What Is Old Is New Again

One man's trash is another man's treasure. Or in this case, what I thought was just junk turns out to be something very special.

My parents are in the process of moving out of the area. That means hauling my butt to their house and cleaning out things from long ago. Boxes of high school stuff, piles of old hockey equipment to shift through. In the back of their work room was a gathering of old hockey sticks. I knew they were there, I just didn't pay much attention to them.

My mother pulled them all out and told me to go through them. There were two sticks that were signed by players. I never really looked at them closely enough but I threw them in a corner to be looked at another time. I took what good sticks I had left to take home and use for later.

This past weekend I had a chance to take a closer look at both signed sticks. The chicken scratches were hard to decipher until on one of the sticks I saw P. Bondra #12. Clear as day. I scratched my eyes and slowly started to read the numbers down the stick. #6 Calle Johansson, #17 Mike Ridley. The names were hard to read, the names resembled former Capitals next to their assigned numbers. #31 Don Beaupre, #8 Ken Sabourin.

This stick itself was manufactured by Victoriaville with the name M. Lalor stamped on the side. Mike Lalor was a Capital for only two seasons until he was traded to Winnipeg in the 91-92 season. I realized the stick had been signed by Capitals in either of those two years. Most likely the 90-91 season when Sabourin wore number 8 (the next season, Dmitri Khristich would wear #8). The stick was a lefty.

What was to be just trash turned out to be a pretty neat souvenir saved from the depths of my parents' work room. The other stick was a right handed Titan (the exact kind Gretzky played with in his day). It was signed by different members of the Billings Bighorns, a minor hockey team out of Montana (I also found Bighorns' jerseys and a few pucks). I am tracking down some of the names and since most are unreadable it's hard to find out who and what year the stick was signed.

Former Capitals Mike Eagles and Bob Rouse (in 71 games Rouse accumulated 209 PIMs in 81-82) got their early starts for my home town Billings Bighorns back in the 80's*. Some other big names to come out of the Big Sky State that played for the Bighorns were Andy Moog (Moog played two season in Billings playing 46 games in 79-80 with a 3.67 GAA and .902 save percentage), Randy Moller (who played most of his career in a Nordique sweater), Dave Barr (played for the Red Wings in the late 80's), Rod Buska (Penguin draft pick in '81), Lindsay Carson (Flyers player in the 80's) and Pat Conacher (played for the Devils and Kings and was an assistant coach for the Coyotes in the early 2000's) just to name a few.

Both sticks are being handled with white gloves and I am looking at investing some glass cases.

NHL Notes:

• Blackhawks' Patrick Kane was arrested over a scuffle for $.20. That's right, he punched a cabbie when he didn't have 20 cents for change. Really? Are we being that frugal? Kane apparently couldn't let the 20 cents slide and his cousin and him took out their frustrations on the poor Cabbie. Dude, let it slide.
  
• The drama in Tampa Bay has not stemmed much, the infighting between the owners puts the whole organization on unstable ground. Now Gary Bettman has stepped in and has set up a buy out plan for the owners in where both can buy out the other for sole ownership. Besides the Coyotes' ownership craziness, this is the best Soap Opera on this summer.
• Canada could care less about injuring their junior players. Coaches will not let up on the intesity of camp for their young players even though a player suffered a broken collar bone in the Red/White game. They must figure that they have enough youth to fill in the gaps if a few get thrown under the bus.

* - Harvie Pocza and Jim McTaggart both have played for the Bighorns, the Capitals and the Hershey Bears. In fact McTaggart is the only player to jump from the Bighorns to the NHL in the shortest time, just one year. He played in Billings in 79-80, then for the Capitals in 80-81.

Bondra Retires

Peter Bondra is no longer a player. More of a General Manager. As far as the last two games, I will save my angst for the Toronto game.

Wrapping Up Before Christmas

Ok, a lot is going on. So I am going to catch up on much of it before I board a plane for Minnesota. Let’s take a walk around the league.

Peter Bondra finally scored his 500th career goal and joins 37 other NHL players who have reached that milestone. Congrats to Bondra, a long time Cap. It’s good to see him reach that milestone.

Pittsburgh is in trouble of losing its hockey franchise. Mario Lemieux upped the ante and talked of moving the team elsewhere. This is just to light a fire under the butts of the great elected officials that the people of Pittsburgh saw fit to hold office. Too bad it wasn’t enough of an issue during the campaign season. Maybe making those politicians promise to do something may have been an ace in the hole, but they probably talked about mundane things like education and the environment.

Meanwhile, many are calling for the team to move to Las Vegas or Houston rather than Kansas City. Vegas huh? You think that Carolina’s cheerleaders are cute, imagine some showgirls on ice! I hear it would be a toss up between Penn and Teller and Cirque doing the intermission shows. Maybe we will catch a player or two at the slots on the way from the locker room to the ice.

If the Pens become the Chips, that could move some teams to interesting new divisions and conferences and could bring a Western Conference foe to the East side. Speculation has been on Detroit getting first dibs on succeeding to the East. Others that might be good fits are Columbus, Nashville and of course Vancouver (hey why not?).

The league is thinking about reworking the divisions and shrinking them from 6 to 4. JP has the collar on this subject. Personally I would like to see the Caps face the Rangers, Islanders, Philly and Devils more. Most likely though the Caps will get shafted and will have to play AHL teams. Then maybe we can change the team name to the Lower Cases.

Have a great holiday!

Bondra Lands In Chicago

The Chicago Blackhawks weren't done with making changes to their club. There newest addition Peter Bondra who was not picked up by anyone else this year, could make the roster as early as Tuesday. The long time Capital was in jeopardy of sitting out the entire year before the Blackhawks look his way. Let's see if he can help that team do a fair shade better.

NHL.com has gone Ovie/Kid crazy. Their "Tale of the Tape" feature puts Sid "the Kid" Crosby stats against Alex Ovechkin's. It also includes some pretty cool videos of some promos of the up coming game later tonight on Versus. I really don't care if Crosby or Ovechkin score, just as long as the Caps win.

Like I said earlier, with the win over the Flyers the Caps moved up to 8th place in the eastern coference. A win against the Penguins could push the Capitals into a tie with the Rangers and the Hurricanes at 34 points. Although is too early in the season to start talking playoffs, the Caps are in the hunt. The Caps have to keep up their good play to keep the pressure up and keep close to that 8th place spot.

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.

Saying Good-Bye To The Home Crowd

Capitals 6, Thrashers 4

The Caps finally get to play the role of spoiler as they dashed the hopes of the Atlanta Thrashers’ playoff dreams. And the Capitals did it with some flair. Matt Pettinger gets his 20th goal, Rico Fata scores his first at the Verizon Center, and the stands actually had people in their seats.

In a must win game for the Thrashers, the Caps came out and played their aggressive forecheck and maybe relied a bit too much on veteran goaltending from Olie Kolzig. When the Caps face big games, they seem to show up. And what a win against the Thrashers that pretty much owned the Capitals this season.

The Capitals seemed to have trouble taking Division points from their rivals this season. Lately the Caps have been more up to the challenge against their Southeast foes. In this game there was a “never say die” feel to the Caps play. They were already down one goal in the first 11 seconds, but kept coming back in a game that saw its share of goals.

Peter Bondra looked to have the Thrashers up for good in the second after a strong move to the net that beat Kolzig. But the Caps didn’t panic and even killed off a few penalties before Alex Ovechkin tied the game in the third with a yawning open net shot for his 52nd goal of the year.

Dainius Zubrus probably played one of his most physical games I have seen. He got into good scraps and wasn’t afraid to assert his position. Zubrus has really come out of a shell this season playing wing with Ovechkin and even though his goal numbers are low, his play has been really impressive. Both Zubrus and Ovechkin have shown they have good chemistry this year that I am sure will spill into next year.

Overall Grade: B+

Last home game, and the Capitals club honored Ovechkin both before the game and after. Wash Post gets the inside story of the night. And if you were curious also check out the Atlanta’s Journal Constitution take on the Thrashers quest for a playoff spot was crushed over a “struggling Dunham.”

Caps have one more game before they call the season quits and hit the links. They face Tampa Bay on the road. The Caps won’t play spoiler anymore as Tampa Bay looks to comfortable back into the playoffs this year. However, the Caps must again send a signal to its divisional foes that next season the Caps will not be a push over.

I should have been a Capital.

Caps lose to Thrashers, 7-3

When the weather goes bad in DC, driving in this town sucks. After enduring bad traffic on the 14th Street Bridge, I get home and throw some brats in the microwave and pull on my Caps jersey and fight the remote from my wife, just in time to see Peter Bondra score. Normally that would get my arms pumping and screaming like crazy, but this time it was for another team. My wife laughed at me, "You look so confused, isn't a bad thing you get scored against." Then the little graphic appeared on the bottom of the screen, "Bondra has scored a goal against every NHL team." That is just great (sarcasm alert)!

The Capitals loss can be contributed to penalties, the first 4 goals the Thrashers scored were powerplays. Give a talented team like Atlanta powerplays, they are going to bury you every time. The positive is the Thrashers couldn't score at full strength (until late in the game). Kolzig looked way too good to be on a young team, those are saves that need to be complimented with great offense. I didn't care much for pulling the goaltender after your already down 3 goals. What are you accomplishing Hanlon?

Overall grade for the Caps tonight: D+

Washington Post covers the loss and Bondra's return to DC in Atlanta clothing.

Caps play the Thrashers again Saturday night, Brent Johnson gets the nod in net. He should be a pleasant surprise as Kolzig's back up. Caps have to stay out of the penalty box to make it a game.