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My New Hockey Column

As if I don’t have enough websites to write for, I recently added another. For Fansided’s main NHL blog, Too Many Men on the Site, I’ll be writing a column called ‘Hitting the Post’ on Mondays.

Why would I do this? It’ll give me an outlet to write about hockey that isn’t Caps-specific meant for Capitals Outsider, and isn’t goofy like for Gunaxin.

The name, “Hitting the Post,” actually has several meanings. Most obvious is when the puck hits the side of the goal. But it’s also the DJ term for talking through the intro of a song and stopping less than a second before the lyrics start (an homage to my DJ days in college). Lastly, it means I’m hitting the Washington Post for continuing to not pay much attention to hockey in terms of columnists. Sure, they send a writer to a game every now and then, but it’s hardly enough.

Anyway, this week, I’m politely asking everyone to stop calling it the Gordie Howe Hat Trick and to rename it the Brendan Shanahan Hat Trick. Why? Just read.

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‘The Ovechkin Project’ Review

Several athletes these days generate enough interest to justify a book, and Capitals fans were initially pleased to know that they’d get a more in-depth view of Alex Ovechkin, one of the best athletes Washington D.C. has ever had. But the “The Ovechkin Project” isn’t necessarily a biography of hockey’s most dangerous player, but a thesis on a question that no one asked.

The book chronicles Ovechkin’s life in Russia, his time with Moscow Dynamo and days in the World Juniors. It details the many factors – including the signing of Jaromir Jagr and the timing of Ovechkin’s birthday – that needed to happen in order to get him to Washington. It narrates many familiar moments, such as the nationally televised game on Super Bowl Sunday. It talks about the disappointments last season in the Olympics and playoffs, the suspensions, and the NHL awards ceremony in Las Vegas. Readers also get a look into related stories, such as the rise of Bruce Boudreau and how that benefited Mike Green and David Steckel in particular.

But the underlying theme of the book is how Ovechkin supposedly changed from the fun-loving, carefree person he was in his rookie season to something different today. To prove their point, authors Damien Cox and Gare Joyce too often make unnecessary and biased assertions, and focus on – shocker – how frustrated Ovechkin must be because he hasn’t yet won a Stanley Cup or Olympic gold medal. The authors also suggest that Ovechkin will come to regret his long term contract with the Capitals because shorter-term ones could have ultimately paid him more. Does anyone think Ovechkin is losing sleep over this?

That’s not to say the book completely throws Ovechkin under the bus. Aside from describing some Washington Capitals history and other things that fans would find interesting, the authors interview people who have benefited from Ovechkin’s generosity and thoughtfulness. Take away the needless quips and silly claims and the book has the making of a halfway decent look at the Washington Capitals and the arrival of Alex Ovechkin. Capitals Director of Media Relations Nate Ewell says that Cox and Joyce were given access to everyone in the organization but Ovechkin, who opted not to participate. This likely created some bitterness that made the authors tilt the writing in the direction that ultimately earned the book sour reviews, including this one.

Because of smart PR by Ted Leonsis and the Capitals organization, many fans – clearly the target audience of ‘The Ovechkin Project’ – made a decision not to read it even before it hit shelves. And Cox did further damage by claiming Ovechkin’s contract shouldn’t have been approved, which earned a rebuttal from Ted Leonsis. But the very worst thing? The book contains an unacceptable number of typographical errors, which is inexcusable for anyone but breaking news bloggers.

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Capitals!

I’m sure if I did the math to find out how much of my life is consumed by the Washington Capitals, it would be a relatively high number in proportion to just about everything else I do, including sleeping.

In the past week, I’ve seen all four Capitals games while attending two of them. In the past two days I read the book The Ovechkin Project, which the publisher sent me for review. Then I spent much of today, including the time during the Caps game, to write the review (I didn’t attend – my press partner Phil was there).

I got some great coverage the other night at the game, including a photo of Yi Jianlian of the Washington Wizards attending his first Caps game, and a quick article on Eric Fehr getting the player of the game but virtually being ignored by reporters after the game (though the Post made up for it with an article about him a day later). These and a couple of other quick articles got 2,000 page views on Wednesday, thanks to links by The Post, Japers’ Rink, a few basketball sites and others.

By the way, I was told that Capitals Outsider was the No. 1 hockey blog on the Fansided network for page views last month. That was flattering, but what’s scary is that it only took about 10 days for us to surpass last month’s total, so who knows what we’ll end up with. Even better, the compliments have been rolling in.

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Boudreau's Curse

Whenever I plan on asking an offbeat question at a press conference after the Capitals game, I have to be really careful, especially with the timing and tone.

This time, I asked permission, and was told to wait toward the end of the press conference.

After the Caps’ 5-3 preseason win, the coach had a big smile on his face when I saw him downstairs. The press conference was a breeze, no hard questions, and Bruce was in a good mood.

When there was a break in the questions, I made my move.

“Coach, there’s been a lot of new commercials lately,” I began.

“Oh, shit,” he said, and the journalists started laughing (this isn’t the first time I’ve asked a question that led to an interruption of laughter).

I asked whose commercials were funnier and he sheepishly said Ovechkin is better at everything than him.

“But he hasn’t done bird calls,” Jill Sorenson of CSN said (I think it was her).

I thought it was hilarious, and I did get what I needed for my article. The photo is a screengrab from the video at the exact moment I mentioned ‘commercial.’

Sorry, Bruce, but if you’re going to make bird calls for Mercedes and dance on stage in sweats with Ryan Zimmerman, I’m going to ask you about it.

So long as you’re in a good mood.

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The Lure of Song Lists

One of the things I’ve learned about people’s search habits on the Internet is that they often search for lists of songs about certain subjects, and I’ve taken this into consideration when writing articles for Gunaxin. Several of my articles routinely appear near the top of Google search results when people search for ‘songs about…’ However, writing an article based solely on search behavior is secondary to my own interest in these song lists, which isn’t so unusual considering the number of people who are also searching for these lists.

Sad subject, I’ll admit, but anyone who searches for ‘songs about suicide’ (hundreds of searches a day, at least) will see my article “Top Ten Songs About Suicide” near the top of Google results (also a search for ‘suicide songs’ does it). Tens of thousands of people have stumbled upon this article in the past year. It’s just a ranked list of songs that I picked about the subject.

The next big song list that frequently gets search results is “Top Ten Songs to Fight To.” I’m actually surprised this one has done so well over the past year, but apparently more people Google ‘Fighting Songs’ than I thought. Unlike the suicide songs list, the fighting songs are just ten tunes I found that are high-energy and would make a good soundtrack to an old fashioned fist fight. The list could be much longer but who has time for that? Regardless, I’m glad it’s frequently accessed.

The next most frequently searched list is for ‘gay songs.’ After my brother bought a Subaru Forester more than a year ago, he told me it was the top selling car for lesbians. That gave me an idea. I could write an article about the top selling gay and lesbian cars, so I Googled it. Too late. Everyone already wrote that article. Having already written other frequently searched song lists, I then Googled ‘gay songs’ and came up with some very lame results. Finally I found a very good list, from some Australian magazine, but the list was hard to find and the article was paginated. So what did I do? I grabbed the info, wrote and article, and credited them with a link. This is not recommended, and I’m not happy I did it, but at the same time, their information was very hard to find, which is obviously not ideal for people who are searching for it. Next, the Gunaxin article, “Top 50 Gay Songs – Which Do You Own?” rose near the top of search results for ‘gay songs.’ My ‘Gunaxin’ spin was to tell people to count the number of songs they own to see how ‘gay’ they are. Ridiculous, obviously, and some people took it seriously and blasted me for it, failing to note the sarcasm. The article got tens of thousands of page views, but I felt bad because it was just a list from another source. But what I also realized was that this article could be an entire website of LGBT songs and artists. Seizing the search engine opportunity, Gunaxin launched a new website, topgaysongs.com (though none of us are gay). Via Craigslist ads, I recruited a few writers who are passionate about the subject and wrote some articles. The site is virtually maintenance free and gets more than 5,000 page views a month. It makes revenue off of Google ads and Amazon associate links. It hasn’t made us rich, yet, but the number of page views are nothing to throw away. Now only if I can find someone to run it who actually likes those songs, because I certainly don’t. (Also, I briefly thought about launching other sites ‘TopSuicideSongs.com’ and ‘TopFightingSongs.com’ but didn’t see much potential beyond the single song lists.)

The next big article I wrote that I’m hoping will gain a top spot in the search engines is “Songs About Abortion – Pro-Life Edition.” I don’t know how many people search for ‘songs about abortion’ but with any luck, it, too, will rise to the top of Google.

Now, off to write more song lists, because the public is definitely looking for them!