Most of my blogging is usually just my own wandering thoughts, but every once in a while as I follow the links around the Internet I pass over something so good I am compelled to share:
Via the Hockey Pundits, Mike Ulmer's column in today's Toronto Sun.
I was just talking about John Kordic the other night...
One game does not a season make…but last night was a nice way to start.
(Yes, that’s it. No whooping, no gloating. I don’t get super-emotional, which some people take as a sign that I am not a true fan. It isn’t that, it’s just that I have learned to pace myself. I’ll be more animated in, say, the second round of the playoffs.)
I got a wee bit emotional last night when the 30th season pre-game ceremony honored four past Caps: Yvon Labre (I wrote about him last week…the picture-with-my-hero thing), Rod Langway, Dale Hunter, and Calle Johansson. They brought them out to center ice one at a time, while the names of all the players over the years scrolled across the telescreen. Yvon represented the 1970’s, Rod the 80’s, and Dale the 90’s. I was speculating that current captain Steve Konowalchuk would be skating out to join them, but seeing Calle was a nice surprise. I notice no one is wearing his number 6 this year, so I hope that means his jersey will be retired with the other three. (I’d like to see Mike Gartner’s 11 retired too, for that matter.)
When I saw Timo Blomqvist’s name flash by on the screen, I said “If they didn’t bring him in tonight, I’m going home.” I was just being a smart aleck, but I truly was a big Timo Blomqvist fan.
(Cue the wavy flashback effect.)
Thinking about it, I realize that those mid-80’s Bryan Murray years were my favorite. Some of that is probably situational…I was in school, no responsibilities, so I could make hockey my number one priority. I went to every home game. They were my good old days.
I loved the team we had then, and the gritty, defensive hockey they played. It wasn’t high-scoring and it wasn’t always pretty, at least not a Guy Lafleur-speeding-gracefully-down-the-ice kind of pretty, or a Wayne Gretzky-setting-up-an-impossible-play kinda pretty. It was mucking-and-grinding pretty. They called those guys “plumbers.” I still have a t-shirt from one of those years with the slogan “Hard work gets it done.”
Rod Langway and Mike Gartner are in the Hall of Fame; if you’re a hockey fan you know Scott Stevens. Last night I was boring Victor to death on the Metro ride home with a recitation of the other players I remember so fondly (besides Timo Blomqvist): Doug Jarvis (the Iron Man). Dave Christian (of the USA hockey Christians). Bengt Gustaffson. Gaetan Duchesne (I remember playing Edmonton and watching him stick to the Great One like glue.) Dave Shand. Bob Gould. Alan Haworth. Pat Riggin. Al Jensen.
These are all really happy memories until I think about the playoffs. Last time I saw Dave Shand he was behind the bench in a coat and tie, and he turned his back to the ice in the final second of the loss to the Islanders that ended the playoffs and his time in the NHL.
Back then I used to get very emotional.
(Every once in a while Victor catches me mis-remembering something. I’ll have a playoff series in the wrong season, or think two players were on a line together when in reality they weren’t even on the team at the same time. So I guess I’m saying, take my reminiscing with a grain of salt. I did leave a few brain cells behind in the Showcase Pub & Eatery, and in the intervening years I have had other priorities replace hockey at the top. Then there’s that false memory syndrome so common in those who have suffered great emotional trauma.)
So (back to the present) a 6-1 win is a good thing, and it was a good game. There's a fine group of players in Capitals uniforms, and maybe one day I will impress (or bore) the kids with stories of Peter Bondra and Olie Kolzig. And I think it's situational...I'm an adult now, I need to worry about work and a list of other responsibilities. So as good as it may get, these just aren't my good old days.
I always get a little excited by a new hockey season.
This season is the 30th for the Washington Capitals. I still remember the first one. My family had season tickets, great seats behind the bench. I didn't get to see my first live game until November, a 4-4 tie against the North Stars.
The first Caps game I saw was not a loss. I think that is significant, because that first season was 8-67-5...a lot of losses...but I always expected them to win. Bear in mind I was a little kid. The finer points of the game, like actual talent, were still lost on me. They were my team, I loved them, if they lost I was crushed.
My favorite player was defenseman Yvon Labre. I liked Denis Dupere, too, and Ron Low and Ace Bailey. But Yvon Labre was my favorite favorite. When I played street hockey...always pretending the Caps were about to win the Stanley Cup...I scored the winning goal on a pass from Yvon.
They had a promotion the second season where kids could get their pictures taken with a player, and the whole way to the Capital Centre I talked about how I hoped I could get my picture with Yvon. I had my Yvon Labre hockey card with me to get autographed, just in case! I was all dressed up in red, white, and blue, with my Capitals stocking cap. When warmups were over a few players were lined up on folding chairs, and ushers dropped the kids on players laps like an assembly line of department store Santas. If I got Yvon it would be dumb luck...
Or a dad who could count. I didn't find this out until later (much later. Twenty years later) but my dad dropped us back in line as needed so that when I got to the front the empty player was Yvon.
On the ice, though, the team crushed me on a regular basis. Finally I got used to losing, and in a perverse way I think I started to take some pride in staying loyal to a team whose fans are always labelled with the modifier "long-suffering." Now I can trade the battle stories. The 1987 Easter game? Of course I was there. Pittsburgh? Don't talk to me about Pittsburgh. In 1982 I remember the last game of the season, the Caps had failed to make the playoffs by that much, the final standings decided by another game the same day, and captain Ryan Walter actually cried, telling the fans who stayed that next year would be the year.
Next year is always the year.
Next year starts next week.
The WUSA (Women's United Soccer Association) announced today that they are suspending operations.
I heard the news on my way home and felt a little guilty, because I never made it to any Freedom games this year.
Now the price of my seat and a hot dog wasn't going to stand between the league and insolvency, I know. But as I mentioned in a previous entry, I feel very strongly about pro women's sports.
I was musing over some of the differences between the men's and women's games I attend. The difference really isn't the actual game...the women don't play the exact same game the men do, but it doesn't make it less competative or less exciting.
One of the big differences I do see is that the women's games are for families, and the men's games are for businesses. I've seen this going to the Washington Capitals and Mystics games, the two teams I see most often in person.
My parents have had season tickets to the Caps since the first season, 1974. We had great seats, right behind the players' bench, and most of the other seats in the section were also individual season ticket holders. As the ticket prices rose, though, the seatholders changed...fewer friends and families, more "corporate" seats.
We knew the seats right behind ours were owned by a company, because most of the time the people using the seats mentioned it at some point during their constant non-hockey conversation: "Awesome seats, dude. How'd you get 'em?"
"My roommate's sister's boss got them from a contractor. Do you know anything about hockey?"
"No, but I played rugby once in high school. That gives me enough experience to loudly comment on the play between beers and planning Friday's happy hour."
"If you mispronounce number 7's name it sounds funny. I'll repeat that a few million times."
Ooops, sorry. I obviously have another sports axe to grind there.
Anyway, when the Caps moved downtown to the MCI Center, even my empty-nest parents could no longer afford the "good" seats and we moved up to the nosebleeds. Even up there we hear a lot to suggest that the people in the seats received the tickets via work, either as a reward from their employer or as a gift from someone with whom they were doing business.
A couple of times I have had the luxury of seeing a game from a Luxury Suite at MCI. How? A friend of mine lives next door to a woman who handles the tickets for a Big Company. When Big Company isn't entertaining clients or rewarding employees, she can do whatever she wants with the tickets. She's not a hockey fan, but my friend is, so when she remembers and he can go he gives me a call.
Now I do sometimes buy products from Big Company, but not because I've gotten to sit in their luxury suite. I don't know how the IRS handles such business expenses (not as loosely as they used to, I don't think), but I still wonder how Big Company is justifying the cost.
Another thing...many nights, particularly on, say, a Wednesday when we are playing, say, Edmonton, I can look down from my nosebleed seat and see that Big Company's box is absolutely dark and empty. But that's okay for the arena, the team, and the NHL, 'cuz that box was already paid for.
In contrast, at the Mystics games most of the luxury boxes seem dark. And instead of K Street suits, most of the fans are families. Lots of kids. Lots of couples.
The most expensive seat for the Mystics? $75 for front row floor. The next highest is $35. The Caps "VIP" front row seat is $230. For both the cheapest ticket is $10, but for the Mystics the $10 seats are a third of the arena, for the Caps the $10 seats are two rows of twelve sections.
Maybe I'm just hanging out with the wrong crowd, but the ticket prices of the men's sports (and hockey is cheap, an also-ran sport here in Washington) place most of the tickets out of the range of regular families and into the hands of Big Companies. Women's sports aren't very attractive to Big Companies, making them affordable for families.
The problem is, a sports league itself is a Big Company, and apparently it takes more than the average family's $10 tickets to keep a company like the WUSA playing in the big leagues...