We recently posted some loss thoughts from our pals at The Production Line – a Wings-crazed frat-house of a blog – on loss.  We’re both sitting with our sticks in our hands since our teams were eliminated from the Cup chase – the Caps less than heroically and the Wings with a dash of Frank Capra.

TPL's Rob "The Dish" Discher

Losing.  Ugh. 

It just sucks and there’s really nothing more that can be said. 

Except for the competitor, the gal who competes or the guy who just really watches hard from the seat, the one who dissects each loss – and even the just-victories – in forensic pursuit of cause. 

Find the cause, kill the disease, make the host healthier.

They recently went 5-on-5 with us about loss, valiantly tossing their thoughts and spleens in the wake of the Wings take down. 

And because we’re sportsmen, we went up with them for another 5-on-5 (which gets added to the list of “Hockey Lingo That Sound Gay But Isn’t.”)

Their probing questions, and our responses:

TPL: Your question to “the writing is too good…which one of you is gay?” …that question itself is about as gay as disco.  Why is it that all gay guys think if something is just a little TOO GOOD it has to be homo?  As reference: “that guy’s too good looking…must be gay; that house is too well put together…must be a coupla fellas that own it.”

PB: Hmmm…sensing some issues here.  Methinks the ladies doth protest too much?  Oh, we’re just joshing, don’t get your maxi hockey pads in a wad.  The serious answer is that in the olden days – when teh gayz weren’t all over the place on network TV 24/7 (except Paul Lynde and Liberace) – we felt a real need to work extra hard to prove ourselves.  Sure, everyone’s driven, everyone’s got their own dragons to slay.  But call a gay kid ‘fag’ and he may be inclined to work double-hard to sink that basket, ace that test, or match those carpet swatches.  If only to show you up.  Lesbians have their own issues, but particularly with the expectation that men will succeed and conquer…well, a lot of the older gay guys funneled their squelched sex lives into running faster, earning more, or at least being more witty.  Witness Oscar Wilde: would he have been 1/3 as funny as he was if he were straight?  No, he’d just be the drunk uncle that slurs out the same joke over and over.  And beside, we are just better at some things.  Like self-inflated introspection!  Anyway, the phrase isn’t “ gay as disco,” it’s “gay as a purse-full of rainbows”, Mary.

TPL:  I love the offseason because we start getting into the draft and all the offseason jockeying…moving players around, looking to swap out parts that didn’t work for ones that might.  What’s your biggest need right now?

PB:  The Stanely Cup.  Hahaha…no, we’re serious.  In the largest sense, until the Caps bring the Cup to DC, the seasons could be seen as failures by Caps fans.  That’s an absurdly high hurdle, but it wasn’t set there by the fannies in the seats (a la Red Wings) but by the owner himself, Ted Leonsis.  We’re now six full years into the Capitals rebuild with Ovechkin as the central pillar – like a tent pole, supporting the entire structure, including it seems the coaching and the other players.  As a strategy it may eventually work, like the Wings rebuild in the 80′s.  It took 10 years for Yzerman as captain to hoist the Cup overhead, and maybe Caps fans need more patience and less over-heated statements from Papa Leonsis.  But did the Wings hang everything off Yzerman?  Or Bowman?  I recall more team there.

And that’s the answer: we need team.  Yeah, we could niff-naw about shoring up our lines, our need for a more tenacious defense, or trades and free agent moves by Brooksie, Varly, or Sasha (to just get his Дерьмо together).  Maybe we needed a little less fidgety coach who can adapt to playoff hockey, or players who stick to a game plan which capitalizes where their natural strengths lay.  But that just feels like trimming the hedge.  Our biggest need right now: a team organization from top to bottom with everybody pulling in the same direction.  And to be honest, watching over the past few weeks, it’s pretty clear that the Caps didn’t belong in those final rounds – we never played with the intensity, physicality or grit that we’ve been seeing these other teams exhibiting.

TPL: Please complete this statement: If you offered Sasha on the open trade market, contract issues notwithstanding, in return you would likely receive ________.

PB: Ten bottles of Popov?  Drinks, dinner, a show and maybe something more than just a kiss goodnight?  A subscription to Glenn Beck TV?

TPL:Of all the things I loved about living in DC, the summer humidity there in the swamp isn’t one of them.  I instantly burned through a clean shirt and slacks (which I never wore, but just go with it) the second I stepped outside.  Related question – How goes your movement to get people to walk around pants-less as a means to cut down on dry cleaning (from both an economic and environmental impact standpoint)?

PB: Well clearly we’re making inroads on Capitol Hill.  HA!  But apart from the occasional “No-Pants Metro” days, it’s not looking so good.  As we write this it’s heading to 100 today.  100 with torpid air you can taste and more moisture than a steam-bath in Hoboken.  Seriously, you can feel the weight of the air when you breathe here, as you probably recall.  The only thing worse than summer in Washington are summer tourists in Washington.  With fanny-packs.  And Ed Hardy t-shirts two sizes too small.

And yet guys are still expected to stroll around in suits and ties – top button buttoned, please.  Is this sensible at all?  Does it perhaps explain what passes for political leadership these days – are our brains asphyxiating in the summertime swamp?  Maybe rather than no-pants, we should try something different.  Like alternate dress days: if you were born on an even-numbered day you wear clothes M-W-F, odd numbers T-Th-Sat.  Sunday’s a gimme.  Or maybe we could all start dressing like they do in Pakistan – kameez and dishdashis?  (Dischdashi?)  I mean, our overseas image would skyrocket among the ‘Blame America for Everything’ crowd.  OK, we’ll stop now.

TPL: What is your post-season mourning ritual?  How do you get over the loss and move on with your life?…oh, and who’s your team in the finals? (If you say Boston I will disown you both)

PB: Blogging and trying to cover the off-season as best we can.  There’s also sobbing silently in the car, in bed, in bathrooms at Target.  Yelling at birds (and clouds).  Like we said, grief is a funny thing…if by funny you mean soul-crushing.  We still have our blow-up “Scream” doll dressed in the Caps sweater.  But you know, I think we moved on fairly well.  Shoot, I’ve had bad haircuts that lasted longer…and like hair, our Caps love always grows back pretty quickly.

And we do care about the finals and want to see one team on top: the Greenmen.  No, seriously – we’re pulling for the Canucks for a very simple reason; we hate Beantown. Their fans have to be worse than yours and ours put together, and the people of Boston are under the collective delusion that they’re in a better city than DC.  Better than Hockeytown maybe, but not Hockey Capital.

Grief is a funny thing.  Well…OK, not really funny at all.  But it is true that everyone reacts to it differently…which is kinda funny.

Take, for example, the Caps four-and-out run against Tampa Bay.  Oh that (you’re thinking) wasn’t that like, what, a year ago?  See what we mean?  Grief can make minutes seem like days.  And loss seem like…mmm, losses, I guess.

All of us in Caps-blog-istan reacted differently to our Bolts beat-down.  Some put on a brave face.  Some got really angry.  A few we thought might need to go on suicide watch.  (Us? We just lashed out at the nearest target.)

It was the same story in Detroit.  Similar story, more like – sure, the Wings ultimately lost, but were hardly swept.  It wasn’t just a fool’s hope to think they could pull it out in game 7.  Even in defeat, they were inspiring.

And yet, there you are again at grief.  Our pals at The Production Line were pretty busted up.  Still are, it seems.  When we recently saw that TPL contributor Rob “The Dish” Discher has a bad case of the sadz, we thought an intervention was needed.  As in: a little 5v5 play.  Our questions and his answers follow – look soon for them to return the favor.

PB: It’s been a couple weeks since both of our teams were booted – yours valiantly, ours less so.  What do you think happened to the Caps?  Or did the Caps happen to the Caps? Be honest, but don’t you dare bash Sasha.  (OK, bash Sasha if you have to.  Nicky too, but lay off Coach Boudreau, OK?).

TPL: I genuinely don’t know how in the hell that happened.  The Rangers are one of those teams that I never respect in the playoffs….or really any time for that matter.  I really felt like that was a good starter series for you guys, but even that didn’t go as smoothly as I would have thought.  There’s no shame in going out to The Lightning…though there is some disgrace in doing it as un-impressively as you guys did.  They’re a hell of a team.  I genuinely pulled for them to beat the Massholes, if for no other reason than Stevie Y would get another stripe as a hockey genius for building that club.

Also, Sasha needs to get his shit together.  It might be time to give up there.

PB: Do you honestly care who wins the Cup?  And after that dust has settled, how will you guys spend the off-season? Attending NASCAR races, BBQ cook-offs, or charm school is our guess. And do you ever make the trip across the river to Windsor just so you can feel Canadian?

TPL: First of all, you’re really getting greedy with my 5 on 5 concept…all this triple question business.  Yes, I do care who wins the Cup – to an extent.  Am I going to hang on every faceoff the way I would if the Wings were still playing?  Absolutely not…but the last thing I want to see is Boston taking that thing home.  For one, it would put a dent into my general ranting that the Eastern Conference is full of junior varsity lesbian squads.  Second, I just hate Boston.  It’s really that simple.  I’m pro-Western, anti-Mass.

PB: The first TPL post after elimination “And with that… we say goodnight,” must’ve been tough to write.  Petrella had the byline, but did you or Chris have any input? How far ahead of time did you guys write that?  During the first round, maybe?

TPL: That was all Petrella, and honestly, it was the only thing I read about the Wings or anyone else in the NHL for about 3 weeks.  That post kicked off annual my post-exit period of mourning.  It was a dark time, filled with strange vices, mind-altering substances and terrible thoughts in the lean hours of the morning…pretty sure you’re familiar with that path.  Anyway, did we write that early?  Hell no.  That’s loser-talk.  We save that stuff for the chumps in Phoenix and the ladies over in Shitsburgh.

PB: Next to the beefcake Loss Candy TPL is known for (which apparently may also have gotten you listed on some states’ sex offender sites, too), we love the nicknames you give out.  What nicknames would you come up with for Doug and I?

TPL: I’m prevented by my parole from commenting publicly.

PB: Close your eyes for a moment and imagine it’s the Caps and Wings in the SCF.  How do you fantasize the series unfolding – who are the heroes/goats, stars?  What do you estimate the Detroit body count would’ve been in the event of a Red Wings win or loss (because we’re certain there would be rioting either way).

TPL: You’re last point is dead-on.  When we win, we light the cars on fire.  When we lose, we light the cars on fire.  It’s part of the circle of life…or the ring of fire – who’s more appropriate here: Elton John or Johnny Cash?  Dumb question.  Moving on, I would have loved to see this happen for multiple reasons.  For one, I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for the Caps dating back to my fertile days roaming U Street.  Second, I enjoyed playing you guys in the regular season and think the styles would have made for a great series.  I think Detroit still wins that one, and as much as I want to say we do it with our grind guys, I think that’s a series for the stars….for the flashy Russians and a handful of Swedes.  I see Ovie coming up massive in that series, only to be slightly outdone by Pavel, with both thoroughly enjoying the competition and the “anything you can do I can do better” atmosphere.

PB OVERTIME: We’re convinced one of you guys is gay; the writing is just too clever.  Fess up – which one is it?

TPL: It’s Hollis, but don’t tell his fiancée.  (throws linemate under the bus)

PB SHOOT OUT: During the Detroit series, the hockey Interwebs were abuzz with people who sorta liked the Wings, but hated their fans.  Why is that and what can Wings fans do to be as well liked as Caps fans?

TPL: It’s hard to not like Detroit as an organization.  It’s an impeccably well run group; t’s owned by a guy who has done a lot to rebuild the city, and the success has been unprecedented.  There’s other organizations out there who I hate because of where they’re from, but I respect because of what they’ve done.  Celtics to some extent, Yankees…you could build this out for a while.    Detroit fans, however, are generally seen as spoiled.  We’re seen as overly bitchy when things don’t go our way…too hard on the refs, too vocal about any criticism we get either as a fanbase or as an organization.  I get that to some extent.  We have been spoiled – ROTTEN.  I was basically in diapers the last time the Wings weren’t in the playoffs.  It happens…but just like any hot,  leggy Latina, I assume that people hate us because they’re jealous.

To many, CNN means Wolf Blitzer marathons, American Morning’s revolving-door anchors, John King’s Amaze-O-Maps, the occasional Balloon Boy and the nicely tightly black t-shirts of He Who Shall Not Be Named (as gay). 

If you’re old enough, CNN was Crossfire shoutfests (Braden and Buchanan!), Tiananmen Square, Bonnie Batista’s tight leather skirts, Mary Tillotson and believe it or don’t, Daniel Shorr. 

But not necessarily in that order.

CNN for Caps fans means Capitals News Network, a must-read site managed by Dave and Cheryl Nichols. I emailed Dave  about a week ago with five questions and simples rules: answer them in five minutes, then overtime and a shoot out.  He was gracious to respond.  We happened to meet both Dave and Cheryl at Sunday’s game, the day those Penguins tried to defile our sacred house with their base, criminal behavior.  But we digress/obsess.

We didn’t edit Dave’s responses, but we did edit the questions (so I come off as more articulate than the night I scratched them out on the back of a cocktail napkin). Dave  works at a downtown law firm. And although this Q&A was supposed to take Dave only five minutes, we think he’s still going to bill us for the full hour.

1. When did you become a sports fan? Did you play as a kid, in school?  Was hockey always a part of the mix?

“I’ve been a sports fan from my earliest memory.  I played all sports growing up, but my favorites were hockey and baseball.  I played recreational hockey until I was 40, when a concussion unfortunately ended my playing career.  I have cousins in South Jersey, and as kids when we would visit my brothers and I would play street hockey against them and their buddies as Caps v. Flyers.  We’d play for about ten minutes before it ended up as a line brawl.”

2. What about mixing your vocation and avocation?  Is it hard to be objective about the Caps? 

“Though I started my career in broadcasting, sports isn’t actually my current vocation.  There’s always hope that someone reads what I write and offers to pay me for it.  But for now, I toil as a litigation manager for a DC law firm and write as an independent journalist. 

I’m fortunate that I live in a tech-savvy market, with franchises that understand “new media” and credential independent journalists.  I try to take an objective, constructive, critical look at the Caps in my game reviews and columns.  There are plenty of fan blogs, but I’ve never been a rah-rah type of guy.  I’m more “nuts and bolts”, if you will.”

3.  What are the challenges with the immediacy of online journalism?  What about being first?

“It’s nice to be first, but more important to be right.  That’s the challenge of the internet: maintaining the balance between accuracy and immediacy.  I get a lot of information that I wouldn’t necessarily run with as a story, but can use to color my opinion or shape my analysis.  

In the NHL, injury information is sacred, but it’s hard for a guy to hide something in the dressing room.  That’s where you have to be real careful about going with the team’s information or using what you observe with your own eyes (or ears). 

As for our site, it’s gratifying that people want to read what you have to say, that they trust your analysis and opinion.”

 4. You also manage a baseball site – a sport with its own long, demanding season along with plenty happening in the off-season.  How do you handle both?  What about the relatively leisurely pace of baseball versus hockey?   

“Leisurely pace?!?  The baseball beat is year-round.  The off-season is probably more intriguing for a developing team like the Nationals.  The two sports are completely different to write about, in my opinion.  Baseball is very stats oriented, so much more than hockey.  Baseball is science and hockey is art. 
 
It’s difficult sometimes operating two blogs with different beats (and keep a full-time job).  I essentially have three jobs, only one of which I get paid for.  But I’m very lucky to get to do what I do. 

There aren’t too many independent journalists that have credentials for two different pro sports teams, so I think about that privilege when I don’t feel like filing a story.”

5.  Compare hockey live versus seeing it on TV. How is it reflected in your game coverage?  

“It’s difficult to follow a game on TV since the camera is always trained on the puck.  The great thing about the press box (or upper level tickets in general) is that you can see the whole sheet.  You can tell when someone is out of position, when the lines are going to change, when a scrap is coming. 

Plus, there’s nothing like the energy of live hockey, especially with a full crowd.  I “live-blog” during games, and it’s especially tough with live hockey since play hardly ever stops.  There’s been more than one instance of me looking down at my keyboard and missing a goal or hit or whatever on the ice.  At least when I’m at home I can hit pause on the DVR and go look at the play again. 

I also like to be at ice level during the pre-game skate, to see the players up close, both the Caps and the visitors.  One of my favorite things is to watch a call-up during warmups to see if he looks nervous.  I put my game reviews together pretty much the same for home/road games, but being at a game live, and being able to get the reaction in person in the locker room and post-game press conference allows me to produce much more authentic coverage.  The Caps do an awesome job of getting highlights of the post-game stuff up quickly, but there’s no substitute for asking your own questions.”

Overtime: What about partnering with Cheryl on the sites? Any Challenges?

“I’m fortunate that my wife loves sports as much as I do and she is vital to the success of our sites.  We have a concrete delineation of responsibilities so there usually isn’t too much arguing. 

She handles the public relations and fan aspects of the game, and the photography, and I stick to the game stories and analysis.  It’s tough sometimes having a full-time job, then turn around and spend six hours at the rink or baseball field.  But it’s worth every minute.  We are our own sports network, and it’s a very cool thing.”

Shootout: What’s the first thing you’re going to do if the Caps win the Cup?  “Probably bawl like a baby.  Unless I’m in the press box.  In which case I’ll be running for the interview room.”

And finally, five from the Proust Questionnaire:

1. What is your favorite word?  Independent.  I’d have made a lousy Marine.
2. What is your favorite curse word?  Too many to list.
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?  This is going to sound egotistical, but I love being right. I’m basically a narcissistic jerk at heart.  At least I’m respectful about it.
4. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?  I should have been an architect.  I have drawn designs for baseball stadiums since I was in grade school.  Either that, or a TV weatherman.  I’m an amateur meteorologist.
5. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?  “How did you get on this list?”

Thanks Dave.  Very much.