Last home game today...finally.
Before the game I stopped at the bike store. I was wearing an old logo Caps shirt, but that wasn't something I was thinking about...I have a very large collection of Caps clothes, and I wasn't wearing it because of the game. My shirt choice came to haunt me, though, when I walked into the shop and the clerk greeted me with "What's red, white and blue and plays golf?"
I looked at him blankly.
"The Washington Capitals!" he said, cracking himself up.
Oh. Yeah. That gem. "Actually, the punchline is "plays golf in April," I said, in a voice that I hope dripped acid.
Yet another clerk tried engaging me in a conversation about a local sportcaster's criticisms of the team. Because the sportscaster in question has spent 30 years not understanding hockey and covering the Caps only to highlight negativity, I disengaged from that conversation as quickly as possible.
I'm in a bike store, for the love of Mike. Let's discuss whether Jan Ulrich can beat Armstrong this year.
Anyway...Caps lost to the almost-as-sad Rangers in OT. To add insult to injury...we took my 5-year-old niece, and her main goal for the game was to meet Slapshot, the mascot. Most nights Slapshot is running around the concourse and the seats and you have trouble escaping him; today he was nowhere to be found.
The Caps did start 32-year-old minor leauger Mel Angelstad in his first NHL game. I saw his stats and said "goon," but then found this article on the AHL web page and reassessed.
Might not be the feel-good story of the year, but for this year it will have to do.
*In the years when we used to see playoff hopes abruptly dashed by the Islanders or the Penguins, a friend of mine, Caps fan and English major, put an outgoing message on his answering maching: "T.S Eliot was obviously a Capitals fan; otherwise why would he have written "April is the cruelest month"?
Posted by Nic at April 3, 2004 08:37 PM | TrackBack