Priority

I understand, I really do. Like many folks from these areas, I rooted for the Caps before United existed, and since I've been alive and aware of my fandom, the Pittsburgh Penguins are the team that quickly became associated with playoff angst and agony. So it would appear that tonight, with Penguins v. Caps on the "VS" network and Wizards v. United on CSN, that there might be some form of conflict. "What should I be watching?"

Folks, there's no conflict. Tonight, you watch United. If you can, you flip over to the Caps games at halftime, or tape it on TiVo, or whatever, but tonight is a United night. It's that simple. This is our second match on CSN, and if we want away games to get televised, you need to do your part (especially if you're a Nielsen family). Watch tonight's game, catch the Caps later. It's not even an elimination game, and Alex Ovechkin timely supplied his highlight hattrick for Game 2. No, tonight is a United night.

Saturday? There may not even be a game Saturday, but we can talk about dispensation for Saturday later.

Tuesday's Cool Cool Considerate Coffee

Ah, the link farm post. But there's stuff out there worth reading, so I'll get back to my world in a bit, but first let's poke the head above the covers and see what we see.

BEN OLSEN - OUT AGAIN: Paul Tenorio writes up the sad situation, but there is something to feel good about here. First, we got to see Ben on the field again, and that was a tremendous moment. Second, Ben himself makes this choice knowing full well the situation he was in, and I feel better about that. As though somehow he has more ownership of this, rather than being at the mercy of the medical staff. And third, it just means that at some point, we get to welcome him back again. Preferably unannounced, and with WWE style entrance music (MAH-GAWD!!! IT'S BEN OLSEN!!!)

MID SEASON WRAPS: UnitedMania is up with theirs, and John Haydon at the Times is also getting into the swing of things. However, the key thing from Haydon is Olsen on Olsen:

It's almost impossible to be a soccer fan and not to have seen the mind-numbing Dick's Sporting Goods commercial starring Ben Olsen. "I'm willing to give them the money back they paid me for the commercial if they would stop playing it," Olsen said..."I wish they would stop playing it because it's ruining my soccer watching because every time it comes on I get into a bad mood and turn the TV off," Olsen added.

Now, we can debate how successful that particular advert is, but the one moment I love is Olsen looking at the TV and announcing to all around him "Oh, I got that move." That's what I love about Ben, the blasé arrogance of looking at anything and figuring out he could do it.

RATINGS: Steinberg at the Bog examines the question in detail, vis a vis the Nats. But wasn't United outdrawing the Caps, and even with the Wizards a year ago? Now we're behind both. Part of that may be that this is early season, and was perhaps also affected by United's poor start, the Caps amazing playoff run, and the Wizards once again flirting with the playoffs. I dunno, I try to keep this stuff straight in my head so that it keeps me honest.

Soccer in America

On Tuesday evening I watched game 7 of the Caps/Flyers series at the 51st State in Foggy Bottom. Yeah, that's right... I got on the Caps bandwagon hard. And it hurt. It was Chad Barrett scoring at RFK last November, it was the Cavs outpacing the Wiz by 30 on Monday night and then it was an OT goal at the Phone Booth on Tuesday night. And then I went home, turned on the computer and had pocket aces cracked by pocket jacks. Brutal all around. But this isn't the point.

My friend S, who is very smart and observes all, made an interesting comment to me as we made our way through too many pints. He said, "Look at baseball, which is the most popular sport in America, but is, for the most part, a boring game." True. He pointed out that American sports fans seem to have a preoccupation with statistics and that maybe baseball is so popular because there are so many statistics to throw around while you are trying to make your way through three innings of shallow pop flys and slow roller ground outs to the second baseman who has chewing tobacco juice on his shoes. You are always hearing about "on-base percentage after the 7th inning with runners in scoring position by lefties against righties from Spanish-speaking island countries" and "slugging percentage". And all these statistics have fun, convenient abbreviations, like OBP(A7RISPLvRSSIC) and BB and HBP.

So maybe MLS would do well to create (invent?) more statistics for viewers to track with the hope of keeping the American sports fan occupied through 0-0 draws and defensive bunkering. Perhaps teams stats like "most team passbacks from the middle third to the keeper" or individual stats like "percent time of possession spent with back to goal". In fact, in all seriousness, I heard on last Thursday during the CLB @ DCU match that Alejandro Moreno was the most fouled player last year. It wasn't immediately obvious to me what it was about AM's game that would put him in a position to be consistently fouled. I don't know that he is a big flopper.

Do you have ideas for more stats that MLS could track? Is this plenty? Discuss your ideas in the comments and be sure to give some thought to how too many numbers being tossed around may cause Eric Wynalda's head to explode.

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Only tangentially related to this topic: Mike and Mike, on ESPN2, spent a TON of time on their show Tuesday morning talking about how Andrei Kirilenko had flopped (OMG!) and drawn an offensive foul call at the end of the Game 2 of the Jazz/Rockets series. The foul call waved off a made 3 pointer and allowed the Jazz to steal a road win. Golic was absolutely astounded that such an injustice could be allowed to stand. Green was more practical, trying to figure out how to punish a player who flops within the current NBA rules of fouls and technical fouls. It was hilarious to see two grown men so upset at how a blown call or slight embellishment by a player could effect something like 3% of a team's total point instead of, as any soccer fan knows, perhaps 50% or 100%!!

Media Diversificaiton

Dan Steinberg once had this idea about the cross pollination between United and Caps fans, and I dig it the concept. Ted Leonsis has even stepped up to offer United ticket holders special discounts to caps game. As a once rabid Caps fan, and now a somewhat tamer and less devoted one, I still have a fondness for the men of the ice. And I'm not the only one. Those of you catching the telecast of the Lightning-Caps game might have noticed that the "Ask Craig Laughlin" segment featured a question from one "Tony Limarzi" about whether one player can bring another player a stick if the latter's was broken in the course of play (short answer: no.) And it was nice to see that Craig and Joe actually recognized the name, and gave Tony his props, though it would have been nice if they had said Tony is the "Voice of D.C. United" or, perhaps more accurately, the "over enunciating and inflective voice of D.C. United." Still, a quiet, nice moment.

Hockey and Marc Burch

I went to the Caps pre-season game last night against Carolina. Obviously golden goals in OT are exciting, but I really can't get too excited about hockey in general. In soccer when a player is offsides, the players scream at the AR, wag their fingers and the supporters go nuts. In hockey there is polite applause. In soccer, a long ball from the back that finds an on-rushing striker gets everyone out of their seats and cheering. In hockey, the equivalent gets a whistle, a TV timeout and more polite applause. The only thing that I enjoyed last night that I don't think I could get from a soccer match is the 15 second Metallica clips that are pumped through the arena speakers before each faceoff. I love me some loud Metallica.

Here's my contribution to the Match Debrief for CHI vs DCU from Sunday.

The Bad

1. Marc Burch: I'm a huge fan of his and have been so impressed with that left foot of his as United made their impressive run after the All Star Break. But I wonder if MB has been reading too much of the positive press about himself. I got the feeling in the Chicago match that every time the ball came to him, he would just send in a cross but without the quality of previous games. I felt like he was making crosses too early or with no target or without enough pace. He may believe he can do no wrong and it seemed true in the FCD game in early September. But I think Burch needs to continue to do well by concentrating on quality and a target. Instead, it feels like he just hits it and assumes that the result will be a goal.
   

So if football is "pointyball", what is hockey? "Deflated-and-melted-into-a-lump-ball"?

Lastly, check out Nathan's comment to my post yesterday regarding the UEFA Champions League where I specifically mentioned the Turkish club Fenerbahçe.

Hi, nice blog. I, like you, am an American fan of soccer, and my team is Fenerbahce. I know...it's weird. Anyway, I have a blog about Fenerbahce in English if you ever want to learn a little more about our club - www.fenerbahceworldwide.blogspot.com. I have another guy who writes for me as well, and we try to update our site every day or so.

This is awesome because I think I know exactly what happened. I think he googled the name of his favorite club and found this blog because of an innocent reference on my part. Actually, that's the exact same way (googling "DC United", not "Fenerbahçe") that I found The DCenters originally. But the point is that I'm adding new readers immediately! Woo-hoo!

Monday Morning Coffee

USA v. Mexico Cancelled: Steven Goff reports that US v. Mexico at Azteca is off. It is to be replaced by US v. Brazil at Chicago's Soldier Field. Quite a replacement match.

Boswell Helps ESPN Out Bobby Boswell decided to give some good advice to ESPN at practice on Friday. Some strong stuff there that many fans, myself included think is 100% correct. ESPN's MLS broadcasts are horrible and something needs to be done to fix the problem. Bobby adds to his comments in a similar but slightly less antagonistic manner on his blog.

Ted Takes SportTalk to Task: Ted Leonsis, owner of the Washington Capitals was at the game on Thursday. As he was driving there he was listening to to SportsTalk 980. Apparently, he didn't like what he was hearing. He slams the Sports Reporters for their narrow minded approach to soccer. I couldn't agree more, but I wouldn't have even known about this if he hadn't blogged about it. Because really, who listens to 980?

Opening Weekend for the EPL: I don't know how many of you out there care but there were some nice matches this weekend. It was a good mix of some big upsets and some expected results. As for the Americans playing, the goalkeepers did well, the field players, not so much.

Stomp the Rink

Lots to talk about in the next few days. Start yourself off by reviewing JoeSoccerFan's Day 3 2007 MLS Combine report. Enjoy the wire reports on the second Barra invasion of the phone booth: "boisterous", "fun", and "hooligans...usually seen at D.C. United games in the MSL [sic]... bringing a fun atmosphere to an otherwise half-empty building." This last article of course uses this as a peg to slam soccer, but somehow instead does more damage to the Flyers' performance. Oh you local sports writers, will your humor never start? (OffWing notes that our proud representatives from the Barra were seated right in front of the pressbox. Excellent.)

We're in the final few days before the SuperDraft, so I encourage you to brush up on your draft knowledge. The DCenters will try and publish a cheat sheet for you in the future.

Also, last night the DCenters was one of the many local DC blogs invited over to the Washington Post for a blogging summit. Most of the actual proceedings are probably, at this time, of little interest to you, but I do want to talk about a quick conversation I had and what it might mean for the stadium. Provided I can carve out enough time in my day to get those thoughts down, it'll be coming. For a full round-up of what actually happened, check out DC Metblogs, and I'm sure other will have their thoughts up in a bit..

Finally, aren't you glad your relationship isn't like this? (Almost perfect, -1 for not using "Citeh")

An Open Letter to Fans of the Washington Capitals

Dear Caps Fans,

I understand that some of you were annoyed by the presence of DC United fans at the recent Mighty Ducks - Caps game. Some of you think that we were disrespectful to the game. Some of you feel that our attempt to import some of the rich supporter's culture of DC United, and soccer as a game, was out of place in the hockey environment at the Verizon Center. I can understand, and to a degree, sympathisize with your position. But I ask you not to write it off as a failed experiment just yet.

When I started as a Caps fan, I thought #3 Scott Stevens was the greatest player ever. I was a fan when the Caps scoring five goals elicited a chant of "Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!" And through all that time, from when I was about seven onwards, it was generally acknowledged that it was somewhat embarassing when Flyers, Islanders, or Rangers fans could come into the Caps Center and outcheer the home team. To be fair, Caps fans had the look of a habitually beaten dog. The Caps consistently made the playoffs and couldn't get out of the Patrick division. Games had a constant overtone of "How will we lose the Penguins in the playoffs this year?" There wasn't much enthusiasm for anything that happened during your typical regular season game.

Things started to change in the late 90s. We followed our team through a Stanley Cup run. We got new ownership that made me feel like the team wasn't always an afterthought for the Bullets. We signed Jagr, and thought that a line with Bondra and Jaromir could spell intense trouble for everyone. For once I approached a Capitals preseason with hope instead of apprehension. Only it didn't happen, and the collapse was acknowledged and well documented. The tiny stirrings of hope were extinguished as players were traded, left, and accusations over the management of the team and the league grew more and more bitter.

Last year the Capitals signed Alexander Ovechkin, and as he proved to be everything that was promised and more, there seemed to be a sense, for the first time in over six years, that rooting for this team was not a waste of emotional intensity. The product on the ice is not only worth watching, it is worth cheering for, it is worth being excited about.

As soccer fans, perhaps the one thing we can understand is bringing enthusiasm to the game. We are not completley ignorant of hockey or the Caps. If anything, we are perhaps too aware of the defeatist mentality that characterizes Capitals fandom. All we want is to bring some of our enthusiasm and spirit, honed around the various soccer stadiums of the United States and the world, to the Verizon Center. This is not to say that I think that the soccer fandom way translates perfectly to the rink. We may have to fine tune some traditions, pick our spots better, and customize more of the chants. I'll admit that it would be a work in progress. But give it a chance, eh? For so long it feels like the only unique Capitals tradition was flaming out in the Conference Semis or Patrick Division finals, let's try and create a new one. One that brings some unique feel to the Verizon Center. We'll work with you, and I ask you to work with us. Give us a chance before you run us off.

All that being said, cutting down on the booze is a non-starter. Other things (and I'll leave that to the various elders and presidents of the supporter's groups) may be negotiable, but that's sacrosanct.