When the Capitals fired head coach Bruce Boudreau back in November, I was a bit upset from the perspective of a journalist who knew he’d just lost one of the most quotable people on the team. So when I heard he was coming back to Maryland for a bit to hang out with Craig Laughlin at The Garden’s Ice House, I pulled some strings and landed an interview.
Generally when I do one-on-one interviews, I keep it short, but I knew that Boudreau is a talkative fellow so he gave me great answers and made things interesting in places where I didn’t really see a story ahead of time. I asked him about the Caps – he could’ve just said he’s stopped focussing on them and instead focussed on his new job as the coach of the Anaheim Ducks – but instead he told me he’d be crazy if he didn’t want to see them do well. That made the story.
It was also a blast just being in the same room with Boudreau and Laughlin and listening to them joke around. I then took photos of the two putting some beer league players through a rigorous practice, which also turned out to be a lot of fun even though I was just watching from the sidelines.
While it will always be a shame that Boudreau left D.C. before he could lead the team to a Stanley Cup, it was a great consolation prize that he was willing to come back and hang with the locals.