The better team

Two weeks ago tonight we sat in disbelief as we saw Montreal take apart the Caps in the first round.

Tonight we sat in awe as they did the same thing to the reigning Stanley Cup champions.

When my sister and brother in law (Caps season tix holders) watched the dwindling minutes of the home loss two weeks ago, the Habs fans in their section were shaking hands with Caps fans, and told them (in accented French Canadian English) that the better team did not win.

I beg to differ with our northern neighbors, as the better team did win that night, and tonight against the Pens. Perhaps the more talented team did not win, but certainly the better team did.

Now that I've watched 14 straight games featuring the Montreal Canadiens, I am invested in their future success. Here's to adding a 24th (!) Stanley Cup banner to their rafters.

Crazy boys

"It takes a special kind of craziness to be a professional athlete", so sayeth my wife, who is married to a doughboy who eschews all kinds o' pain.

While I hold these lunatics in high admiration, I am glad I don't have to earn my paycheck with these sorts of "workplace hazards", like:

Losing eight teeth in the first period, getting your roots trimmed, and coming back into the game in the third period (with about 100 stitches in your mouth). "It's the playoffs", he says.

Or take a puck in the face FOR THE SECOND TIME IN A SEASON.

Breaking a collarbone or clavicle while training or racing, and figuring out how best to prepare for the Tour de France, less than two months away.

Takes a certain type I guess.

The epitome of smooth

Pay particular attention to 0:17 to 0:25 of this vid:

Cyclocross dismount/remount at race speed on road shoes on cobbles (fercryinoutloud!!!) and doesn't miss a beat. Oh and he won the race too.

Also of note is the Mike Green-like mohawk (but with added mullet effect) hairdo on his mechanic who sighs relief.

Fabian Cancellara, man and beast.

Remember when?

It was way back in April of 2010, way back when (remember the good old days?) the Washington Capitals were the best team in the EN-tire NHL, finishing out the last week of their storybook season against the Bears of Beantown. Adam's friend Andre got an extra ticket to the game, so the two of them went downtown to watch the Caps take apart the Bruins (it was actually a close overtime win for the hometown boys). I drove down to pick them up, and I waited as the red-clad throngs left the arena with a promising spring of playoff hockey. We had, after all, re-acquired my favorite Slovakian defenseman in a late season trade for 2nd round action (he was injured). Sorry I didn't get to see you this spring, Juice.

I even saw one of my college/racing friend and his girlfriend as they were leaving too. The boys met me at the car and we headed home, talking about the game. Andre actually plays hockey, and he's a great kid. Parents and older sister are good people, too. So then Andre drops the bomb that later that week he's going to Children's Hospital to get one of his heart valves replaced. HOLY COW. I figured that once he recovers from that he'll be able to play hockey again, but apparently the doctors are recommending that he doesn't do strenuous activity anymore. That's quite a shattering realization when you're 15, and he puts on a brave face every day. As it turns out this was his third major heart surgery in his short life, and maybe not his last. He is in my thoughts often.

So after yelling at the Dallas Ave ruffians yesterday I saw him standing in his driveway a few houses away and checked in on him. He can't do a whole lot for another week or so, and we chatted briefly. Then it dawned on me that the Caps gave him a gift that was better than anything they would've done this spring. By losing like CHOKING DOGS in the first round, they spared Andre's heart from any additional stress as he recovers from this surgery. No need to tax that muscle anymore, we can wait for spring of 2011 for that.

Speaking of the Bruins, here's one of many of their stellar ads. Kay I know you're not a hockey fan but I think you'll like this.

Not a good way to end

Groundhog day???

ed. note: I can't strikethrough on this dopey blogger word processing "application", so apologies for the italicized boldness masquerading as parenthetical asides.

Les Habitantes march into DC and steal one (series). Not a good way to start the Stanley Cup run (or end a first round upset which results in a meltdown of historic proportions).

Jaroslav Halak was a stone wall for most of the game (series).

Alex Ovechkin (Semin & Green) was (were) barely there tonight, as all the left-handed sticks of Habs defensemen seemed to always be in his (their) way (and all the d-men too).

Ouch. (OUCH)

Hoping this trend doesn't continue

I majored in history.

I've been a Caps fan since the mid-eighties.

They now face yet another Game 7 in a series that should not have gone this long.

Historically, though, it doesn't look promising. See the cogent recap of their 7 game series collapses here.

Here's to hoping that history doesn't repeat itself tonight.

Not a good way to start...

Les Habitantes march into DC and steal one. Not a good way to start the Stanley Cup run.

Jaroslav Halak was a stone wall for most of the game.

Alex Ovechkin was barely there tonight, as all the left-handed sticks of Habs defensemen seemed to always be in his way.

Ouch.

First time ever

This may be the spring of firsts. It also may not, but I am guardedly and cautiously optimistic.

Caps beat the Pens tonight, and by doing so swept them in their season series for the first time ever. First time they've earned the President's Trophy too. And while they were at the 1998 Cup finals, they will hopefully celebrate another first sometime in June.

It'll take 3 divisional and conference series sets to get there, but I am guardedly and cautiously optimistic that it will happen.

Bruuuuuuce!

Sometime in 1975 or thereabouts my dad took me and some other Cub Scouts to the Cap Centre to watch Washington's hockey team play the Atlanta Flames. It was not memorable except that it was a giveaway day, and the team doled out wooden hockey sticks with the old Caps logo on a red stick. I think I broke the stick that week playing street hockey in the alley with Bobby Blanchard and Rusty Strasburger and it's now just another bric in the brac of my memory.

I'm not into autographs or collectibles, and most of the stuff they give away at pro sports games is cheap junk anyway. What we get out of going to games is that opportunity to be at a communal event with thousands of others. While the hassle of getting to sports venues often taints the entire experience (Redskins at Raljon), going to the Verizon Center on the Metro is by far a great journey, both bland in routine and giddy in anticipation for the event, lately the event being a Caps game.

So when I'm not lucky enough to get a ticket from my friends/family (thanks Kurt, Bill, Tim, Justin, and the boys at Meridian Construction), I get to watch it at home with the fam. And while we pretend to be knowitalls about a game NONE of us have ever played, we are unmatched in our knowledge of the nuances of the DC metro areas most talented dramatic actor, Bruce Boudreau:

Notice the timing as he leans back when he sees the "cup holder" here. OK for his first attempt.

Since he's a Canuck, listen for the "eh" here, at about 0:21. This one in particular is pretty lame, since there's not enough Bruce.

"There just aren't the words". Much better.

"I'm what you call 'fiscally conservative'." Definitely on the upswing.

and of course, "You HAD me at no problem." When we start mixing in pop culture references to popular movies, we're definitely trending upward.

The rest of his ads are nothing to shake a stick at.

Karen thinks I watch too much TV. Yathink?

Double treat

Two Caps games in two days. That doesn't happen often, but I'll take those opportunities when they come. Same goes for seeing old friends. My friend Tim was at both games, and having only seen him a coupla times in the past decade, it was great to catch up twice in a week.

The best thing about old friends is the ability to just pick up where we left off once before.

Tim and I used to train together. Not in an overtly serious fashion, but working in a bike shop with him and putting in some road miles, going to a few races, it adds a dimension to friendship, like any shared experience. So after finding our different paths, we would always have something to talk about when we would see each other at weddings or when he was in town. He kept on training, and eventually became a Cat 2. I kept on eating and would be a Cat 6, if that category existed. Category 2's race with professionals. 'Nuff said.

Icing on the cake was that the Caps won both games.

Speaking Spanish to an Italian...

I had one of those experiences this week conversing with an engineer about emergency generators, you know, the discussion about something you just know a little bit about with someone who knows every detail about the subject. You sort of understand, but you don't really, so you go for the big picture, but the engineer doesn't GET the big picture, as the details are what are important to them. So we end up talking at cross purposes sometimes, and simple conversations can turn difficult.

In the late spring I joined a group of musicians to jam with various stringed instruments. As I am a virtuoso with all of three chords, I usually disappear into the background pretty easily and just try to strum along, knowing that my hopeless technical deficiencies will be easily covered by the group and my somewhat healthy sense of rhythm. The only problem was that this group was much more of the folk music variety, and people were showing up with dobroes and lap steel guitars and zithers and one two-stringed thing that I had never seen nor heard before. The only other guitar in the room was a friendly dude who could finger and flat pick like nobody's business, and he talked to me about tuning down and other things I just don't really know. We weren't even through half a song when I packed it in. So some days you hear a language which sounds somewhat familiar but you just don't really understand what's being said.

I know this has nothing to do with this, but this was really freaky a coupla nights ago--while our boy Alex was getting suspended by the NHL for an inopportune knee on knee hit, two Panther teammates had an accidental altercation...

Nick vs Nik

Just learned how to embed videos in a blog.

Whoop-dee-doo.

Gotta be careful, as posting too many vids can be as interesting as talking in great detail about dreams, or discussing fantasy football, or describing how epic D & D character roll-ups are, or showing baby pictures, or or or.

I'll stop here.

Off to the Caps v. Wild game. It's not often that you see two Nic(k)las Backstroms play each other, so you take those opportunities when they come.

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