THN Spotlights Caps' Bloggers

- As I was preparing to swing up to Voorhees for a few delicious hours of hockey I happened to check my e-mail and was delighted to find that the latest digital issue of The Hockey News had been delivered straight to my cyber mailbox. I was going to wait to flip through it, but I'm not a patient person by nature so I dove right in - only to find a wonderful piece by James Mirtle on our very own Ted Leonsis and his approach to hockey blogging:

"[t]he area where Leonsis most challenged the NHL norm was in the Capitals' press box, where he employed his new-media background and reached out to traditionally shunned Internet pundits by offering full credentials to more than a dozen local bloggers.

A year into the experiment, Washington has one of the most well-developed wings of hockey's blogosphere and a whole new branch of coverage in a city where only one print journalist regularly follows the team on the road."

If you don't subscribe to THN, I highly recommend that you rush to your newstand and pick up the September 18th issue to read the rest. The story even includes a moment of fame for the two OFB contributors that made the trek over to Russia with Mike Vogel and Spike Parker for the World Championships. It's a quick read but a great one - check it out!

- This so doesn't require it's own post, so I'll just stick it in this one: Semin. Is. Here.

...anyone else feel a little more relaxed now?

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An Interview with Ted Leonsis (Part 2)

Part 2 of my interview with Caps' owner Ted Leonsis...

CC: I have to ask you what your view on fighting in the NHL is since it’s kind of a hot-button topic right now.

TL: I think it’s an integral part of the game. The thing that I don’t think people understand about hockey is that it's so different than other games. I went to the Nats game the other day and from the dugout to the 3rd base line is about 40 feet...and you go to football game and you watch guys running out of bounds. And you go to a basketball game and you see basket-hanging or they’re resting during foul shots. You go to a hockey game and you realize there’s no place to hide. You’re not going out of bounds, you’re getting smashed into the glass. Your shift is 30 seconds long and you are expected to go hard for that 30 seconds.

Unlike some other sports, its such a unified team game. You can really let your teammates down by performing at 95%, and that’s why when you see teams really playing well they’re really tight, they’re standing up for one another, because they’re going 110% full out. There’s no gliding in hockey when you’re playing hard. Coming out of that I think you end up with personal strife, I think you end up with an in-your-face game. And then there’s a hundred years of code – who fights who, how you stick up for your team, and who goalies fight and what your enforcer does – it’s a part of the game.

Now when we played Atlanta [back in November] I was torn. On the one hand I understand exactly what happened. On the other, I received a lot of e-mails and letters from fans saying they were not in support of it. It does cut both ways.

CC: Do you think it has a positive or negative effect on ratings and attendance, or no effect at all?

TL: I think they cancel each other out. You get ten e-mails that say ‘how dare you, I’ll never go to another game’ and you get ten e-mails saying ‘thank Donald Brashear for me’ or ‘can we chip in and pay for the fine’...

CC: You seem to really understand the game. Did you grow up watching hockey?

TL: I did, I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, then Lowell, Massachusetts. I got to see a lot of original six games. We'd go see the Rangers play Montreal and Toronto and Chicago and the like. Then I moved to Massachusetts during the Bobby Orr [era], those great Bruins teams. I didn’t play ice hockey. We were too poor to pay for the ice time but I did play a lot of roller hockey growing up if you can believe it. And then we played floor hockey in college, so I love the game and I love indoor sports.

As much as I am a student of the game I don’t think I know anything about the game professionally. The couple of times that I would say I’ve gotten into trouble were when I thought I had an opinion that mattered [laughs]. So now I let the professionals make the calls because they’re going to take the grief and the heat when it doesn’t work, so they should get the accolades when it does work.

CC: So are you able to enjoy the game as a fan or do you find yourself constantly focused on the fact that you’re basically signing their paychecks?

TL: No, I live and die as a fan when I go to the games. I watch the games and enjoy when we win and feel awful when we lose. From a business standpoint, in the offseason you work with the front office and they tell you here’s what we think we should spend and here’s what we’re going to try to do and here’s how we think it’s going to work and you say yes or no, and they execute on it. There’s not a lot or meetings during the year. If there’s a big trade George will tell ownership what he’s doing and why. You want to trade Dainius Zubrus, it’s your call...and it had better work. You just have to let them do that because if you don’t and it doesn’t work they’re not accountable.

CC: Along that same line, we saw the big contract Detroit gave to Datsyuk recently which will probably impact the prices of some free agents this offseason. Is there a spending limit for each position in the offseason or is it a little more flexible?

TL: I think the big decision that all teams have to make is what is your core for your team and which players are going to be consistent in the team. Olie is a core player and he gets a lot of money for us. He is well compensated. Alex [Ovechkin] will be coming off his contract and he’s going to make a lot of money. Semin’s probably going to make a lot of money. We have a lot of very young defensemen. We have players that’ll be growing up on the team, and if you want to keep them you’re going to have to be able to retain their services.

At the same time we have holes to fill and the levers you use are trades and free agency. We’re fortunate in that when we make a trade now we have some assets on the team. We have young, less expensive up-and-coming players we’ve drafted. There are some teams that might get themselves into cap trouble, where they’re not happy with their financial situation, and we may be able to make a trade and get a player that just signed and [has] two years left on their contract.

The biggest issue that I see with some of these signings is the length. If you’re signed for 6 years, for the most part that player’s contract won’t be movable because you can no longer pick up part of someone else’s salary. Take the Jagr contract for us as an example. We couldn’t have moved that contract – I had to pick up some of the salary, and you can’t do that anymore. So when you make a free agent signing for a big number and a long time, it had better work. And when you’re making a big commitment, what if that nullifies your ability to keep someone that have already that’s part of your core?

So it’s a balancing act with a hard cap. What George has to do is come to us and say here’s the players that we have and consider our core and then show what the next 3, 4, 5 years for them will look like. Here’s the holes that we have, here’s the need and how we think we can fill it, and here’s what the budget will be. Then you hope for health – I feel for these teams that sign a player to a big contract and then that player gets hurt, like Ed Jovanovski.

Drafting, developing and retaining your own players and making astute trades and then big free agent signings – it's statistically proven that the big free agent signings have the highest risk. Everyone likes them, they’re sexy. As an owner you want to do them because of the media coverage and you can get better without giving anything up. But every year there’s an analysis done [that looks at] the teams and the big free agent signings, and how they did. And if you look really carefully they didn’t really work.

The biggest spenders last offseason were Phoenix, Chicago, Boston, and Columbus – all out of the playoffs. When you look at the media reports from last summer, they were all dramatically improved, all brilliant moves. Then you look at the media reports when they’re not making the playoffs, and it’s ‘fire this guy, fire that guy, I knew this wouldn’t work...’ And some of these [teams] have players signed at a really high number and they’ll regret that move.

I’m not fearful of it. I’m a risk taker by nature; I’m just surprised at the media and frankly some of the message board posters and the e-mails that believe the only way to improve this team is by signing these three unrestricted free agents and you want to say, maybe, but there’s more cases of not achieving than achieving. And we know that developing players really works.

I did a blog post about Semin recently. We drafted him and the [scouts] loved him. I saw flashes of something great in him the last 10 games he played [before the lockout]. When he was playing in Russia, he looked good. I said I thought this guy would be a 30-40 goal scorer this year and he was. Then you look at the eleven people above him that led the league in goal scoring and there were no free agents. They were all home-grown people and so you think that was better than a free agent signing. I’m not saying we’re not going to pursue free agents – what we’re trying to do is get people to be realistic, that if you don’t have a strong core that grows up in your system you can’t add to it with free agents. That’s what we believe, and I believe that.

CC: Speaking of growing from within, what have you heard about Nicklas Backstrom? Any news on him coming over here next year?

TL: I’m optimistic that we can get him to play here next year. He is being called the best player in the world not in the NHL and I believe that. I’ve seen lots of video of him this year. He got another year of experience under his belt playing with men and that’ll be another example – we’ll bring him in and he’s very young but he’s going to be a very good, impactful player. We’ll add on top of him, too, but he’s better to us than a free agent signing. Someone who you drafted, he’ll be with you for hopefully a dozen years. I’d rather do that and then add a free agent than sign two free agents. I don’t think that’s the right way to build a team.

CC: You’ve mentioned the teams that have faltered a bit or maybe gone the wrong way since the lockout. Which teams have really impressed you since the lockout?

TL: Teams that have surprised me...Buffalo as a team surprised me. They got better faster and they’ve been a dominant team this year. They probably don’t have a single true breakout superstar – they’ve got a half dozen A-minus players and that was interesting. That’s a team with four lines that can score and when you watch them play and you study the game or sit up high, there’s five guys motoring down all the time on you.

Then there’s Tampa Bay who surprised me. Tampa went the other way. Three big, expensive players eating up the majority of their cap, their core guys, then they keep filling in around them. So it’s interesting that either way can work.

Now let’s see who wins the Cup...

CC: Which brings me to who do you think is going to win this year?

TL: I’m a contrarian, I think Ottawa will win this year.

CC: Mike Vogel said the same thing.

TL: Really? [Checks] Huh. He has Ottawa downing Nashville, that’s interesting. I think Anaheim will come out of the west just because I think they’re tough and they have defense and goaltending and they have those two key guys playing 30 minutes a night. But I just think for so many years Ottawa has disappointed people and I just think it’s their year – they’re like the Colts to me.

Again, thanks to Ted for taking the time to answer a mere blogger's questions. We're all looking forward to the change that's coming...and hoping it's clad in red, white and blue!

Oh, and Ted - in case you change your mind about offering an opinion on free agent signings...I thought Chris Drury looked really good against the Islanders last night. Just a thought :)

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An Interview with Ted Leonsis (Part 1)

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet Ted Leonsis and attend a game in the owner's box. It was a really thrilling experience and despite the loss to the Penguins (again) it was a great evening. One of the things I regretted, though, was that I never really got a chance to speak with Ted as I had planned to do, being too in awe of the whole scene to actually talk in full sentences.

Because our entire interaction had consisted of a brief hello and then a brief goodbye, Ted was nice enough to sit down with me for a phone interview earlier this week to talk about all the things I had wanted to discuss. Special thanks to Ted and his assistants who were very helpful in setting this up.

CC: Over the past season or two you’ve really opened the door to the blogging community, and it’s something that other teams are starting to emulate although not to the same extent as the Caps. What drew you to bloggers in particular and what do you think they bring to a team’s fan base?

TL: Specifically three things. First of all, I really believe in the medium. Being involved in the internet for a long, long time, one of the basic premises is that there’s this inate intelligence in the wisdom of crowds. If you can make tools and generate interest and traffic there would be people who were very passionate and very articulate [and] their words deserve to be heard. So I just knew in our fanbase, based on the e-mails I’ve been getting over the years, there were some very bright people. We knew if we could help activate a blogosphere it would be a very good experience for the bloggers but it would also be beneficial to our franchise because the more dialogue, the more conversation, the more coverage, the better for us.

Secondly, I believe that traditional media, especially newspapers are in peril right now. Their circulation is decreasing, their advertising revenue is shrinking, and as a result they’re losing talent. They’re laying off people all over the place and they’re being forced to cut back on their coverage. We want and need and thrive on coverage - good and bad. I don’t care if a blogger writes badly about us, I just want them to write. We need the coverage.

Third, I actually felt that there was more talent in the blogosphere. It's proven true when you read the collective blog posts about a subject versus a newspaper [article] there’s more analysis. You learn things from the blogosphere. Like you writing an article with your dad who was there Year One. That will be of great interest because here you’re a woman who loves the team and you probably went to games early on. You won’t get that kind of writing or reporting or blogging from traditional media.

So all of those things led me to [the idea that] this is important, might as well lead. I’ve been an advocate with the league and with the other owners, and I’ve worked with Eric [McErlain] on creating the blogger’s bill of rights. I thought we had a very, very good experience during the year.

CC: It seems to have worked, especially here in DC. You could say that the Caps blogosphere is one of the larger and more active in the league compared with the more traditional “hockey towns” like Toronto, Detroit, etc. What do you think that says about DC as a hockey town?

TL: DC is a hockey town – it’s just not a Caps hockey town. That’s one of our challenges. It’s ironic. Take DirecTV; the DC/Maryland/Virginia area is one of their best, fastest growing subscription bases. People are paying money to watch lots of out of town hockey on DirecTV. And we see it when we play some teams that their embedded fan bases are huge. Our job is to find a way to get those people first in the building, and second to get them to become passionate Caps fans.

There’s a woman who is a longtime season ticket holder. She loves the Caps, her kids play hockey in Reston, and she told me that 40 games a year I am going to be the most avid Caps fan. But when Detroit comes to town I’m wearing my Detroit jersey. I grew up there, my mom grew up there, we grew up going to games and I love Detroit. So you’ll have my business, but don’t get mad at me when you see me cheering for Detroit when we play them.

And that’s what we have – we have a good hockey market, but we could make it a better Caps market.

CC: So many people will say that the best marketing tool is a winning record...

TL: You know, I’d really like to say that’s right. That’s instinctively, absolutely correct. My blog post of the other day...I still haven’t gotten good answers. What I mean by that is just that we went to the Stanley Cup Finals and [that year] we played the Bruins, there were lots of Bruins fans. We played Buffalo, there were lots of Buffalo fans. We played Detroit, it looked like it was a home game for the Red Wings. Everyone says well, they sold tickets to them...well, yeah, because we weren’t selling tickets [here]. I wasn't the owner at the time, but the tickets are available and these fan bases are very aggressive in buying tickets. I know if I could sell it out to season ticket holders that would be a good thing because that means someone is committed and they own the seat.

Then people say, well you have to win. Well, okay, we won our division, we had 106 points, we played Pittsburgh in the playoffs...and boy there were a lot of Pittsburgh fans. So when I hear “just win” I go, okay, but we have 106 points, we’re in the playoffs, we make the Stanley Cup Finals which means we won – so it has to be something more than just a knee-jerk reaction. I see it in Florida too, when Toronto plays the Panthers it looks like it’s a Toronto crowd. Maybe it’s something to do with geography, maybe it has to do with not having enough season ticket holders, it might have something to do with not winning enough...but there’s something different going on here than other markets.

CC: There have been some marketing tools that seemed to have worked pretty well this year – hockey n heels, reduced tickets for college students...

TL: We’re being very aggressive and we’re trying lots of things and we have big investments in staff – we haven’t broken the code yet but we’re certainly gonna die trying.

CC: Along the same lines there seems to be a growing partnership between the Caps and the Nationals since getting their new ownership team, the Caps have taken batting practice...

TL: Mark Lerner is a small partner in Lincoln and he and I have become very close friends. Our seasons don’t really overlap so we felt it made a lot of sense to be synergistic – we market them, they market us and we would be “rebuilding” our teams together. We’re also doing the same thing with DC United – it just seems to make a lot of sense to do that.

CC: Any chance we’ll see any of them on the ice this year?

TL: (laughing) DC United or the Nationals?

CC: Either one.

TL: We’d love to get some guys out on the ice to try it – we had Clark throwing out the opening pitch a few nights ago, so yeah. I know that Antawn Jamison of the Washington Wizards has asked me to get him skates, he wants to see what it’s like.

CC: That would certainly be something to see...shifting gears a bit, during the last game of the season we saw teases for a color change of the jersey. Anything you can reveal?

TL: Well...I think the ‘Change is Coming’ was more emblematic of a whole new Washington Capitals. We struggled to get into our new building [in Ballston], we moved in about a month ago and even though the building was up and the guys were skating they didn’t have their locker room. We weren’t in the office yet so that shift is starting. A lot of these new marketing campaigns were going, so there's that. We’ve been very public by saying now is the time to try and improve the team a little bit more aggressively.

You know, I would expect that the rumors that are out there about new colors are probably true.

CC: ‘Probably true’...you’re not going to give me a definitive on that?

TL: You know, I shouldn’t.

CC: But we are making the shift to the new Reebok jerseys. Are they going to be unveiled before the draft?

TL: Um...I would just stay tuned for a little bit.

CC: Okay, I get it. So obviously the playoffs are going on but the next item on the Caps agenda is the draft.

TL: I would expect this is going to be a really hard-working draft. We have a lot of picks, there might be some trades happening around that time – we’re in the top 5, we didn’t win but being in the top 5 we should be able to get a very good player. We don’t know where else we’ll be picking with Buffalo’s spot. We’ve got 5 picks in the first and second rounds so I’m expecting George will be busy.

CC: Last year there was a behind-the-scenes look at the draft on CSN that was pretty popular with the fans.

TL: Yes, we’re going to work w/ our media partners and the bloggers if they want to show what really goes on.

More with Ted to come as we talk about fighting, free agency, and of course his picks for the Stanley Cup.

Part 2

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