Former Cap and longtime Caps TV color commentator Craig Laughlin and I have known each other for several years now, as I’ve written quite a bit about him, and he’s given me some great information for articles. Then I realized I really wanted my photo taken with him, and he happily accepted. Happy New Year, Laughlin!
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.
Got a couple more articles on The Post’s website recently. Back when I visited my brother and nephew in Charleston, S.C., I attended a South Carolina Stingrays game. Afterward, I got to interview ECHL star Philipp Grubauer, a Capitals’ goalie prospect who was good enough to play in the AHL but didn’t due to their depth at goalie this season. While I was talking to him, he had a huge bag of ice on his wrist. Shortly after, he had surgery on it and missed the rest of the season. Regardless, he’ll almost certainly be playing in Hershey next season. Having this article on Capitals Insider was special for me because it’s pretty much the authority on Washington Capitals news.
I was all set to write a quirky Caps Outsider post about the Caps’ playoffs video, a pretty awesome production made each year, when I found myself having a long conversation with Caps’ director of game entertainment and TV production, Michael Wurman. After hearing his story about how a single lyric in a song almost ruined his video last year before he had a last-minute revelation, I knew I had a D.C. Sports Bog scoop.
Hoping to write more. Since it’s not really my job to write for the site (I’m in the IT department), it’s completely up to me to find the story and pitch it to them.
It’s been more than a decade since I had an article on washingtonpost.com (the previous ones were web-only and buried in the sports section), but last week I got to write an article for D.C. Sports Bog.
I pitched the article to Dan Steinberg, he said yes, but asked me to write it. The timing was good because I got one of my writers at Caps Outsider got a quote from the athlete (she was scheduled to attend the game, anyway, with our press credential).
I got another surprise when the article appeared in the newspaper last Thursday. My grandmother cut it out.
To think, my job at The Post is in the newsroom’s IT department.
Because the Capitals give my website, capitalsoutsider.com, access to games, I’ve sat in on several press conferences with former Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau over the last three seasons. I’ve asked him a few questions, gotten some good answers, and even ran into him a few times at The Gardens Ice House. There were three times I will fondly remember.
The first was when I caught him off guard toward the end of a press conference last season, early on. “There are a lot of new commercials lately…” I began. “Oh shit,” he replied before I even asked my question. “Who is funnier? You or Ovie?” He went on to say that Ovechkin is funnier, but the press disagreed, and I think it was Jill Sorenson from Comcast who asked him about the commercial where he was performing bird calls in front of a crowd.
Another time I was in Laurel at the hockey rink, talking to another blogger, but also a Caps staff member. Bruce walks up to the three of us (I’m unclear if he recognized any of us) and asked us to change the channel to put golf on. He was there for his son’s team (I believe George McPhee was around, too), but he didn’t know that there were about a thousand Caps fans in the rink watching the alumni game. After I changed the channel for him, and after he took some photos with some fans, he split before the crowd let out.
The last memorable moment I had with him was after a Pittsburgh game. A lot happened in that game and the media had no shortage of questions. But when I brought up Matt Cooke, who had kneed Ovechkin during the game, Bruce exploded. His rant on Matt Cooke was widely quoted, as Cooke himself was going through a period of injuring people and getting suspended. No matter where I read Bruce’s rant, I had to smile because I knew it was me who asked that question. Sure, someone else would have if I hadn’t, but still… I’m glad it was me.
I’m going to miss Bruce Boudreau in Washington. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. He was supposed to be the one who saved this team and won them the Stanley Cup. All the ingredients were here, he did a fantastic job, but in the end, it just didn’t work anymore and that’s the only reason that matters. I will, however, have fond memories of the Winter Classic and HBO’s 24/7, something I watched them film live!
And yes, I will adopt the Anaheim Ducks as my West Coast team now that he’s the bench boss, there.
