How Bad Are Things?  Alarmingly Bad.

Toward the ‘crashing and burning’ phase of last night’s embarrassment, we were too humiliated to know how to respond.  For the first time in a while we had great seats – Hello Section 206! – and as always great company.  A family of smiley Rangers sat in front of us; several of them just too young to suffer the fusillade of cursing we wanted to unleash.  And by too young, I mean 30.

But there was no escaping the baggy pants farce playing out on the ice before our eyes.  We couldn’t look away because we were too close to the ice.  We couldn’t cuss for risk feeling like we were fouling little minds.  We didn’t want to be douchey and leave before the squalid end, there was no beer left to wash out our eyes.  So we stood, and turned our backs to our Caps at the final horn.

Such disrespect would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.  But last night was a tipping point.  That team that flopped around for an hour had disrespected all of us.  The only question is whether they will apologize.

Usually we love running great shots from the previous night’s game – or previewing the hotties on the team we play next.  But we both agree: there was nothing that happened on the ice in Verizon Friday night that we ever want to see again.  And if Coach B’s squad isn’t going to take the opposition seriously, maybe we’ll have to.

The Washington Capitals are officially at sixes and nines – not any particular player, but the whole lot of them together.  Months of tweaking the power play have left us just tweaked.  Sloppy passing yields too many undeserved shots on goal by the other guys.  You can practically predict the outcome within the first 5 minutes: if they look like they’re asleep, you can bet they aren’t going to wake up in time.

Even the Caps hangers-on seem to know this.  We had to “Unleash the Fury” a solid period earlier than usual, and to no effect.  The Red Knockers Rockers seemed to disappear during the final stanza (what? are they making burritos somewhere?) and Slapshot was reduced to tossing t-shirts from the rafters, rather than risk getting plucked in the stands.

It’s time to re-boot…or give the boot to those who refuse to perform.