WaPo piece on Langway's daughter doesn't sit right

My brother sent me an e-mail today with a link to Mark Giannotto's Washington Post article on Rod Langway's estranged daughter. I skimmed it when it came out last week, but once my brother asked for my opinion I decided to read the whole thing.

In the interest of full disclosure, I've been a Capitals fan since the Langway days. But I'm also a journalism professor so I would hope my fan status isn't completely shading my views here.

My issue with the article isn't really that it paints Rod Langway in a bad light, it's that there's no real story there to begin with. Well, maybe there is, but Giannotto doesn't find it. The "how" and "why" of the story are afterthoughts so it ends up just being venting space for a 16-year-old girl.

This, to me, was the whole story:

Langway and his wife, Teresa, say they have tried numerous times to bridge the gap between Hannah and her father, but that Sasscer refused to let Teresa be around Hannah, a stipulation Langway would not agree to.

"It hurt Rod and I couldn't even show him how much it hurt me," Teresa Langway said. "It's just a tragedy for Hannah. Everybody would have welcomed Hannah. We all would have loved her. We waited for years and years."

The Sasscers dispute this assertion. Sasscer said she is willing to allow Teresa to meet Hannah without her being present.

And? Expand on that. Is there some bitter tension there? Does Sasscer say "That's ridiculous I've invited Rod and Teresa to dinner numerous times?" What was Sasscer's reaction to Teresa Langway's "we all would have loved her" statement? We'll never know.

Those three short paragraphs are the entire "why" and "how," and they were buried on page three of a five page piece.

I'd be fine with the article if its focus was the conflict between Langway and mother Sasscer, even though it'd be a bit smutty. I'd also be fine if it was a personal profile of the girl or a story of her perseverance despite her family situation, but they glossed over both of those things, too. So really, what's the article about? Langway has an estranged daughter and she hates him. That's it. Is that really deserving of being in The Washington Post?
 

When you think of it that way...

I was reading this Bill Simmons column on the "purest" era of baseball, and while his thoughts were arbitrary, somewhat conflicting and based on little of anything that would make sense to any real baseball fan, it got me thinking.

Maybe the whole idea of purity in baseball is moot. Maybe we don't want purity in baseball.

Part of what makes baseball so great is the ridiculousness of the players. Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden almost ruining their careers with over-the-top partying, Graig Nettles "juicing" his bat with 6 superballs, Jason Grimsley crawling through an air vent to the umpires locker to swap out Albert Belle's confiscated corked bat. That kind of stuff is awesome.

It's like a bad episode of Salute Your Shorts over and over again. Except with everyone making millions of dollars and occasionally taking a break from off-the-wall camper antics to play a baseball game.

(See more crazy ways to cheat here.)

You can't tell me that every time a bat splits down the middle like it was struck by lightning that you don't honestly hope to see cork inside it.

And given the history of cheating that's surrounded the national pastime, maybe we shouldn't be in such shock and awe that the most recent generation of players has pumped themselves full of more steroids than farm cattle. Is that really any worse than swinging by the Dollar Tree, stocking up on rubber bouncy balls and stuffing them in your Louisville Slugger? It's certainly not as FUNNY, but when that's the precedent maybe it's only natural that the players have veered closer and closer to a look that's straight out of WWE. After all, weren't the rainbow metallic Ric Flair and Hulkamaniac stickers in the 25-cent vending machine right next to the Super Balls?
 

Hershey Bears pull my all-time hockey pet peeve

In last night's Game 5 of the Calder Cup Finals, the Hershey Bears lost 3-2 to the Manitoba Moose. The Bears still hold a 3-2 series lead, but they'll have to win one of two in Winnipeg if they are going to hoist their 10th Calder Cup.

The thing about this game that really irks me is the way the score got to 3-2.

The Moose led 2-1 late in the game, and the Bears pulled goalie Michal Neuvirth with about a minute and a half left to play. Manitoba scored almost immediately, making it 3-1 with 1:21 left. Game over. That's it. You've just shortened the game by 81 seconds.

Bears defenseman John Carlson added a goal with 31 seconds left to make it 3-2, but it was meaningless at that point.

This situation is the perfect example of why I am so against pulling the goalie -- or at least pulling the goalie until it's truly a last ditch effort.

I'm not saying Carlson's goal ties it if they don't pull Neuvirth, because there's no telling how the events really would have unfolded if the Moose don't score that 3rd goal. In all likelihood, it would have just ended 2-1 instead of 3-2. But you give yourself a much better chance of tying the score if you don't allow the game to basically be cut 81 seconds short.

Down one goal late in the game, time was the Bears' most precious resource, and they gave a bunch of it away.

I get that pulling the goalie gives you the best chance to score a goal, but it also gives the other team a FAR better chance to score and all but end the game. Given the odds that the other team pots one in your yawning net, pulling the goalie should really be a last resort. With 1:30 left in a one-goal game, is it really last resort time yet? There's plenty of time to generate a few good chances 5-on-5 in that span.

I wish some NHL coach would just say, "You know what? I'm never going to pull the goalie for the extra attacker." Just to see how his team's comebacks in the final 90 seconds stack up against other teams.

I'd be willing to bet he'd fare better than teams that pull the goalie all the time, because for every game a team ties with their goalie pulled, there are probably at least five where they get scored on with 30+ seconds left on the clock, killing any comeback hopes.

The cons just outweigh the pros when it comes to pulling the goalie when down one goal.

Now why won't anyone believe me?
 

Cause for concern? Wieters batting .143 through 6 games

So the hype has died down as the Orioles travel the West Coast, and with the dust settling one might be wondering if all the expectations on rookie catcher Matt Wieters were a little outlandish.

Through six games, Wieters is 3-for-21 with 1 walk, 1 run, 0 RBIs and 5 strikeouts. He has managed a double and a triple (in the same game), but that's still only good enough for a .143 average, .182 on-base percentage and .468 OPS. Not exactly Hall-worthy just yet.

But to be fair, Nick Markakis was hitting .182 a MONTH into his rookie campaign in 2006 before raking his way up to a .291 average at season's end. And since then, Markakis has become the second best player in the Majors, only trailing Matt Wieters.

So don't pack up your Matt Wieters Facts t-shirts just yet. There's no reason to think that he's just another Billy Rowell, Jeff Fiorentino, Adam Loewen, Val Majewski, Mike Fontenot, Beau Hale, Tripper Johnson, Mike Paradis, Larry Bigbie, Keith Reed, Chris Richard, Mamon Tucker, Darnell McDonald, Sean Douglass, Matt Riley, Eugene Kingsale, Ivanon Coffey, Alex Ochoa, Jayson Werth, Rick Krivda, Rocky Coppinger, Ryan Minor......
 

Turning My Attention to D.C. United

What, you thought losing baseball was more interesting than the MLS Eastern Conference top seed? You're wrong. Sorry you had to find out this way.

D.C. looks to add to their already crowded trophy case by qualifying into the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup. They won the Cup last year, a highlight in an otherwise disappointing season, and now they're looking for a repeat. Unfortunately there's no automatic bid for last year's champion, so D.C. is working to play their way in.

United faces off against the New York Red Bulls on Wednesday (May 20), and the winner is in the tournament. I'll be there covering the game and if the press box's wireless allows I'll have twitter updates at http://www.twitter.com/beltwaysports
 

DC Sports Box: Game 7 recap

It was a tough game to watch, and I can assure you it was an equally tough recap to write. The Caps got outplayed in every facet (except goaltending until Wednesday) for much of the series, and that's why they're heading to the offseason and the Penguins are heading to the Eastern Conference Finals for a second straight year. And all I keep thinking is, "I can't believe that same Capitals vs. Penguins playoff script played out again." My recap is at DC Sports Box:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Washington may have been a city in denial for much of the Eastern Conference Semifinal series against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Sure, the Capitals were getting outshot in every game and outworked in most, and they never seemed to be able to put together a full 60 minutes of solid effort, but somehow they had found a way to get to a Game Seven on home ice.

At worst, it seemed, Game Seven provided a coin flip: even odds that the Caps could come away with one more win and reach the Eastern Conference Finals for the third time in franchise history. After all, the series had been unbelievably close on the scoreboard for six games. Three of those games required overtime, and the Penguins were outscoring the Caps in the series by only one goal.

But those watching every game must have known, even if they didn't want to admit, that the Penguins were controlling too much of the play, putting too many shots on net and drawing too many penalties. Over the first six games, the Penguins outshot the Caps by 66 and had 11 more power plays, both signs that Pittsburgh was dictating the play even though the results weren't making that obvious.

In Wednesday night's Game Seven, the results did make that obvious.

Read the rest (with lots of depressing player quotes) at DCSportsBox.com.
 

Caps-Penguins Game 3 Recap...

Not that you want to read more about that game, but my article is up at DC Sports Box:

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – Capitals goalie Simeon Varlamov stopped shots from every angle imaginable to keep his team in Game Three of the Eastern Conference Semifinals on Wednesday night, but it was a deflection off his own player in overtime that did the Caps in.

Varlamov had already stopped 39 of 41 Penguins shots through 60 minutes of regulation and 11-plus of overtime when Pittsburgh won an offensive zone faceoff back to the blue line and defenseman Kris Letang fired a slap shot on net. The puck deflected off of Caps defender Shaone Morrisonn's leg, came up and clipped Varlamov's left side before finding its way just inside the goal post, sending the white-clad Pittsburgh crowd into a relieved frenzy knowing the Penguins had avoided falling into a near-insurmountable 3-0 hole in the series.

Instead, Pittsburgh now trails 2-1 and has the opportunity to knot the series up on Friday night with another home game.

Read the rest at DCSportsBox.com.
 

Recap: Caps vs. Penguins Game 2

My recap of Capitals-Penguins Game 2 is up at DC Sports Box.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – For anyone who was concerned that the Alex Ovechkin versus Sidney Crosby matchup in the Eastern Conference Semifinal series couldn't possibly live up to the hype and anticipation: You've been served notice.

Both young superstars scored hat tricks in Monday night's Game Two between the Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins, but only Washington could claim victory. With a 4-3 win, the Caps will take a 2-0 series lead to Pittsburgh for Games Three and Four.

"It was a battle of the two best players in the league tonight," Caps defenseman Mike Green said in the locker room after the game. "Sidney [Crosby] played outstanding. It's incredible how good he is around the net and ... he was carrying his team, but tonight we had the top gun."

Read the rest at DCSportsBox.com.
 

Beltway Sports Beat is on Twitter

That's right, kids! I'm only a year late to the party.

Follow me: BeltwaySports

You can also see my last five tweets in the widget on the right side of this blog.

Caps-Penguins Previews: Article and Podcast

The preview that my fellow DC Sports Box beat writers and I wrote for the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals between the Caps and Penguins is now available online. Check it out here.

I think we have some interesting stuff on Ovechkin vs. Crosby, some of the matchups that AREN'T Ovechkin vs. Crosby, and the goaltending for both teams.

Once you're done with that, click over to the preview podcast. We've set an important standard with this one: that we're not going to re-record a whole podcast just because we keep flubbing Simeon Varlamov's name. That's right, my co-host, Abram Fox, and I are willing to make sacrifices. Namely, sacrificing quality for our own sanity.

Enjoy.
 

Some thoughts after Game Seven

First of all, you can read my recap for DC Sports Box here.

But here's some things that couldn't go in the legit piece:

I was 14 the last time the Capitals won a playoff series. A freshman in high school. That seems like a long, long time ago.

I was hoping the self-proclaimed Maven, Stan Fischler, would come out and say, "Wow we must not be all that good, because I spent the last two weeks saying how weak the Caps were and now we lost to them. Sorry!" But no...

Simeon Varlamov (Semyon next year?) tripped a little bit going out the door from the bench to the ice before the third period. I thought that was a bad sign, and remembered that when I was a goalie in high school and college hockey I would always get embarrassed when something stupid like that would happen and inevitably give up a weak goal. I guess that's why I'm clinging to memories of an adult league roller hockey championship and he's a 21-year-old dominating in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Text message from my friend Will right after the game: "Best 4 mil ever"

Is it odd that the only people I wanted to gloat to were the Caps fans who, after Games Two and Four, were saying things like, "Stick a fork in us, we are done."

When we found out about the Hurricanes' amazing comeback on the Devils, I was in the makeshift press room on the Wizards practice court sitting right next to "Puck Daddy" Greg Wyshynski, who is a Devils fan. Even in the celebratory atmosphere of Verizon Center I felt bad for the guy. Maybe because we've all been there at some point, but also probably because I have a soft spot for the Devils since my brother grew up a fan (he's since converted to the most exciting team in the NHL). That feeling vanished when I remembered that the Devils have been around eight less years than the Caps, yet they've been to six Eastern Conference Finals, four Stanley Cup Finals and have won three Cups. (The Caps, of course, are at 2, 1, 0 in those categories.) Also, let it be known that with the Devils up 3-2 with six minutes left, Wyshynski said something to the effect of, "Great, that just means Marty will give up another freaking goal with .2 seconds left." Ouch.

The end of the Devils-'Canes game wasn't shown on Versus in our area. I really want to find someone who was in the arena to confirm that Carolina's 3rd and 4th goals DID actually happen. Until I have this confirmation, a small part of me will always believe that the NHL made a call to the Prudential Center after the Caps won, and that there are 17,625 people wandering around North Jersey in a haze confused as to why all of a sudden the scoreboard clicked from a 3-2 Devils lead to a 4-3 Devils loss without anything happening on the ice.

My first reaction on finding out the Caps are playing the Penguins in the second round: "I don't think I have enough hate left in my body for a Pittsburgh series."

My second reaction: "NOTE TO SELF: DO NOT READ INTERNET COMMENTS DURING CAPS-PENGUINS SERIES"

Bruce Boudreau: "Welcome to the circus."

Why even play the games?

It's over. Read it and weep.
(h/t to Japers' Rink)

Clearly, the Capitals are "paper tigers" who can't hack it in postseason play.

Don't question it. This guy can't be wrong.

Just as clearly, Alex Ovechkin is staking his claim as the Alex Rodriguez of hockey. Sure, he's great at putting up gaudy numbers, but he's as un-clutch as they come. I know he led the league with 24 third-period goals, but he also led the league in empty-netters, and those five gimmes with the net yawning more than negate his 10 GWGs.

And boy did he have a major letdown last night. Just ask Mr. Fischler. Alex the not-so-Great got over 26 minutes of ice time and all he could manage were two lousy assists, 13 shots on goal and six hits? Weeeeeeeeeaaakkkkk. This clown'll never hoist a Cup if one of the league's best defenses can make him such a complete non-factor.

The scariest part is that the Rangers did all this without Chris Drury in the lineup. When Drury comes back, there's no way the Caps are ever within one goal of the Rangers, save for the opening faceoff. I mean, this guy put up almost identical numbers to BROOKS LAICH (except at the bank, where Drury destroyed Laich by $5 million this season). Can you imagine the Capitals even bothering to take the ice if Brooks Laich was out with an injury? No you cannot. Because they'd never do it. Good thing Laich has been healthy enough to participate in every game of '08-'09. But that's just proof of how tough this Rangers team is.

Meanwhile, Rangers head coach John Tortorella is working some serious wizardry behind the bench, making Bruce Boudreau's game plan look like a little kid's drawings on the paper table cloths at Rocky Run. MISMATCH. We're talking about the winningest American-born coach in history. A veteran with a stellar .517 points percentage for his career. How could greenhorn Boudreau ever have hoped to compete with those kinds of credentials? (Boudreau's .661 points percentage honestly doesn't mean jack because of the small sample size.)

I know Wednesday night was just one game, but it's a microcosm -- a 60-minute example of all that has gone wrong and is destined to once again go wrong for Washington's hockey team.

Stick a fork in this series, it's done. Sorry we had to find out this way.
 

Caps-Rangers Series Preview: Multimedia Style

My fellow DC Sports Box Capitals beat reporters have collaborated to do some serious previewing of the Capitals-Rangers first round playoff series that starts tonight.

The article is here as a set of mini-articles by myself, David Nichols and Abram Fox.

I covered the offense, defense and special teams numbers, David covered the goaltenders and Abram took on the player matchups, including Sean Avery vs. the Caps' young guns.

Once you're done reading that, load this up and listen to almost 33 minutes of me and Abram talking about the series and what we expect to see.

Or you can search for DCSportsBox in the podcast directory on iTunes and subscribe so you'll never miss another episode.
 

ESPN has no idea how the NHL Draft Lottery works

Either the people who run ESPN.com's Streak for the Cash have absolutely no clue how the NHL Draft Lottery works, or they wanted to give everyone a "freebie" today.

When trying to figure out which match-up to pick to extend my amazing streak (currently at 1 consecutive correct picks), I came across a very strange option:



SftC also provides a handy link to this explanation of how the NHL Draft Lottery works, which they apparently failed to read.

The Islanders have a 25 percent chance of being selected in the lottery, the Avalanche have a 14.2 percent chance, and the Thrashers have a 10.7 percent chance.

That adds up to 49.9 percent. Pretty much dead even, right?

Wrong. Because the question isn't which team will get selected in the lottery, it's which team will get the #1 pick. And there's a big difference.

Below the list of percentages on the link that SftC proviedes, the NHL explains that a team can only move up four spots in the draft order. That means that only the worst five teams in the NHL this season (Islanders, Lightning, Avalanche, Thrashers and Kings) have a shot at getting the #1 pick, while the other nine non-playoff teams can still have their name drawn but would only move up four spots.

So even though the Islanders only have a 25 percent chance of having their name drawn in the lottery, they still have a 48.2 percent chance of getting the #1 pick because if the Coyotes, Maple Leafs, Stars, Senators, Oilers, Predators, Wild, Sabres or Panthers have their name drawn (combined chances: 23.2 percent), they will not move ahead of the Isles and the Isles will still get the top choice in the draft.

So the prop really should have been "Who will get the #1 pick in the draft: The Islanders OR Any other team." Or it could have been, "Who will be SELECTED in the NHL Draft Lottery: Islanders/Avalanche/Thrashers OR Any other team."

As is, the odds of one of the three teams they listed getting the #1 pick is a whopping 73.1 percent. The only teams they didn't list that COULD get the #1 pick are the Lightning (18.8 percent) and the Kings (8.1 percent).

Apparently the Streak for the Cash players don't have the same reading comprehension issues, as almost 98 percent of them have picked the Isles/Avs/Thrashers option. Now watch the Lightning get picked and screw everyone over.
 

:-|

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2009/04/stan_kasten_sings_a_hymn_to_ph.html

Go read that. Then the title of this blog post will make sense.

Basically, Nationals President Stan Kasten went on Philadelphia sports talk radio and wooed the hell out of Philadelphia fans, all but begging them to make the three hour trip down I-95 to root against the team he runs.

Here's a quick excerpt if you're lazy:

"Hey, you've got an opening day hat!" Kasten said, when asked about any giveaways on Monday. "It's a Nats hat, which is ok, but we do feature for sale many Philly hats in our store, so come on by."

Good gracious me on the tombstone of Walter Johnson, really? You're going to say that on Philadelphia airwaves? "We do feature for sale many Philly hats in our store?" That's not being tone-deaf, that's deliberately going out of your way to play everything in E-flat when you're living in a D-major city. I'm trying to think of a more blasphemous thing a D.C. sports executive could say. Yup, still trying.

That's not all of it. That's not even close. You really need to read Steinberg's post at the Bog.

I think Bog commenter JDB1 sums it up best:

wtf wtf wtf wtfw wtf wtf wtf wtfw wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtfw wtf wtf wtf wtfw wtf wtf wtf wtfw wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtfw

At best I carry a passive interest in the Nationals, but as a Caps fan who has endured a LOT of "fan takeovers" and, fresher in memory, an Orioles fan who has been verbally accosted by drunken moron Red Sox fans yelling about Fenway South, this has got to cut deep.

For non-Nats fans, let me try to make this relate:

Could you imagine if George McPhee went on ESPN Radio 1250 in Pittsburgh and said the Caps would be selling MALSBY jerseys at FanGear in Verizon Center?

Or if Andy MacPhail went on WEEI in Boston and said, "Yeah it's T-Shirt Tuesday so everyone'll get a bright orange shirt, but don't trip ... we's got mad pink hats in the Orioles Store, yo!"

Image from espn.go.com

(Don't ask why imaginary Radio MacPhail speaks in broken '70s jive.)

You get where I'm coming from. This. Is. IN. SANE.

Sure, Stan. You can secretly hope that the Phillie Phanatics show up in droves just to fill your coffers, but don't send them a "save the date," a written invite AND provide the goodie bags.

WTF, indeed.

Not sure why I thought of this just now...

But if the Capitals were to ever, for some odd reason, end up with current Bruins defenseman Andrew Ference, I'm changing the name of this blog to "Two Minutes for AndrewFerence."







Get it? Two minutes for interference... interference/AndrewFerence???

Yeah. Sorry. It won't happen again.
 

Ouch. ESPN takes a jab at the Terps

Trying to get my impressive "Streak for the Cash" run up to two consecutive successful picks, I was perusing the options for tonight's action at ESPN.com and found one item particularly amusing/sad.



That's scrunched to fit, but what you're being asked to pick is which total will be greater: UNC's margin of victory or Greivis Vasquez' total of points PLUS assists. ESPN was so giddy about this hilarious option that they named it the "Progressive Matchup of the Day." So ... I guess that's something to be proud of, Terps fans.

The Streakers for the Cash (that sounds bad) are overwhelmingly liking Greivis' chances on this one, as right now just a hair over 75 percent of the players who picked in that matchup went with the feisty Venezuelan. But are they right to do so?

At first it seems like a pretty big slap in the face that this is an option at all, but then you consider that Greivis is averaging 16 and 5, AND that the Heels are laying 21.5 points to the Terps. And that's before you look at this miserable box score and realize that if they had run the same matchup in the Maryland-Duke game just 10 days ago, Maryland's point guard would have fallen juuuust short ... by 36.

Do I think the Terps lose by 41 tonight? No. And honestly if I was going to bet on this game (which I highly advise against) I'd take the Terps to beat the spread. But even if they DO beat the spread it could still be hard for Vasquez to put up the numbers required to get him the win in this made-up matchup.

As for my Streak for the Cash, tonight I'm taking the well-rested and red hot Dallas Stars to beat the Northwest-leading Calgary Flames, who will be playing on the road for the second night in a row and could be resting starting goalie Miikka Kiprusoff. (Although you should probably never assume Kipper is taking a night off. He's started 46 of Calgary's 49 games this season and he's played more than 90 percent of the team's games since the start of the 2005-2006 season.)
 

A rare Wizards post

Every time I watch the Wizards I think, "Man, they really need to get Darius Songaila more playing time. That guy's always making things happen." Then Steve Buckhantz reminds me that he has four fouls in just 10 minutes.
 

Do Caps fans need to lighten up?

I just finished watching this video, as posted on Tarik El-Bashir's Capitals Insider blog on Washington Post:



And, naturally, it was followed by about three dozen comments from pissed off Capitals fans saying that Mike Wise is a jackhole and if he's going to be the one giving D.C.'s best team a spotlight, no thanks, we're happy over here in the dark.

Are people really taking this literally? Are we just so out of our element to have a Caps team legitimately contending that we can't let it happen without having something to bitch about? Clearly it's a spoof piece. The Caps are finally getting decent coverage in the Post and he's picking at something that we've whined about for years. That's funny. At least a few of the commenters got it.

So lighten up. Watch the video, have a good laugh, and enjoy that the Caps are finally deserving of some extra coverage.


By the way, I'm not fixing that.
 

Caps fans <3 the Steelers? No.

I was watching Joe B.'s intro to the Caps-Senators game today on Comcast SportsNet and saw this sign:



Don't speak for me, little kids. Thanks.

Penguins or Steelers, doesn't matter. Real Caps fans hate Pittsburgh. Rock the red tonight. Go Cards!
 

Hell. Yes.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Steelers blog, Blog 'n' Gold, a reader sent this info:

"Many B'more local bars are posting signs saying no Steelers fans allowed for the game. ... Not the most gracious of hosts....

Awesome.

I'm heading to Canton later today to take in the game and I can only hope this rumor is true, but I'm not totally sold. Baltimore's bars have a reputation of being all too hospitable to the opposition, especially when the Yankees and Red Sox are in town. The Baltimore Sun published an article (that I'm too lazy to look up) about this trend, and I was at one Orioles game when the Red Sox were in town last season and the CAMDEN Pub, of all places, was hosting a Boston College alumni event and was chock full of pink Boston hats and stupid VARITEK jerseys with the hockey captain's C on the front and the erroneously-displayed name on the back. But that's a topic for another day.

Here's hoping for a Steelers-fan-free evening at Lager's.
 

Disappointing sight at tonight's Caps game

I'm covering the Caps-Bruins game tonight for DC Sports Box, and sitting in the press box I see a woman who, by all apparent measures, is rooting for the Capitals tonight, yet she wore a Pittsburgh Steelers ROETHLISBERGER jersey to the game.

Maybe (likely) I'm oversensitive about this stuff, but why are you wearing Pittsburgh's black and gold to a game against the BRUINS. Ignoring the fact that you're wearing a football jersey to a hockey game, AND that the jersey represents neither city involved in the game ... you're supposed to be rocking the red, not pimping the opposition's colors just because one of your other teams has a game tomorrow. Ridiculous.

P.S. we hate Pittsburgh in the Verizon Center. Your Steelers jersey implies Penguin allegiances that just cannot be tolerated in our building.
 

Dreading a possible All-Pennsylvania Super Bowl

I've read a few blogs and columns talking about how awesome the looming "All-Pennsylvania Super Bowl" would be, but ignoring my obvious Ravens fan bias, who would it really be that great for?

Remember the Subway Series in 2000? Yeah. That crap sucked for everyone outside of the tri-state area. This would be no different.

The only people pumped for a Keystone State showdown in Super Bowl XLIII are the 6 million people who live in the Philly metro area, the 12 people who live in Pittsburgh, and the 15 million people who USED to live in Pittsburgh but now live in real cities across the country while still harping on and on about good ol' Western PA and making every sports bar in the country a wasteland of missing teeth, awful accents and black-and-gold-and-buffalo-wing-sauce-covered beer bellies on Sundays.

No thanks.