Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa or in my case, Happy Hanukkah everyone.

Caps Pull One Out

With less than 11 seconds left in overtime, Alex Ovechkin made one count and the Caps walk away from Long Island with 2 points. It should never have been so close, but the Islanders played tough in the thrid period, and the Caps had put on the brakes. I really really hate Jon Sim though. No matter what team he plays for, he always looks like a superstar against the Caps.

Good to see Gordon get a goal too.

Caps and Hoyas are Rolling

It was a good sports weekend, with the exception of the Redskins defeat to the basically winless Bungles. The Caps took two games and four hard earned points from good teams. Simeon Varmalov had his debut as goalie and was the first rookie goalie to win since like 1978 or something like that. Not bad for the kid. I guess it was a better choice to play him over the Caps website producer who was the backup the night before. He is at least a goalie, but it was funny to see someone we had never heard of sitting on the bench for the first period until Varmalov arrived on Friday night. I had a feeling Johnnie would need the night's rest, but had no idea Varmalov would be so solid in Montreal, for Hockey Night in Canada!

I cannot even watch the Wizards anymore.

The Hoyas (ranked #19 at the time) defeated Memphis (#17) so they should continue to climb in the ratings. I like how they are playing, even if it took overtime to knock off Memphis.

But the Sports Kid has to make a comment on the Heisman. Colt McCoy led the Longhorns to a victory over the Oklahoma Sooners and Sam Bradford this season, despite Oklahoma being higher ranked at the time. Each team lost one game during the season, OU to UT, UT to Texas Tech and Texas Tech to OU thought Tech was out of it at the end. Nevertheless OU gets to play for the national title, despite losing to UT. And now Bradford wins the Heisman over McCoy too. Colt won the much lesser known Walter Camp award, given to the best player by coaches and sports information directors.

At least Colt plans to return for his senior year, and then he can smash the stats he set this year. And perhaps prove himself over Bradford and Tebow yet again as worthy.
Maybe Colt can have the last laugh in the NFL?

Caps Clip Bruins, Nats Go For It

I went to the Caps game last night and was excited to see slick Alexander Semin back in the line up. He was leading the league in points before going down with one of those "undisclosed" upper body injuries. Whatever it was, he was out for 12 games, but seemed to pick up where he left off as that first powerful line of the two Alexes and Backstrom contributed 2 of the 3 goals last night. More importantly, Johnny once again looked like the #1 goalies, creating a goalie controversy given how much Theodore is getting paid and given how many goals Theodore has been letting in when he gets the nod. There were lots of Bruins fans (especially since me and my brother sat near their bench) but the phone booth was still painted red. I'm glad we stayed for the Ovechkin empty net goal, which showed just how fast the Great 8 can skate.

The team is hard to recognize with so many call-ups from the Hershey Bears. Collins look liked he belonged out there last night, and I hope if he continues to play like that, he stays. I didn't even know his first name until now.

The Wizards made a trade that I am not sure will help them, but they needed to do something.

The Nats supposedly offered Teixeira a huge contract worth $160 million. That would make him DC's highest paid athlete, should he accept. Even more than Ovechkin...

Back to school for now, that's the view from the DC sports kid for this morning.

Brush with Brash

We had a chance to meet Donald Brashear on Monday night. He is of course known as an "enforcer," someone who will drop the gloves and fight against anyone in the NHL. This was not my first time meeting him actually, as he has come to Ft Dupont Ice Arena before. The Kids on Ice Hockey Club, which is changing its names to the DC Presidents (which has a storied past in historic DC hockey circles), hosted Brash, along with Wilson High School's hockey team. Wilson is the first DC public school to have a hockey team, and they have Ft Dupont as their home ice this year.

It is always nice to see a professional athlete out there in the community, helping people and meeting kids. The Caps are really good at that. But I have to tip my hat to Brashear who came back again to this inner city ice rink to support two very worthy hockey programs. The Kids on Ice Club is where I started skating. It provides professional coaching, expensive ice time, and most importantly, the program also loans equipment to kids who need it. Hockey is expensive and this program exposes kids to hockey who would probably never be able to play otherwise.

Donald Brashear is a good guy, despite his tough guy reputation. He worked on the ice with both teams for an hour and a half, and then stayed on to sign autographs. Two years ago, I managed to get him to give me a game used stick and then sign it for my little brother. I surprised E with it for his Chanukah present, since "the Donald" is a lefty like him, and one of his favorite Caps. We had him sign some sticks for some friends of ours, and talked to him too.

The best part of the night though was seeing other kids there, who were able to see a professional hockey player who looked like them. Any kid who dares to dream that they could be a pro, or they could even be President, now knows that these days those dreams can come true.

No, Really I'm Back

I cannot believe a year has gone by since my last post. I was NOT grounded the whole time, this time. Last night I met a Wapo reporter (Mike Wise) and he prompted me to get back in the saddle again.

Besides, where else can I express my outrage at Texas getting eclipsed by OU in the BCS polls to create the farce that Oklahoma gets to go play Missouri for the Big 12 Championship while the Longhorns have to sit there and watch two teams they beat play for the right to go to the national championship. It really stinks. I'd say sucks, but my mom might censor that.

A lot has happened in a year. The Caps went on a run and made the playoffs. So did the Skins and Wizards but they were not nearly as exciting. The Nats opened a new stadium (and I was there) but found new ways to lose even more games. The Hoyas didn't go as far as I would have liked and the Hibbert era ended. School got a lot harder. I changed hockey clubs too, and even became a ref.

But some things stayed the same: Arenas is still hurt, Portis is a total warrior, Ovechkin is MVP, and the Nats still need pitching.

Meanwhile I am going to post again regularly, even if I have to use my free period at school.