The History of “My Team Stinks” Part III: The Washington Capitals

Like most Americans, hockey was a sport that wasn’t exactly on my radar during my earliest years as a sports fan. I knew nothing about the NHL aside from the casual knowledge that Wayne Gretzky was great. If all of the players’ nicknames were equally as on-the-nose as “The Great One”, I probably could have figured the sport out a lot more quickly. For example, if Grant Fuhr’s nickname would have been - - actually never mind. I’m going to move on. This post is going to be about the Washington Capitals.

It wasn’t until 6th grade that I started becoming interested in hockey. There are three things that caused this to happen: NHLPA ’93 for Sega Genesis, roller blades and Al Iafrate. The latter of these two actually intersected directly when I would play roller hockey with my big bro, Mark, and he would refer to himself as Al Iafrate. The first time he made this reference, I honestly had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but since he is my big bro, I was in no place to question it. Fortunately, I was living in the DC area at the time so it didn’t take long for me to find out that Mr. Iafrate (pronounced eye-uh-fray-tee) was a mulleted-yet-somehow-still-bald defenseman for the Caps. He also happened to be the owner of the hardest slap shot in the NHL. Not yet understanding the nuances of the NHL, something like “hardest slap shot in the NHL” really spoke to me. It wasn’t long before I wanted to be Al Iafrate while playing roller hockey, but Mark had that covered so I’d always have to be Sylvain Cote or maybe Calle Johansson if I was feeling particularly Swedish. I can’t imagine there were many kids living out the athletic fantasy of being Sylvain Cote, but I like to think I was more pragmatic than the average 6th grader.

Thanks to the good folks at EA Sports and their creation of the greatest sports simulation series of all time (initially NHLPA ’93, then NHL ’94, NHL ’95, etc), I quickly developed a finer appreciation for all things hockey. It still took me a while to figure out the offsides rule, but who played the NHL games with the offsides on anyway? I won’t even bother trying to put the NHL video game experience into words. It is, and forever will be, best captured by the scene in Swingers when Trent “makes Little Wayne’s head bleed”. (Please note: the video contains adult langauge. Lots and lots of adult language)



During this era of Washington Caps hockey, I thought I might be getting my first indoctrination into cheering for a consistently successful franchise. The Caps were in the midst of a run of 14 consecutive playoff appearances when I came aboard as a fan. Most people, unless they are Blues fans, would agree that such a streak is awfully impressive. For whatever reason, though, the Caps could never quite get over the hump. Usually some stupid team from Pittsburgh with a wimpy little bird mascot did the deed of knocking my boys out of the playoffs. At least it always seemed like it was at the Penguins’ hands. In 1998, the Caps did make a memorable run to the Stanley Cup Finals and I was even there in person when they clinched a trip to the Conference finals. It was a pretty remarkable run and it’s the sort of thing that makes all the tough years worthwhile for us fans. Sadly, though, the Caps were quickly dismissed by the Red Wings and that was that. Could you really expect anything different? It’s not like this website is called “Myteamsstinkbutit’sOKbecausetheyhaveoccassionallywontitlesinthelast20years.blogspot.com”.

The magic of ’98 was short-lived. It seemed like the Caps were poised to make a run at being an elite team when they traded for Jaromir Jagr. I hate Jaromir Jagr. It didn’t work out. Within a few short years, the Caps were blowing up the team and rebuilding completely.

In the world of sports, you hear often about a team being in rebuilding mode, but it’s not as frequent to hear about a team successfully coming out the other side as “rebuilt”. By some miracle of miracles, the Caps have figured out how to do this and assembled one of the best rosters of young talent in the league, including the dynamic, mature, unbelievable role model to people everywhere, Alex Ovechkin. (Whatever. If you want to call him a petulant choke artist, start your own blog.) I don’t remember a team filling me with as much legitimate hope as the 2009-’10 Capitals. Subsequently, I don’t remember as devastating a loss as when said team was eliminated from the first round of the playoffs by some team from French Canada. I mentioned before that I cried when the Bengals lost the Super Bowl. I was damn close to crying again when the Caps bowed out this year. One lesson I learned with this loss is something that only comes with age and I never could have done it when it when I was a 7 year old crying over the Bengals: Being a sports fan is a little easier when you can drink whiskey.

Let’s Go Caps.