Caps picked up Sergei Federov, who was good in the mid to late 90’s.  Is that going to help?

Also picked up what seems to be a solid goalie (he’s certainly had the Caps number) in Cristobel Huet.

And now, they’ve just traded Matt Pettinger, who sucked anyway.  Makes you wonder what we got for him!

Seems like they got it all for cheap since they’ve been stockpiling draft picks and prospects for so long.  Guess we’ll find out!

This is the kind of thing they need to do to get fans back:

Shortly before lunchtime Thursday, the St. Louis Blues sent an e-mail to fans announcing “Tuesdays on Tap,” a promotion offering unlimited free beverages, including beer, for certain tickets to five upcoming home games.

But, of course it’s already canceled. Jerks.

The Avs were visiting the Caps in the phone booth last night. This is the first, and likely last hockey game I will watch this season, unless for some reason the Caps get on TV again through OLN or Versus or whatever the heck it’s called.

I can’t tell if the Caps played well, or if the Avs were just tired and depleted from playing the Red Wings the night before. It also helps that both of the Avs best players are injured – but for the most part the Caps shut them down the entire game. They possessed the puck well and played great defense, even keeping to their unique style of having a lead and then going into hockey’s prevent defense and trying hard to lose that lead in the final moments of the game. This is why they have so many appearances in OT.

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1. I have no idea who is on what team anymore. Don’t get me wrong – the cap is good for competition, but it’s a giant shuffle every year. Lifespans of players on teams don’t last – as they play better, they price themselves out of their team’s range, or the team has to neuter itself to stay competitive.
2. Versus? The Caps were on national TV last night – I had no idea. The NHL was incredibly vain for not accepting that their market value dropped after not playing for a whole season. It wasn’t much of a market before, and ESPN is a real sports network. I know Comcast is trying really hard to make Versus a viable sports network, but nobody even knows what it is!
3. It’s hard to stay interested when they change the rules every few seasons.

I don’t know who the superstars or even the good players are anymore. It’s not because I haven’t been trying – it’s just that the NHL has neutered its media coverage by limiting itself to Versus. Unless I’m willing to shell out $200 to have coverage of all games, I get to watch the Avs (don’t care) and whoever Versus shows me (usually don’t care). The glory days of ESPN and ESPN2 showing hockey games virtually every night or every other night are gone – you get to watch one, maybe two games a week of teams you have no interest in and don’t get to see regularly, so they’re impossible to follow without great effort.

Before, the glut of games on ESPN made it possible to follow lots of action and teams and actually get involved – instead, the NHL has limited their product exposure to a network most people don’t even know exists. Say a Devils game is on and I say, hey, that player is good. I’ll get to see him again in three months when I’ve long forgotten. Sweet. The NHLPA recognizes this – they can’t build a brand because people can’t get access to the product. It’s stupid.

The cap was good about breaking up the dynasty franchises, or as we call them, the only franchises that made money. Those teams are still competitive, but their ticket sales are sagging. The Red Wings had something like a billion consecutive sellouts – they’re not selling out their games anymore. The Avs are the same way – not winning as much, but even die hard fans that I know out here can only name a handful of players on their team anymore. With the pool of entertainment dollars available to spend shrinking, nobody wants to spend it on hockey anymore. It’s too hard to follow.

The Caps get a one column blurb on the Washington Post every once in a while. That’s it. I used to read espn.com for hockey news – it’s not in their interest to promote the NHL anymore, and their coverage shows it. CNNsi.com isn’t any better – it’s always been awful. A few Canadian sites like tsn.ca and thehockeynews.com are OK, but even they’re suffering from a lack of coverage, because the game is just so damn inaccessible.

So that’s why I don’t care about hockey. I have a passive interest in finding if the Caps win or lose – but past that, who cares?

On Saturday, VT plays Clemson at 4pm Mountain Time. This means that we usually go to a bar in Denver, hang out with the alumni, drink some beers, and watch some football. This is how it is – this is how it has been since I have been here, with very little deviation. This weekend will be … interesting.

For starters, check this picture out. That’s the patio of the bar that we usually go to – Jackson’s in downtown Denver. For another idea of proximity, check this out. On Saturday, the first baseball playoff game since 1995 will be played at 7pm MST. VT plays Clemson at 4pm MST. I would try to describe the chaos that will be downtown Denver, with the scalpers, the fans who didn’t get tickets, the parking, traffic, and light rail problems – but really, I’ll let your imaginations run free!

Contrast this with Sunday’s schedule: the Broncos play at 2:15pm MST, and this is first and foremost a Bronco town. Invesco Field @ Mile High Stadium is literally a hop-skip-and-jump from Coors Field. Bronco games on their own cause crippling traffic. There is light-rail transportation, but the same line serves both fields. There’s a chance that there will be a fourth playoff game on Sunday at 8pm MST in Denver. You say to yourself – ah, but there’s hours between the starts of both games, all shall be well!

If you look at this map again you will note a dome-like structure roughly directly between Mile High Stadium and Coors Field. Here in Denver, that dome is known as the Pepsi Center. People in Colorado love their hockey – in fact it’s the number two draw behind the Broncos! Their home opener is at 5pm MST (now, anyway).

So to summarize – at 2:15, Bronco game with traffic and population draw that routinely shuts down the city. At 5, Avs game that does a lot of the same. At 8pm, a possible playoff baseball game that – based on Monday’s game – will completely threaten humanity! All three are within walking distance of each other!

On one hand, great for the city’s bars and businesses. On the other hand – on Sunday Anna and I will be comfortably seated at our or a neighbor’s house sipping cocktails and avoiding the madness that will be Denver. But I have to say – it’s kind of a cool thing to be near and a small part of.

If I could get tickets to all three? I’d go. But I wouldn’t make it to twenty-nine.

Saturday? I don’t know. Usually we have a very large reserved room for the VT folks – but I would think that obscene numbers of money-waving, rabid baseball fans would probably trump their desire to have that relatively small VT/Clemson (we’re co-watching, a brother of a VT head alum heads the Clemson alum group) contingent, even though we consistently provide them with a steady stream of income regardless of what the Rockies do. The bar aside – parking prices have gone to free-market or gouging levels – $40 as opposed to $5 or free in times prior and it’s going to be a giant bitch to get in and out of the city.

The mayor, who is a real-estate broker/mogul for city property – assures me that this is incredibly good for the city and the businesses surrounding each of these parks. This is what they had in mind when they bulldozed this old, run down warehouse district of Denver to build these parks. But maybe they didn’t have it in mind that it could all happen at the same time. Should be fun!

EDIT:  I also forgot to mention the annual Columbus Day Protest where all the indigenous peoples dance and chant at the exact same intersection of the first map and spill fake blood for a few hours.  This literally happens right in front of Jackson’s and Coors Field.  Hooray!

This post should finish them off, though.

About two weeks ago, I “officially” gave up on postseason chances for the Rockies.  They were five games out of the wild card and eight games out of the running for the National League West pennant.  To have a chance, they basically had to win the rest of their games.  They started out by nearly getting swept by the Marlins, a last place team.

Since then, they’ve won every single game.  Ten games in a row, to be exact, over NL West opponents who are (or were) very much alive in the playoff chase.  They’ve eliminated the Dodgers, they swept the Padres in San Diego, and they’re currently working on sweeping the Dodgers, who have entered “insert minor leaguers” mode because they’re done for the season.

So they’re very much alive for the wild card.  But screw the wild card – they’re still alive for the West pennant!  The last three games of the season are against the Diamondbacks, in Denver.  Even if the Rox lose tonight – I believe that the winner of the Rockies/Diamondbacks series will be the NL West champ.  I figure the wild card will go to the Mets, because they have to close the season against a team that’s good.  The Phillies have to close the season at home against… the Nationals.

I never would’ve expected to be excited about baseball like this.  We went to games primarily to get out, do something, and drink some beers.  And then they started winning and playing well, and it was actually fun to watch!

I didn’t expect to get as involved with hockey as I did when I was rooting the Capitals on during their run to the Cup Finals in 1998.  It’s obvious I failed at that, as I’m sitting here wearing a throwback Caps jersey, one of three that I own, as I speak.  Even if the Rockies don’t make it, and the math is against them (winning ten in a row is tough – sixteen in a row is even tougher) they’ve been very entertaining to watch.

Of course, now that I’ve written this, I’ve officially screwed them.  Now I think they have a chance again – and usually when they do that, they collapse.

In other news, I also stupidly believe that the Caps have a chance this year.  So I’ll go ahead and screw them out of a good season early!

Not too bad.

Craig’s reaction is that he doesn’t hate it.  Joe thinks the bird looks like some kind of Nazi Eagle.   I like the Red/White/Blue thing and the kind of throwback.  Cool.

Could these be the new jersies?