Bondra Back?

It’s time to hit the ice, work out the cobwebs, oil the hinges, and scrape the rust. And for a few Capitals, September 15th isn’t soon enough. A few sightings confirmed by Tarik El-Bashir of Caps at Ashburn signals the start of a new season.

Players such as Dainius Zubrus, Chris Clark, Brian Pothier, Shaone Morrisonn, and Olaf Kolzig dressed up for an informal skate at Ashburn Ice House. Plus a surprise guest, Peter Bondra.

Bondra expressed interest in coming back to the Capitals, but George McPhee showed no interest:

"We were waiting to hear from the Caps, and last week I got an answer" from General Manager George McPhee , said Bondra, who still has a home in Annapolis. "He said he wasn't interested. So now I have to look at some other options.

"The Caps were my first option," he added. "But unfortunately that isn't going to work out."

Peter Bondra was not only a fan favorite in DC, but a significant producer holding many scoring titles here as a Capital. Since the purge of 2004 where the Capitals basically dumped every veteran paycheck in an effort to get younger, Bondra has been bouncing team to team playing with Atlanta last year and Ottawa a season before that. It looks like he will be looking for work elsewhere for this season too.

It’s not about the past, but about the future and Alex Ovechkin is the bright star on the horizon. That is if we can pull him away from Toronto. Ovechkin seems to prefer our neighbors to the north even telling a reporter there that he would like to play in Toronto. Uh-oh.

Next week will mark the return of all Capitals for opening camp that will be split between Ashburn and Hershey. And that means the season is just around the corner. For Caps fans, it’s a new dawn that has to be better than the previous one. It all started on an informal skate with Bondra on the ice alongside. How ironic.

NHL Notes

• Evgeni Malkin is officially a Penguin. Like that wasn’t going to happen after sneaking him over an ocean and hiding him in Los Angeles.


• Stephen Peat is no longer a Cap, he’s a ‘Cane. Guess getting Donald Brashear was enough.


• NHL.com will be going under a major renovation. The word on the street is that NHL.com will become more like myspace.com allowing fans to have their own pages and more. It is going to be an attempt to get fans more involved with their teams and with the sport. It may change many of the hockey blogs you see today, instead of searching for them on google, they may all be at NHL.com.

That’s all I got.