Caps Tee Off for Charity

The Caps hit the links today for the Caps Care Classic golf tournament in Springfield, VA and I was there to bring you all the useless tidbits and gossip that no one else will print.

- Almost every team consisted of a Capital and three "regular folks", although there were a few alumni/media groups. There was the ever entertaining team of Sylvain Cote, Joe Reekie, CSN's Lisa Hillary, and Ken Sabourin as well as a team consisting of Ron Weber, Yvon Labre, Paul Mulvie and Blair Stewart (who apparently are former Caps, according to my dad...I only knew Labre and Weber).

- A handful of Caps were merely spectators, spending the afternoon wandering around the clubhouse or hopping in golf carts for a quick spin around the course. Jurcina, Klepis, Kozlov and Semin all sat out the festivities; Mike Green was slated to play but apparently there weren't enough players to form a team so he joined the others.

- Spotted around the 13th green: Joe Reekie introducing himself to Kozlov, who was riding around on the beverage cart for some reason. Reekie then asked Viktor how Sergei Gonchar was doing and was informed that Gonch got hit with the puck a few times against Buffalo the other night. Where? "In the [rear]," said Kozlov. Ouch.

- Semin got his own cart and followed Ovechkin and his team around for most of the day. He was joined later by Kozlov and the two chatted while Ovie teed up; at one point Semin shouted out "come on!" right when Ovie was about to swing. Proof that he speaks English...and is a little bit of a brat, which I love.

- Brooks Laich had the best shot in his group from the fairway of the 18th, which garnered a little round of applause from the half-dozen of us watching. He took a series of bows...and then missed the putt. Oh, well.

- Tom Poti and his team were passing by Laich and Brooks informed him that his team was 10 under. Tom wasn't buying it (and neither were we).

- Jurcina and Klepis were running around the clubhouse for a while, popping in and out to check on the action. Later in the day Milan sat in a rocking chair right next to me and was text messaging people for about 10 minutes before disappearing again. I tried to get him to stay but he wouldn't fit in my purse...

- I think by the end of the day some of the guys who weren't playing were starting to get a little antsy - Jurcina hijacked a golf cart and he and Green went for a spin around the course, looping around several times and even stopping right next to the 18th hole to watch Erskine. And heckle him.

- Ovechkin's team finished a hole and rather than moving on to the next one Ovie decided to stand right on the green as Michael Nylander took his fairway shot. Nylander just missed him with the ball, which Ovie then pretended to poke at with his club. He scampered off before Nylander could catch him, sadly.

- Matt Pettinger is a very impressive golfer. Ovechkin is...Ovechkin.

- The five non-golfers eventually ended up at the bar, grabbing some munchies and beer while the rest of the team finished up. Can't say that didn't look like more fun than the golfing thing, frankly, but whatever.

- Erskine shanked his fairway shot on the 18th so that it was propelled over to the 1st tee. As he drove up to collect his ball he endured some ribbing from Backstrom of all people. You have to love that.

Check out pics and video from the day's activities: