malkin rivalry, asking Alex S. where exactly he fits in with this trifecta.

What a nice little middle-of-the-interview softball question. It’s the perfect opportunity to throw about some Mary-Worth-worthy platitudes, stuff like “It’s just an honor to be mentioned with those guys” or “I don’t think I’m quite there yet” or any manner of throwaway compliment to Sid's "vision", etc. But Alex knows what he has to do, what must be done. Risking the wrath of every darling-loving NHL analyst and Wheeling-dwelling Pens fan, he states: “What’s so special about Crosby? I don’t see anything special there.”

THANK YOU.

After these two sentences, we have no choice but to admit Alexander Semin to the DCO Hall of Fame. He will become Co-Director of the re-christened Stevenson-Semin Accurate Player Assessment Wing. As we all know, the Wizards’ Deshawn Stevenson gained admittance to the DCO HOF last March with his similarly establishment-bucking comments on the Sidney Crosby of the NBA, Lebron James. His hype-defying analysis was enough to garner him a wing of the DCO named in his honor. Today, Semin shares in that honor for the brave Russian’s own calling out of a Chosen One.

But wait, Semin didn’t stop with just those two sentences? He went on? Take a gander at this:

“I think that if you take any player, even if he is "dead wood," and start promoting him, you'll get a star. Especially if he scores 100 points. No one is going to care about anyone else. No one is going to care whether he possesses great skill. Let's say you put someone in front of the net and let him deflect pucks in, and he scored 50 goals; everyone will say "Wow!" and then hand him a $10 million per year contract. That's what they like here. “

Sounds familiar, no? Take a player, christen him “The Next One”, promote the living hell out of him, convince the more highly impressionable amongst us that he’s “the face of the NHL”, and bam, star. Semin’s seemingly rare ability to see through such nonsense will be of great value to the Accurate Player Assessment Wing. Perhaps Stevenson and Semin can combine forces to encourage some brave soul within the NFL ranks to follow suit and declare Tony Romo to not be one of the greatest quarterbacks in history. Perhaps this individual will defy the Peter Kings of this world to find the Dallas quarterback not divine, and in fact quite prone to the turnover and completely addicted to the playoff-game-blowing play. Deshawn paved the road for such brave whistle-blowers. Alex has followed. Who’s next? The DCO HOF awaits.

What's It Take to Get Some Acknowledgment?

It was a little irritating last week to find the Redskins, after their thumping of the Cowboys in Dallas, decided underdogs against the Eagles, who had just lost to the Bears after repeated failed attempts to score from inside the five yard line, events which would be eerily prophetic of things to come when the Redskins arrived. It was similarly annoying to find Washington in many cases horridly underrated in horridly flawed power polls.

After a similar thumping of the Eagles in Philadelphia, it is more irritating to find the ‘Skins still under-appreciated by Peter King’s “Fine Fifteen”. Why this still irks or surprises me I do not know, since his Cowboys homerism is such an undeniable influence on his judgment. His ranking of the Redskins at #4 last week was baffling since the Cowboys were still rated ahead at #2. This week, however, he has dropped the ‘Skins to #5 as a reward for their throttling of the Eagles in Philadelphia (Eagles, incidentally, his sixth-best team last week), yet kept Dallas in the top 3 because of their heroic hanging-on against the Bengals at home.

He also has the gall to mention “schedule advantage” in his comments on the Redskins. The words “schedule advantage” are, to any half-intelligent being, completely synonymous with the words “Cowboys’ schedule”. Check out the dragons the ‘Boys have had to slay thus far: Browns (1-3), Eagles (2-3) at home, Packers (2-3), Bengals (0-4) at home. Brutal! Especially given the fact that those upset-minded Bengals were a firm Chris Henry grip on the ball away from potentially shocking Dallas on their lame-duck home field. If only the turnover-prone back could have held on, we might also be treated today to more TO-pouting. As it is, he was placated with a TD pass on the Cowboys’ ensuing possession, thus depriving us of more Dallas implosion. But back to that schedule question.

A more appropriate phrase for King to use would have been “schedule respite”. After five consecutive weeks against teams that were picked in the pre-season to be playoff contenders and who may yet prove themselves so, the ‘Skins finally get their share of the cupcakes that Dallas seems to have been feasting on for the past two seasons en route to paper-tigerish glory ultimately exposed as fraudulent. No team deserves the Rams, Browns, and Lions right now more than the Redskins. They’ve more than earned it and have the opportunity to be 7-1 when another darling-on-the-rise, Pittsburgh, comes to town for a Monday-nighter, at which point we’ll be treated to those insufferable “when the Redskins win/lose before an election” features. That Chris Berman will be involved makes it all the more worth our while to tune in just seconds before kickoff. But that’s weeks away. For now, bring on the tomato cans and enjoy watching the wins pile up, even if Cowboy apologists don’t notice.

DCO Hall of Fame Recognizes Jeff Sagarin

Jeff Sagarin has been appointed Special Consultant to the DCO Hall of Fame for his work on the Sagarin Ratings Index which appears in USA Today. Most notable is his work on ranking NFL teams. Yesterday we studied the errors that can occur in team evaluation when one’s judgment is clouded by darlingism and love of Tony Romo’s glamorous smile and cutesy backwards-hat-wearing. The Sagarin Index is immune to such foolishness, as it uses accurate, utterly objective criteria to reveal to us the true cream of the NFL. To that end, we see the Redskins rise to #1 in these ratings, having demonstrated an ability to jump to 3-1 against the NFL’s toughest schedule through 4 weeks.

For his work in seeing past what ESPN and Peter King (among others) cannot see past, we welcome Sagarin to the staff, even though strict HOF admission policies forbid his enshrinement. He will report directly to Deshawn Stevenson, who was inducted into the DCO HOF in March and named proprietor of the newly created Deshawn Stevenson Accurate Player Assessment Wing. In this hype-resistant haven, Stevenson is free to correctly identify Lebron James as non-divine, and with Sagarin assisting him on the team level, there is no limit to the darling-fueled nonsense they can cut through.

The Nightmare is Over

Mrs. DCO probably put it best when, shortly after Marian Hossa’s wouldn’t-have-counted-anyway last-second shot trickled harmlessly if-tantalizlingly through the crease, she said, “Someone had to lose, and I’m glad it was the Penguins.” With this godsend of a loss, we are now free from the mental anguish that has plagued us all since Pittsburgh threw their final regular season game against the Flyers so they could match up against Ottawa in the first round. Yes, the Senators, who were swept in the regular season by the Capitals long before it was fashionable, and common, to sweep the Senators. The Peguins’ shell-curling-up-in on that last day denied the Caps a chance to again take down Ottawa in four, and left the Chosen One and his lackeys an open door into the second round and beyond.

We watched in horror as we realized we had to first choose between the Penguins and Rangers. After but a few moments, it was clear we had to, extremely grudgingly, root for New York (I still choke on my keystrokes writing that). Once that trial was passed, it was on to perhaps the greatest conundrum in Washington sports outside a Cowboys-Eagles NFC Championship: Flyers vs. Penguins for the opportunity to play for the Cup. Was there more a sinking feeling in recent hockey history as knowing that one of these reviled franchises, one with the aforementioned Anointed One and one with Danny Briere, would be within but four victories of defiling that fine silver chalice? It was enough to (almost) make an optimist’s heart wilt.

But we got through it and, as always, were able to find something positive in the experience. A celebration of a quarter century of Philly sports dominance was worth seeing the Penguins become Eastern Conference champions – provided they lost the next round. And lose they did, despite Sidney Crosby’s “performance for the ages” in Game 3 and Evgeni Malkin’s imminent breakout heralding, accidental game-winning-goal-assisting Game 5. Rescuing us from more Crosby coddling was Conn Smythe winner Henrik Zetterberg, who tied lil’ Sid for the playoff points lead (often scoring goals) and denied him yet another pair of his birthrights: leading the playoffs in points, and possibly the Conn Smythe itself.


The last week has been a hectic week for DCO, with both members immersed in working obligations in the Central timezone, hence the paucity of posting. All is well now, however, and we are ready to bring you another summer of Nats’ successes (on the field and in the draft room), Capitals’ trophy-collecting and roster-strengthening, Redskins’ gearing-up for a season of continuity, Wizards’ doing the same, and United’s staging of another comeback from a less-than-ideal start. That we get to enjoy such a summer without glowing stories of Crosby’s heroic secondary-assist dishing, his superior “vision” for being able to skate into the offensive zone and drop the puck to a defenseman (a move nobody else has ever pulled off, ever), his unprecedented two-goal game in the Finals, and Malkin’s inspiring 3-point Cup Finals performance makes it all the sweeter.

At last, the only hockey news in front of us is good news. Alex Ovechkin will collect a couple of trophies on June 12. Bruce should collect another, and Nick Backstrom is a prime deserving candidate for yet another. Then we wait on imminent signings of next season’s third-line center Sergei Fedorov, and next season’s starting goalie, Cristobal Huet. Still more goodness follows, with a key free agent signing here and there, followed by a training camp featuring a healthy Michael Nylander, Chris Clark, and Brian Pothier, then on to a division-title-defending season culminating in a Cup run, perhaps with a sweep of the Penguins thrown in. It’s (finally) going to be a good summer.

DCO Pardons, Endorses Red Wings

It’s understandable if some Caps’ fans hesitate a tad in fully getting behind the Red Wings to win the Stanley Cup, even with their opponent being so foul a team as the Penguins. After all, the Red Wings methodically swept away the Capitals’ only trip to the Finals ten years ago. Those who followed each game of the series of course know it was one of the most competitive sweeps of all time, with its three one-goal games (including that really, really almost-had-it OT Game 2 in Detroit) featuring lots of non-rolling-over by the supposedly overmatched Caps (remember sneers of “Detroit in three”?).

Still, despite this cruel dispatching, I personally never felt the animosity towards the Red Wings I did towards the other Washington playoff opponents that year. The volcanic Pat Burns was enough to grate on the nerves of any non-Bruins fan in the first round. The Sabres will always hold a sour place in my heart for the highly contentious Conference Finals. The memories: Matthew Barnaby and his water-bottle-throwing tantrums; Lindy Ruff’s non-stop whining regarding every perceived injustice heaped on his poor put-upon team by those mean Capitals and meaner officials; the constant darling-ism heaped upon Dominik Hasek by Darren Pang. Remember how crestfallen Pang sounded with his sighing “Congratulations to the Capitals” after Joe Juneau beat Pang’s deity in OT of Game 6?

I’m sure there was some (now forgotten) aspect of the Senators that caused me to dislike them in their brief five-game appearance in Round 2 as well. But, as I mentioned, it was the Red Wings that never really irritated me like the rest. It was kind of like: nothing personal, we just have to professionally do our job and win the Cup, even if this is Dale Hunter’s last real chance ever. So they weren’t that bad. Besides, it’s hard to stay mad at a city that has blessed us for so many years with the Lions.

However, for those fans still understandably holding a bit of a grudge, DCO hereby extends a full pardon to the Detroit Red Wings for their actions in the spring of 1998. We do this to enable a guilt-free supporting of Detroit as they look to vanquish the hype-encrusted blight that is the Penguins. The latest incarnation of such hype: the predictable-yet-still-offensive call for Sidney’s coronation as Conn Smythe king before a single second of the Finals has been played. It’s inevitable, of course, that he wins this award if the Pens win the Cup (perhaps even if they don’t), even if his meager goal-scoring rate continues. It’s as pre-scripted into NHL “legend” as the Manning boys winning Super Bowl MVPs was for the NFL. The making of a good “story” (in this case, the heralded “Next One” leading his team to a championship, fulfilling the prophecy) overshadows other (more) deserving candidates, even perhaps those on a winning (Detroit) team. Storyline over merit.

So here’s the storyline DCO is behind: Detroit in 4, or 5, or 6, or 7. Whatever it takes.

We Can Get Through This

If you’re like me, you saw your worst NHL playoff nightmare come to fruition this past weekend with the coming of a Penguins-Flyers Eastern Conference Finals, and you’ll be downright tortured by the implications of Friday’s Game 1. One of these two reviled franchises will be playing for their opportunity to soil the Stanley Cup. It’s a conundrum. Who to root for? Better put: who to root against?

Traditionally, my ire is directed at the Penguins above all others, with the Flyers coming in a close second. A nasty little playoff series, however, can shift (dis)loyalties. Thus the question is further muddled: do I now hate the Flyers more given a contentious Conference Quarterfinals round that included a goalie-interferring Game 7 goal followed by a disputed-power-play Game 7 OT goal? Does such a thing override my years-long hate affair with the Penguins and cause me to hope they knock out the deserving-of-a-knockout Flyers? Or do I dare hope (even indirectly) that the Penguins go down and Lord of the Spear Danny Briere gets the chance to put his elfin cheap-shotting hands on the Cup?

It might appear a no-win situation. On the one hand we would have to hear from louty Philly fans for likely decades should they even make it to the Finals, and the team that brought their booing, coach-firing-calling fans a ten-game losing streak in the regular season would be waved in our faces as evidence of Philadelphia’s superiority in everything. On the other, possibly larger, hand, we have the prospect of goal-less-in-Round-2 Sidney Crosby and his slew-legging sidekick Evgeni Malkin playing for Stanley.

Here is where the daunting rooting situation receives a cold dose of clarifying. The Penguins must not be allowed to advance. The gaggingly awful vision of Briere being within spitting distance of the Cup pales with the downright daunting spectre of darlings Crosby, Malkin, et al being similarly so. You think Sid apologists are spinning crazily now in telling us how his zero goals in Round 2 and two playoff goals overall (one in an empty net) are practically heroic? Wait until he “leads” the Penguins into the Finals with a few more of his secondary assists specialties (throwing the puck blindly into the crease, often backhanded to further show his superior “vision”). The only thing worse could be rising darling Malkin scoring a few more points and avoiding a few more suspensions, a la conference semi-final disappointment LeBron James, thereby catapulting himself into ill-begotten Gretzky comparisons.

The coming days will be trying, as we see one of these wretched teams and fanbases celebrate a conference title and a trip to the Finals. The days following that will be all the more difficult, as one will be but four victories away from the Cup. In those days the Stars or Red Wings will never have been more precious to me. It will not be easy, seeing all of this. But the day will come when Gary Bettman beckons Chris Clark to get the Stanley Cup, which he will raise before 18,200+ at Verizon Center before handing it off to alternate captains (and co-Conn-Smythe winners) Alexander Ovechkin and Donald Brashear. On that day, the painful realization of a Pennsylvania team playing for the Cup will be but an awful-but-distant memory (like that whole Detroit sweep of the Flyers in 199-whatever; see, I’ve forgotten it).

Already in this not-necessarily-bleak offseason we’re seeing signs of hope, whether it be the stated openness of Cristobal Huet, he of the gaudy playoff-sealing goaltending stats, to remain with the Capitals, or the team’s wise desire to retain the services of sage-like Sergei Fedorov. Not a bad starting goaltender and third-line center to lead a Cup-lifting team. And finally, our long national Jaromir Jagr nightmare will be over, freeing up badly needed Ted Leonsis bucks to further cultivate this contender-in-waiting. Speaking of Jagr, possibly my favorite quote from him, ever (in a positively bafflingly way), when he was talking about his past and his future following the Rangers’ ousting from the playoffs: "Everybody doubted me when I was playing in Washington for whatever reason." Jaromir, Jaromir, Jaromir, where would we begin? We appreciate you yelling at Crosby to “get up” after one of his patented dives, but you’re still deluded.

So yes, these Eastern Conference Finals will suck. But we’ve been through worse. We’ve seen multiple Cowboys’ Super Bowl victories (and the Giants last year). We’ve seen the Eagles come close to getting one of their own (before faltering and keeping intact their 0-for-forever streak). We’ve endured the Rangers and Devils hoisting their own Cups. I suffered very closely first-hand through three Yankees’ championships in four years while at college in New York. So yes, its bad, but we can get through this.

The Wheaton Weapon suits up, and Miami gets PWNED!!111!!

HAHAHA! Anyone catch the Miami Heat, aka the worst team in the NBA getting housed by the Wizards Thursday night? I did. Before the game, people harped about the Wizards lack of winning ways in Miami, home of the worst professional sports teams in America, but not THIS optimist. Even with their ever-ballyhooed, ever-fellated-by-officials, yet ever-complaining guard Dwyane Wade in place, and not holding dramatic, wheelchair calling trips to the DL, the Wizards maintained a ten point lead throughout the contest, much to the chagrin of the TNT broadcasters, who only began firing up when the Heat managed to cut the lead to seven once or twice. Speaking of firing up, man, could Deshawn Stevenson not feel his face last night, draining career-highs in threes and season-highs in points. I wonder if Darling Dwyane was able to feel his either, for most of the crazy falling-backwards j's were directly in his over-exposed grill. I wan't able to count the number of lame T-Mobile commercials Wade was in during the broadcast in comparison with his number of effective plays, but I am sure that Miami's fickle fanbase likely gawked at more lame commercial performances (not even a genius like Barkley could rescue him), than great plays at a 30000000:1 rate.

Of course, the Darling was able to hurt the Wizards in a more lame, more dirty manner, egregiously flying towards the always-solid Antonio Daniels while he was in route to extending the lead to fifteen, illegally tackling him in the air in a foul attempt to land on sportscenter. Amazingly, the Darling was assessed his first foul of the night on the play, to which he, un-amazingly, began to cry to his usually helpful official friends. While the Wizards were OK for the rest of the night, AD suffered another freakin' sprained knee, leaving the number of adequate point guards on the Wizards roster resembling Gilbert's jersey number.

But is the DCO worried about this continued cursing via injuries? Never. Because we have been catching the recent play of Roger Mason Jr.! I know everyone on the internet loves nicknames, those crazy "African-American" traditions where guys are given lovely names based on their play, hair, criminal record, quality of cocaine, hometown, favorite car, or ability to impregnate women. Our attempts at nicknames haven't quite caught on yet, but that doesn't mean we aren't going to again throw our hats into the arena and again dub the son of Mason, The Wheaton Weapon.

As some of you may know, Bobtimist Prime is from, lives, and represents Wheaton, MD, the illest suburban enclave this side of Connecticut Avenue. Roger Mason gets his new nickname from having played at Good Counsel High School, back when it was located off of the more seedy side of Georgia Ave. Sure, the venerable Catholic school with its required polo shirts and slacks uniforms and required courses of Latin has since moved further up Georgia Ave in Olney, likely saving the paying customers of the school the need to avert the toughs leaving Mrs. Kim's lovely Party Time Beer and Wine, but the essence of Wheaton remains in Mason. The gritty, yet kind of monied background, the effective location (great three point shot = proximity to the district), the diversity (Mason plays the point in addition to shooting guard and swingman, Wheaton has a burgeoning El Salvadorian community), the key contributions (Mason's huge 18 points, Wheaton Plaza's fantastic variety of shoe stores), etc.

Now, with Daniels nursing his knees for a couple of weeks (and the Darling nursing his lottery-bound team to another lauded two-game win streak), the Wizards will rely on the Wheaton Weapon's contributions in a full time manner, and we are confident that they will continue their pwning ways.

First-Place Wizards Still in First Place

CHARLOTTE, April 2 — After winning half of their games played this weekend, the First-Place Washington Wizards remain atop their Southeast Division. In front of another sell-out crowd Friday night, the First-Place Washington Wizards continued their competitive play, keeping the game tied until the final buzzer, where it took another whole period for them to finally succumb to what obviously amounted to an off night. In fact, the game was such a bright spot in sports that highlights were shown often throughout the weekend. Sure Michael Ruffin may have made one of the most bone-headed plays since Freddy Brown threw his no-look to James Worthy, but the important thing to remember is that he is a great person, one who excells off the court in community affairs and according to Steve Buckhandz, is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. See? He really shouldn't die in his sleep. Besides, it was the First-Place Washington Wizards who ultimately won being that they reside in a country that isn't completely unneccessary.

While their original 13-game win streak was ultimately halted, a new 11-game win-streak plan began on Sunday in the very unfriendly confines of Milwaukee, a city known for its beer, lack of activity, and resulting obesity. The First-Place Washington Wizards continued their winning ways by crushing the lottery-suckitude-bound Bucks 121-107 in a game not broadcast on television due to the NBA's insistence that America be shown Michael Doleac unimpeded. It was in this game that the great Caron Butler, shown above on a very special episode of Oprah, managed to play so outside of the realm of humanity that his body could no longer bear the awesomeness and ended up giving up on him like a Prince Georges County teenager's parents. Playing extra tight defense on convicted rapist Ruben Patterson, Butler's hand met with the back board, shattering both (according to witnesses). Butler will remain sidelined for the remainder of the season and the first round of the playoffs, Ruben Patterson remains at large.

Despite the First-Place Washington Wizards relatively unimpressive record without the man nicknamed "Tough Juice," the team remains upbeat. "I'm going to stay positive," said Butler, who despite having a devastating injury, did not need the theatrics of a wheel-chair unlike the "Darling" Dwyane Wade, whose Converse-sponsored injury act has been broadcast worldwide. Also unlike the "Darling," Caron's next practice won't be a national news item, as the glorified free-throw shooting, referee-dinner parting throwing nancy-boy's is. "Darling's" team was fondled by a bunch of Wizards ex-pats Sunday afternoon in front of America on ABC's NBA Game that will be the only one seen today special.