Comedy Club

Practical jokes and one-liners are as much as part of hockey as slapshots and faceoffs. To wit*:

Dave Christian had all sorts of sober, impressive credentials. He won gold with the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey team. His family founded the Christian Brothers Hockey Company.

And he averaged a robust 32 goals per year in six full seasons with the Capitals between 1983-1990.

Which doesn't sound at all like the guy former teammate Craig Laughlin described to Dan Steinberg for his blog at washingtonpost.com.

"Davey Christian would light everybody's newspaper on fire. It was called Hot News - hey guys, what's the hot news - and he'd have this cigarette lighter under a guy's paper, and all of the sudden the paper would catch flames in the middle of the airport."

Dale Hunter's "teammates and others with the Capitals love him for a hundred reasons... practical jokes among them." That from a profile written by David Sell in the Post. Sell also described how "Hunter drives a heavy-duty, big-cab Ford because he needs it when he goes home to his 300 acres of soybeans and wheat near Petrolia, Ont." The pickup was used by teammates to get revenge on their impish Captain, as Hunter relates in the audio clip at left.

Unlike Hunter, you can't guess all pranksters from their on-ice demeanor. Take Bob Girard, the most responsible of defense-first wingers for the Caps from 1977-79. Often assigned to the opposition's top scorers, he was never intimidated playing in hostile arenas.

Off the ice, Bob was, let's say, a "cutup." As in sneaking up during plane rides and snipping the neckties of unwary teammates. Girard could also be, to quote the Caps Media Guide, "A turbaned figure in the locker room, throwing baby powder in the air, appealing to Buddha for goals."

The incantations didn't often work; Girard scored 18 goals total in his two seasons in Landover. But his honest effort each night was no trick.



Sometimes the motive behind comedy is that it's better to laugh than to cry.

During that interminable first season, Mike Bloom remembers Tommy Williams trying to lighten the mood.

Bloom told the Post, "After we had lost 15 in a row, Tommy called a team meeting and said, 'Guys, let's not get down. We're a good team. We're just in the wrong league.'"

(* Get it? To "wit". In a post about comedy!)

Score Card

That's a mind-blowing 1,602 goals rubbing shoulders in this hockey card. Wayne Gretzky (1979-99) is the all-time leader with 894 goals, while former Cap Mike Gartner (1979-98) ranks 6th with 708.

Mike recalled to nhl.com, "There aren't too many (records) that Wayne doesn't own, but I do own a couple - the 15 consecutive
30-goal seasons and the 17 total 30-goal seasons. I always strove for consistency as a player and as a person."

Gretzky and Gartner both started their careers during the final season of the World Hockey Association. Ironically, it was Gartner who was a WHA teammate of Mark Messier - the same Messier who would join Gretzky on four Oilers championship teams.

The World Is Not Enough

More WHA: Between 1976-78, the Capitals played eight pre-season games against the rival league. The Caps won their only meeting with the Indianapolis Racers, lost all three matches with the New England Whalers, split two games with the Cincinnati Stingers, and split two games with the Quebec Nordiques.

Some games were played by WHA rules, which included 10-minute overtimes. So the Caps 5-4 loss to the Whalers in 1977 was the first overtime game in team history.

Banner Year

In the 24 years prior to joining the Southeast Division in 1998, the Capitals won just one regular-season title.

It came during the 1988-89 season, when the Caps were members of the Patrick Division. Washington finished 41-29-10 for 92 points, five points better than the Penguins, with the Rangers, Flyers, Devils, and Islanders back in the pack.

The banner didn't help: The Flyers bounced D.C. out of the playoffs in the 1st round.

The Capitals best regular-season record actually came in 1985-86: 50 wins, 23 losses and 7 ties for 107 points. Philly won the division with 110 points.

We do some number-crunching in the next post to explain why the '85-'86 squad is still the best in the regular year, despite recent events to the contrary.

Don't Miss The Point

The record book says the 2008-09 Capitals had the greatest regular season in team history: 50 wins & 108 points.

The record book is wrong.

Statistically speaking, the 1985-86 Caps team – with 50 wins and 107 points – was DC’s best ever, and it’s not close.

A conclusion not based on era vs. era comparisons, such as strength of opponents, style of play, officiating, etc. Just analyzing 3 NHL rule changes that gave the ’09 Caps opportunities to gain additional wins and points.

’09's Caps won 4 games (and 4 extra points) by shootout - which would have been ties in the shootout-less ‘80’s.

’09's Caps earned 3 points for overtime losses. In the ‘80’s, OT losers were not awarded a standings point.

’09's Caps played an 82-game schedule, 2 more than in '85-86, picking up 1 added win (and 2 points) in game 81.

Now, subtract points and wins from the ’09 squad, using 1986 rules.

By this measure, the Langway/Gartner/Gustafsson Caps outpace the Ovechkin/Semin/Green
team by 5 wins and 8 points.

The Very, Very, Very First

At left is a Washington Post ad promoting the first games at Capital Centre, pre-season tilts with the Canadiens and Flyers.

It asks, "How good is this scrappy new team of fast-skating wild men?" As Jerry Seinfeld once asked, who are the ad wizards that came up with that one?

At least the name was right. For one exhibition at their training camp in London, Ontario, the game program listed the new team as the "Washington Generals." That, of course, being the fictional basketball foils who always lost to the Harlem Globetrotters.

The very, very, very first time NHL hockey was played in Washington was
September 28, 1974, and it got off to a very good start.

The photo at right shows Tommy Williams, just 11 seconds into the game, after scoring on legendary Montreal goalie Ken Dryden. The game ended in a 4-4 tie.

"It Could've Been Worse - But Not Much"

At right are portions of an Associated Press wire story on the first regular season game in Capitals history. It came on October 9, 1974 at Madison Square Garden, against the Rangers. Worth noting is that the Caps and Rangers were tied 2-2 after two periods, and 3-3, early in the third. Hrycuik, the first goal-getter, played 20 more games with the Capitals and scored four more goals, before finishing his career in the minors.

Bottle Caps

The Capitals made their first post-season appearance in the spring of 1976 - in fact, they won the Cup.

It's not in the record books, because the appearance was in Japan, and the trophy was the Coca-Cola Bottlers Cup.

A week after the conclusion of the '75-'76 season, the Caps and Kansas City Scouts were invited to play a series of four exhibition games in Tokyo and Sapporo.

Washington won 3 of the 4 games to capture "the Cup", and the Scouts were so despondent they relocated to Colorado in the off-season.

Continental Capitals

So Tommy Williams might have been wrong when he joked that the Capitals were playing in the wrong league. Maybe they were just playing on the wrong continents.

Four years after their victorious sojourn through Japan, the Capitals (along with the North Stars) participated in a 1980 pre-season tournament in Sweden. Washington won the "DN Hockey Cup" with a 3-0 record.

In September of 1981, the Capitals went 1-3 when they and the Rangers played exhibitions in Finland and Sweden.

Before the 1989-90 season, the Caps packed once more for training camp in Sweden (program at right), and won two exhibition games. Then it was on to the U.S.S.R. along with the Calgary Flames, for four games against teams in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev and Riga in the "Friendship Tour."

Again the Caps were kings of Eurasia, winning 3 of 4 games vs. their Soviet competition. Поздравляю!* (Pazdra-vilya-yoo!)
*Congratulations!

Great Expectations, Part 1

The first time the Capitals ever really felt their oats was during the franchise's third season. In 1976-77, the Caps won 24 games, more than their first two seasons combined.

When the team put together a three game winning streak, they placed this newspaper ad to promote upcoming games (opponents include the long-gone Cleveland Barons and Colorado Rockies).

Coach Tom McVie, flanked by three of his players, says in the ad, "Every single time we take the ice we expect to win... We don't bust our tails in two-a-day practices and expect to lose."

Now, turn the calendar forward to the mid 1980's. The team motto had changed from "Nobody Expected Us", to
"Everyone Expects Us"...

Great Expectations, Part 2

The more you study this 1988 photo, the more remarkable (and frustrating) it becomes. To think that Mike Gartner, Rod Langway, and Scott Stevens - 3 future Hall of Famers - played in their prime on the same Capitals team.

The 1980's Capitals thrilled fans by piling up monster regular season win totals. But Gartner, Langway and Stevens ultimately were all dressed up with nowhere to go - not one Stanley Cup while in Washington. How could that be?

Defenseman Larry Murphy disputes that these Caps teams failed to meet expectations. "We just didn't have the complete personnel," Murphy told USA Today. "(We) got the most out of what we had. I never considered us underachievers."

Langway, meanwhile, has suggested that stellar goaltending was the missing piece. Rod also revealed that when the Caps did reach the conference finals in 1990, both he and Stevens were playing with separated shoulders.

All 3 did earn rings - with other teams. Gartner may not wear his; he was traded by the Rangers just before they won the Cup in 1994. Gartner played 1,554 NHL games, but not a single one in the Finals.

McNab, McVie, Mason Have No Meeting Of The Minds

GM Max McNab, coach Tom McVie, and goalie Bob Mason are key names from the first dozen years of the Capitals franchise. In fact, McNab and McVie had a lot to do with Mason coming to Washington in 1984.

Nothing unusual about that... except the coach and GM were employed by the New Jersey Devils at the time, not the Capitals. Therein lies the story.

First, a little background. McNab and McVie were hired in Washington in late 1975 to bring order and discipline to a chaotic organization. Although they succeeded admirably under the circumstances, ownership gave McVie the boot in 1978, and McNab was relieved in 1981.


Undrafted goalie Mason, meanwhile, was turning heads after being named to the 1984 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team. New Jersey coach-GM Billy MacMillan appeared to have won the bidding for Bob's services. That is, until the Devils decided a Mc-Nab and a Mc-Vie were better than a Mac-Millan.

With the former Caps brain trust now in charge in the Meadowlands, Mason had second thoughts. (Just as a college recruit might, if the team he committed to fired its coach.) Caps GM David Poile swooped in and got the free agent signed to play in D.C.

Postscript: Mason played well, though sparingly, for three seasons, compiling an 11-2-1 record. He became the go-to guy in 1986-87, finishing 20-18-5 with a 3.24 GAA.

After losing the four-overtime finale to the Islanders in that year's playoffs, Mason bounced around with Chicago, Quebec, and Vancouver. He also briefly returned to the Caps in the 1989-90 season - most notable because the goalie demoted to make room was a teenage rookie named Olaf Kolzig.

Landover, Maryland, Hello!

Three decades and several hundred pairs of suspenders ago, Larry King became enamored with the Capitals.

King adopted the team soon after moving to Washington in 1978, to host a national all-night radio show.

A trading card, at right, even anointed him as the team's "Celebrity Captain." (Sample pep talk: "Win tonight, boys, and tomorrow we go to Duke Zeibert's and the corned beef sandwiches are on me!")

Oh, and if Larry had ever written one of his USA Today columns about the Capitals, it would have read something like this:

"That Langway fellow is a keeper... At Capital Centre, try the soft-serve ice cream by portal 9. Delicious!... Call me crazy, but I like the red line... Whatever happened to Pete Laframboise?... Gotta love a player whose surname means "The Raspberry" in French..."

Anyway, in 1980, the first hockey guest ever to appear on Mutual Radio's "Larry King Show" was Capitals head coach Gary Green. Just months earlier, Green, at 26, became the youngest coach in NHL history. In the clip at left, Green explains how he fudged his age when applying for the coach's job with a Canadian junior team. If he hadn't landed that job with the Peterborough Petes - and made a name for himself by winning two titles - the Capitals would have never come calling.

Disco Puck

1980 being the disco era and all, a high profile twenty-something like Coach Green can be excused for catching boogie fever. At least he did in this WTOP radio ad for the Capitals. So get your groove on to the rhythms of "Ain't No Stopping Us Now", accompanying Green's sales pitch. (The tagline is read by Phil Wood.) Not to bum you out, man, but Green quickly fell victim to the pro coaching jungle's "Circle of Life."

He was summoned to the Capitals early in 1979-80, when prior coach Danny Belisle won just 4 of 16 games.
Two years later, Green's Caps had an even slower start, 1-12, and thus ended the only NHL job he'd ever have.

Don't feel bad for Gary, though. He's been a network-level NHL TV commentator for more than 25 years.
And to think, his first work behind a microphone was reading ad copy alongside a disco record.

The Palmateer-Picard Saga

CBC's Hockey Night In Canada didn't know what they were foreshadowing when they paired Robert Picard and Mike Palmateer in this video during the 1979-80 season. Caps defenseman Picard and Leafs goalie Palmateer took part in a shootout-style exhibition shown between periods. At the time, Toronto was balking at Palmateer's demand for a big, multi-year contract. And Caps general manager Max McNab was looking for a franchise goaltender that could help the team finally make the playoffs. Little did Robert and Mike know they would be traded for each other just months later.

That led to this brain teaser, titled "Pick The Picard Card."

As mentioned, early in the 1980's, Picard was traded to Toronto. And Disney released a Sci-Fi film called Tron.

See if you can figure out which picture is an image from the movie, and which is a horribly-inked rendering of a Maple Leafs sweater and helmet - if they were teal instead of blue, and, you know, electrified. All to hide that Picard was still a Cap when the photo was taken.

Disney is making a sequel to Tron. Not sure if they're working on an animatronic Picard.


Back to the trade, no one could claim that it was one sided - Neither player lived up to expectations in their new locations.

Toronto G.M. Punch Imlach, in his book, "Heaven and Hell in the NHL", traced Picard's downfall to his first game as a Leaf. Getting hammered in a fight shattered his confidence.

Meanwhile, Palmateer's two years in D.C. were marred by hamstring, ankle, wrist, and knee injuries.

Off the ice, mapleleafslegends.blogspot.com quoted G.M. McNab as saying "Mike was unhappy and missed the atmosphere in Toronto."

For good measure, his goalie mask was stolen!


The deal was equally rough on the men who made it.

Wrote Imlach, "Not far into the 1981-82 season when Palmateer was not playing, McNab was fired, and the Palmateer contract was at least a contributing factor."

(Another contributing factor: "Pollin's action followed by only 12 hours a 6-1 rout by Minnesota, during which the Capital Centre fans jeered the players, wore paper bags over their heads and displayed a sign that read 'Handi-Caps," wrote The New York Times.)

Imlach's punchline: "Max wrote me a note: 'That Palmateer-Picard trade didn't do us very much good. You got a heart attack and I lost my job.'"

A Special Night (Not Counting The Game)

November 7, 1981 ranks as one of the more remarkable nights in Capitals history.

As documented, with the Caps on an 11-game losing streak, coach Green and G.M. McNab had been fired two days earlier.

The only member of the staff to keep his job? Assistant coach Yvon Labre. After all, the team could hardly kick Yvon to the curb - they were retiring his sweater at the next home game!

So for the Nov. 7th contest against the Rangers, Roger Crozier made his one and only appearance as coach of the Capitals - and lost, 3-1.

Bryan Murray would be named as permanent replacement before the next game. Crozier, who had been assistant G.M., moved to the top job.

Back to Yvon, here's part of what the commemorative program said: "If Labre's statistics are average, remember the man himself isn't... they haven't come up with numbers to measure his real strong points: guts, pride, and determination... Yvon's carrying of the Capitals cause transcends a line of type."

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Caps fans who love pouring over shots-on-goal statistics - and really, who doesn't? - should pay special attention to games with Philadelphia.

(Okay, non-stat geeks may be excused from the remainder of this post.)

These nuggets are culled from research done by "Miami Screaming Eagles", a moderator on the Hockey's Future message boards:

• The Flyers held the Capitals to a franchise-low 7 shots in a 1978 game.

• The Capitals held the Flyers to a franchise-low 13 shots in a 1990 game.

• The shot-clock operator may have had his thumb on the scale on March 7, 1982. Make that both thumbs. The final total was exactly 45 shots apiece in Philly's 7-1 win.

• Yet quantity doesn't always equal quality. Washington's first win in the rivalry was a 6-0 shutout authored by Mike Palmateer on Dec. 21, 1980 - despite 44 Philadelphia shots.

• The Flyers took 62 shots in a 1976 game; the Capitals responded with 52 in a 1988 tilt.

For wading through those numbers, enjoy a bonus Flyers-Caps factoid: In a January 9, 1986 contest, the winning goalie was Jensen (Darren), and the losing goalie was Jensen (Al), as the Caps fell, 4-0.

Unlisted Numbers

The fiercest competition in pro sports isn't televised. Not on cable, satellite, or pay-per-view. No arena is necessary, because no tickets are sold. Yet the battles are bruising, often with lasting scars.

It's the competition known as Contract Negotiations. And the Capitals' front office of the 1980's looked for any edge it could find.

At least, that's the contention of Ed Frankovic. He once compiled statistics for the Caps, and told this to stormingthecrease.com:

"The coaches got the stats - the ice time, the face-offs, the hits. Those types of things weren't published, they weren't common knowledge.

"In fact, we were told by David Poile, the general manager, and the coaches, 'Don't let the players know what their ice times are, because this is sensitive information; the agents will use it for negotiating contracts.'"

These days, ordinary fans can pour over a wealth of statistics - even while a game's in progress - at the click of a mouse. So it's revealing that
these numbers were once guarded as state secrets.

One Night Only Battle Royale
Detroit vs. Washington * March 24, 1978

The Washington Star called it a “15-minute, name-calling, hair-pulling, fist-fighting, jersey-pulling fracas.”

The Washington Post described it as “a 38-man tag team match, with half-dressed warriors punching and pushing until they were too tired to continue.”

Referee Ron Wicks called for the National Anthem to be played again. “I didn’t know what else to do to stop guys from killing each other.”

It was all good fun for Detroit goalie Ron Low. He's in the upper left of the photo, his jersey pulled by former Capitals teammate Bernie Wolfe. “I grabbed Bernie and told him that I had waited two years to punch him silly. Of course I was kidding, but you should have seen his eyes light up.”

Newer hockey fans might wonder whatever happened to that sort of bench-clearing brawl, the kind you can see in retro videos all over YouTube.

The NHL got rid of them by creating "Rule 72" before the 1987-88 season. It mandates a 10-game suspension - without pay - for the first player leaving the bench during a fight. Coaches also face suspension and a maximum fine of $10,000.

According to the NHL, there haven't been any full-team fights since.

So long gone are humorous photos like this one. Wayne Stephenson, who tended goal for the Capitals from 1979-81, waits patiently for all his teammates and opponents to finish dancing.

"Way To Go, Miss Twiddle" - Thoughts on the Caps First Broadcaster

A generation of hockey listeners' winter nights were warmed by Ron Weber's folksy radio play-by-play.

At Capital Centre, Weber broadcast from a desk built into the stands - fitting, because Weber was a fan's announcer.

For that first 1974 game in New York, Jimmy Anderson was behind the bench, and Weber was in the broadcast booth.

Anderson was gone after 44 games, while Weber lasted an amazing 23 years.

That kind of statistical note would no doubt please Weber, who peppered his broadcasts with arcane numbers and obscure facts. Weber said because he didn't play the game, he felt unqualified to give analysis. So he substituted voluminous research. (Loyal listeners knew he was selling himself short; Weber had more than enough hockey smarts.) His nickname among the team was “Stats.” And for anyone who wonders why, take a listen to the audio clip at right from a 1976 game vs. Montreal.

Certainly, no one knew the team better, or cared about their fortunes more deeply. During that awful 1974 season, the Capitals were in Toronto – and on the verge of their long-awaited first road victory. The Maple Leafs tied the score with less than two minutes to play, then scored the game-winner in the final 10 seconds. That cannonball to the gut was too much to bear. After dutifully announcing the goal, Weber didn’t say another word for more than a minute.

On happier occasions, Weber was fond of trotting out his catch-phrases, such as calling the puck the "little black biscuit." Or after a timely goal, "Way to go, Miss Twiddle." I never heard him explain what, if anything, that meant. But it represented the unassuming, folksy style that wore well year after year.


That is, until the team moved from USAirways Arena to MCI Center, and Weber wasn't asked to come along. It should have mattered that Weber was the only person to have seen all 1,939 Capitals games up to that time. (He once walked a mile to the arena in Winnipeg when the wind chill was 70 below.)

But it didn't count. With a move to a hip downtown arena, management apparently felt Weber would be brown shoes to their new tuxedo.

What a tone-deaf decision. Hometown announcers don't become legendary because of their technical skills or "attitude". Fans appreciate how they live and die with the team, have been there through thick and thin, and even their quirks become embraceable "signatures."

Weber fit into all those categories, and I miss hearing him.

The Capitals almost didn't survive to celebrate their
8th birthday.

Revisit the "Save The Caps" summer of 1982, as well as Abe Pollin's 24 years as owner, by clicking on the check at left.

My Home Page:
Growing Up with the Capitals

My E-mail:
notapwplfan@yahoo.com