I'm taking a brief moment out of Caps-talk for a little personal message to someone very special...
Today is my dad's birthday. Aside from being a great father and a wonderful human being, he is the main reason for this insanity you see before you - so it seems fitting to use a tiny corner of this space in tribute to him.
As many of you know, my father has been a Caps fan since day one. He has followed this team through ups and downs, through 8-win seasons and Stanley Cup Finals, through draft picks and signings and excitement and jubiliation and heartache. A love like that doesn't come easily but it also doesn't fade...once it's in your blood it's there for good, longing to be shared.
And so my dad passed this hockey fandom down to me, teaching me about the game and the team. He patiently explained what icing and offside meant, taught me the history of the Caps, exposed me to greats like Bobby Orr and Ken Dryden from the perspective of someone who saw them play. He put up with my strange love of Sylvain Cote and my brief foray into Leafs fandom. He stays silent about my fascination with the Habs. Somewhat. Kind of...
...not really. But the mocking and teasing is all done with love, I'm sure.
I am in every way my father's daughter. He instilled in me his love of reading and writing, his musical tastes and an appreciation of the genius of Mel Brooks. He gave me at least a fraction of his intelligence (I hope). He gave me his eyes and his nose and his strange sense of humor. And he gave me his love of hockey, for which I am eternally grateful.
So happy birthday, Dad - thanks for being the best teacher a girl could ask for.
Monday, October 01, 2007
If I May...
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
A Little Perspective, A Little History (continued...)
[Read Part One]
With a dwindling following and a losing record, the Caps could count on one group of loyal supporters who would always be there with a supportive pat on the back or a hard drink – the Capitals Fan Club, of which my father was a member and later president (and naturally as a kid I was a member of the junior fan club...).
GH: I remember going to road games and we used to joke when we were on the bus that we just hoped nobody got hurt. We weren’t really expecting them to win the game. Bus trips were fun – we went through a lot of Baileys and we commiserated with each other and said that someday this team might be good...but not this year. At the time the fan club was run by the team so you were kind of dependent on them for everything we did. We decided early in the second season to set up the fan club ourselves so we could have some independence from the team so we could schedule things on our own.
The fan club even developed a fight song that was sung on road trips [this incidentally was one of my favorite parts of the conversation with my dad – I’ve never heard him use some of these words before!]:
We’re fans of the Washington Capitals, we’re riders in the night
Dirty sons of b*tches who would rather f**k than fight
Oh, hidey didey Christ almighty who the hell are we
Zim zam goddamn, rah, rah sh*t!
GH: [laughing] It wasn’t exactly Shakespeare...it was written by one of our rowdier members and I think it’s safe to say it wasn’t really composed, it just happened to come out one time.
We actually got to be fairly close with some of the players back then because they were just happy somebody recognized them. There was a lot of carousing with the team on the road back then because they didn’t have a lot of hope of winning these games so they decided to have fun. [We were] in Pittsburgh after one of the games in the restaurant of a Howard Johnson’s and we got to have breakfast with Bruce Cowick – we had picked him up from the Flyers. He had been on the Cup-winning team but was not a major part of that and was very grateful to have the ring, I’m sure.
Bruce Cowick
CC: So where did you travel most? Pittsburgh, Montreal...
GH: Yes, we were in a division with Montreal and Pittsburgh [as well as LA and Detroit] and we’d travel up there but it didn’t really matter to us where we were. I don’t like to think about being in a division with Montreal because they were very good back then. I think Ken Dryden shut us out 4 or 5 times that year. We did get to see Bobby Orr play when he was with Chicago – he was still a good player but he had no cartilage in his knees and he was barely able to skate well. It was kind of sad for me to see that. But we were so much worse than everyone else anyways...
CC: Was there already a division rivalry with the Penguins at the time?
GH: Kind of, but it really goes back to the playoff meetings when they always seemed to knock us out. The original rivalries were really nonexistent in those early years – it wasn’t until Rod Langway came along and we actually got to be competitive that we developed some rivalries. We really just hated everybody but it didn’t do us any good.
Expansion drafts worked much differently than they do today. Back then every existing team could protect 16 players and two goalies – so the best player available in the draft was the 17th best player on any given team. The result was a mish-mash of players that went on to form that infamous roster.
GH: We had the first pick in the amateur draft and we drafted this young defenseman named Greg Joly, and the second pick was a guy by the name of Mike Marson, who was a forward. These two players probably would have been great starting in the minors but because of the way the team was formed they really needed to start off in the majors, and they suffered for it and the team suffered for it too.
Tommy Williams was one of the old hands on the team. He was already in his mid-30s when he played for us. He was a scorer but he really didn’t pay much attention to the defensive side of the ice, he just liked to try to score. Our captain the first year, Dougie Mohns, was famous for his hair piece – he wore a helmet so nobody noticed, but when you got to take pictures of him you could tell – it wasn’t the greatest piece in the world. He was 41 when he came to the Caps.
A lot of the players that first year were pretty forgettable.
CC: And Yvon Labre?
GH: The best comment made about Yvon Labre was that he would have been a great fighter if his arms were about 6 inches longer. You hear about guys being the heart and soul of a team - Yvon gave everything he could, he really tried. He scored the first goal here at home but he was not a great player and he’d be the first one to admit that. But he tried and that’s why he’s been honored. He was the closest thing to a defenseman that we had – he worked his butt off, it was obvious every game he was doing the best he could.
Mrs. GH (Guest Interviewer): Who do you think was the first player in Caps history who really mattered in terms of hockey history?
GH: I have to say Ryan Walter. Ryan was a 1st round pick and he was a real character player. He became the captain and being captain of a bad team and he and Mike Gartner did a lot to make the team respectable. Ryan was always a class guy – he would come to fan club meetings and talk to the fans and he was very down to earth.
His importance to the team was really twofold to me – first it was what he brought to the team and second, if he hadn’t been here we would never have gotten Langway. We traded him and Rick Green, another first round pick...both of whom ended up getting rings with Montreal. We traded them to the Canadiens for Rod Langway, Brian Engblom, Craig Laughlin, and Doug Jarvis. Jarvis was one of the best defensive forwards I’ve ever seen...and Locker was Locker. But that’s really what turned the franchise around, getting Langway.
Gartner was a great player obviously, he ultimately became a Hall of Famer but there was always a mark against him that he never seemed to be able to take the team to the next level. He was a great scorer in the reg season but his scoring always dropped off in the postseason.
CC: Do you think that was a fair mark against him or was it more a product of the team he was playing for?
GH: Probably a little of both. He never won a Stanley Cup with any of the teams he went to. Garts was a great player though and he did have some good playoff years – it’s hard to put the burden just on him.
CC: Were there any enforcers?
GH: We didn’t really have anyone that big that first year – there were fights, but no one was given that role. Everyone was just trying not to get hurt.
CC: It was during the era of the Broad Street Bullies in Philly, so I’m guessing they had some fights.
GH: Oh, they beat up everyone. It got to the point where guys were just skating out of the way of their players.
CC: The Caps hold a lot of dubious records and distinctions. Are there any moments that stick out as being kind of “oh god” moments? 
GH: I remember one of the Montreal games where the Caps had a 2-1 lead going into the last couple of minutes. Montreal pulled their goalie and tied the game with a little over a minute left. Then I watched as Larry Robinson took the puck behind the Montreal net after the faceoff and suddenly there were 5 Canadiens skating towards the Caps goal and I remember turning to your mom and just saying “Oh my god, here they come” – and bing bing bing bing bing it was in the net.
CC: Obviously a lot of people scored against the Caps at the time, but were there a handful of players that maybe tormented them more than others, Cap-killers like a Sundin or a Brind’amour who just consistently had the Caps’ number?
GH: Oh, everybody beat up on us – when you’re allowing 5-6 goals a game, everyone is in on it. If there were one or two it’s just gotten lost in the blur. Obviously LeFleur, Bobby Clarke, those guys had their share of goals against us. It got so bad that our goalie, Ron Low, who went on to be the coach in Edmonton and a really good goalie coach for other teams, came to be known as Red Light Ronnie. We used to say the back of his neck was sunburned from the glow of the goal light.
CC: Okay, let’s hear about the white pants...
GH: The first year they experimented with white pants for away games, where they wore the red jerseys. I think that experiment lasted one or two games largely because the white pants became translucent when they got wet, which wasn’t so much of a problem for the Caucasian players...the contrast between the translucent pants and the dark skin of a guy like Mike Marson, however, kind of made them get away from that. They wanted the game to still be a G-rated event.
CC: So the last game of the season, after 79 games with only 7 wins...
GH: It was an 8-4 win over Pittsburgh. We had picked up a player named Stan Gilbertson from Pittsburgh during the season who had been playing okay for us, not great, but he scored 4 goals in that game. It was very unlike anything that happened throughout the year. 
They started a tradition that year that lasted about 10 years or so where the fans were allowed out on the ice at the end of the last game and the players would towel off and they’d be behind ropes – you could get autographs and pictures with them.
It’s a great feat to stick by one team like the Capitals for 33 years of ups and downs (more downs than ups) – through trades, management changes, coaching changes, ownership changes, new jerseys, and countless, countless Penguins games. Yet it’s something I aspire to, to hold the love of one team long enough until it finally pays off, and then beyond.
My dad has been a season ticket holder since that first season and while his seats have gotten better and his hair has gotten thinner, the one thing that remains the same through all these years is the passion he feels for this team. Hearing him describe those dark days with as much love as one would use to speak of a great dynasty shows that being a fan means not noticing the numbers, the records, the punchlines – only the emblem on the jersey. It's a lesson I think we all could learn.
Special thanks to my dad for not only taking the time to be interviewed but also for instilling in me the love of hockey, the Caps, and the eternal underdog. It is by his example that I learned what it meant to be a true hockey fan and for that I will always be grateful.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
A Little Perspective, A Little History
The 2006-07 season has admittedly been a tough one for Caps fans. If you listen to the nay-sayers, this was one of the worst, most tragic seasons in Capitals’ history.
Yet anyone who knows their Caps’ history or even general NHL history knows that couldn’t be further from the truth. You only have to look back to the infancy of this organization, the inaugural season of 1974-75, to see what has gone on to become the worst franchise start in NHL history. It’s a dubious distinction to be sure but it has taken on a strange kind of folklore element among true Caps fans. Even those of us who had yet to be born when the team arrived can look at this season, wink at one another, and say “It could have been worse.”
It could have been worse.
To get a true feel for what the season was like, I wanted to see it from the perspective of someone who lived through it, who suffered every single loss and celebrated the rare victory right along with those hapless warriors of three decades ago. And for that I only had to look as far as my own father - we'll call him GH.
Being a Caps fan has always been kind of a thankless pursuit – but for many of us it is all we know, and we would have it no other way. In my dad’s case, the stars simply aligned, the timing of his arrival in DC from New England coinciding with the creation of the team. Their paths clearly connecting he turned away all former allegiances to become a Caps fan even at the darkest time in the franchise’s storied existence.
GH: When I came to DC I had been a Bruins fan, back in the days of Orr and Esposito, and I was a college hockey fan. Ken Dryden was my college goalie when I was [at Cornell]. The day that I got my apartment [in DC] was the day of the first exhibition game against Montreal at the new Capital Centre. I went to that game and that same night bought my first season tickets. So I had the opportunity to be there right from the very beginning.
CC: Tell me about the first exhibition game against Montreal.
GH: I think it was a tie - the team looked okay. It was obviously an exhibition game and both teams were trying a lot of things. The league was experimenting with a rule that when there was some sort of infraction they had a one-sided faceoff. So the team that committed the infraction wasn’t in the faceoff circle and the other team was. They decided very quickly not to go with that one because basically it was like getting a clear shot on goal with no defense.The very first [regular season] game was against the New York Rangers in Madison Square Garden and the first goal was scored by a guy named Jim Hrycuik. That was the highlight of his whole hockey career, I think. We ended up losing 6-3 and Ron Low [the goalie] ended up making 45 saves or something outrageous like that, which would be pretty typical for the whole season. The whole season our GAA was somewhere between 5 and 6.
We started the season 1-1-1, actually. People were encouraged and had a bit of false hope, because we really didn’t have much. [After the loss to the Rangers] we tied the Kings and then beat the Blackhawks 4-3, including 2 goals off the butt of one of the Chi d-men (who was heard to comment afterwards that he always did have a big butt).
After that it all went downhill. Our backup goalie, Michel Belhumeur, never did win a game for this team. It was really difficult. We lost a lot of road games. We went 37 road games with no ties, just losses, losses, losses. We finally won one towards the end of the season against the California Golden Seals.
There just wasn’t much on this team to cheer for, and there wasn’t much in the minor leagues to bring up. The GM was Milt Schmidt who had come in from the Bruins and we had this coach named Jimmy Anderson who didn’t last the whole season as you would expect – when you can’t fire the whole team you fire the coach. It was a very long season.
We won 8 games all season and tied 5 and I think I saw all the points. We didn’t have a whole lot of firepower and we didn’t have a solid defense. One of our defensemen, Bill Mikkelson was -82, which was obviously significant but it was pretty much indicative of the way the team was playing.
There weren’t big crowds; for a long time we were averaging 5-6000 per game. We didn’t have a product. Washington is a winner’s town and you can’t expect to draw big crowds. Also, other than Atlanta there were no teams in the South and we were still a little southern town then. Around here ice was just something you put in your drink.
CC: When Abe Pollin built Capital Centre it was proclaimed one of the most high-tech, state of the art buildings in the league at the time.
GH: It was - the Caps Centre had if not the first then one of the first giant TV screens. It wasn’t the greatest picture in the world and compared to modern screens it was pretty low tech...but it was there and you could see it from the ice. It was a very nice arena but compared to a lot of the other arenas it was very dark. It was also in the middle of nowhere and the parking situation was absolutely abominable. It would take me 35-40 minutes to drive there from Virginia, and then it would take me an hour to get home because it took you 15-20 minutes just to get out of the parking lot.Abe had the reputation, sometimes deserved, sometimes not, of not wanting to spend money on the team because he was a basketball owner first and foremost. The main reason he built the Caps Centre was for the Bullets but he needed a hockey franchise to help fill the dates in the building. We always felt that the Caps were a bit of a stepchild for him in that he paid much more attention to the Bullets than the Capitals.
CC: What was the media coverage like at the time?
GH: This was before the Times - we had the Star and the Post. Bob Fachet was the beat writer for the Post, he was good – kind of starchy, not very outgoing but a good writer and he knew hockey. The first season the Post tried to sell the game. They had stories on the rules of hockey, booklets put out about the game. Because hockey was still a novelty they were able to get a little more space in the sports section...until they started losing and no one really wanted to read about it. At first there was always a front page article but as they kept losing it started to fade.
CC: Games were mostly on the radio at that point, right?
GH: Yes, Ron Weber was the voice of the Washington Capitals of course – the thing I liked about Ron was that he got very excited about the play and he had these little sayings he would come up with like “way to go Ms. Twiddle”. He would come to Fan Club events and I got to know him and his wife, and after he retired he had seats in the Verizon Center in our section. Ron was great at making the game come alive on the radio. You could practically picture what was going on and I asked him how he was able to do this, and he said that you can’t possibly pick up every little thing that’s going on, so you kind of watch it and condense it – the puck changes hands so much, you can’t just go “he’s got it, he’s got it, now he’s got it”. I remember being very upset when he was replaced by Kolbe, and I like Kolbe, but it wasn’t the same.
Every game was on the radio and TV had maybe 10 or 15 games which is how I got to see the one [road] win. It was on late because it was a West Coast game and I remember staying up until 1 a.m. and seeing them actually win a game away from Caps Centre.
The first mention of the Caps in The Hockey News
[Read Part Two here]
