I’m not even going to pretend for two seconds that I’m a hockey fan. The biggest importance of hockey in my life is Al Michaels’ call of Do You Believe in Miracles? from the 1980 Olympics when Team USA upset the Soviet Union in one of the greatest upsets in the history of sports. Otherwise, I know and care very little about the sport, personally considering it fourth-tier in the hierarchy of professional sports. I know a lot of names of players and teams mostly through osmosis of ESPN and other sports outlets I keep my ear to the ground with, but really I’ve given no shits about the NHL ever in the history of my life.
However, it hasn’t been lost on me that over the last few years, the Washington Capitals have had some difficulty in overcoming the Pittsburgh Penguins. Something like the Penguins winning three straight playoff matchups against the Capitals, en route to winning the Stanley Cup each time or something or other. A cursory search shows that that the Penguins won seven consecutive playoff series against the Capitals since 1995.
This stigma had been amplified over the prior two seasons, with the respective stars of both squads, Alexander Ovechkin of Washington and Sidney Crosby of Pittsburgh in the primes of their careers, as well as the ever-prevalent and pervasive presence of social media for all the fairweather and casual fans to blow shit up more than others might want. And as had been the norm, the Penguins ended the seasons for the Caps, and went on to win Stanley Cups each time, while fans in the DC/Virginia/Maryland area bemoaned the seemingly endless curse of DC sports.
When I noticed that the Caps and Penguins were on yet another collision course in this year’s NHL Playoffs, I talked a few times with a close friend who is an actual hockey fan, and a Caps fan no less. And as a DC sports enthusiast, he’s pretty much been there, done that as far as the low expectations for sports teams in DC, regardless of their records or the hype. Whether it’s the Redskins, Nationals, Wizards or Capitals, we’ve all seen them ascend to contention, only to fall from grace, perpetuating the stereotype with each crushing defeat.
We basically talked about how it was about to be another year, another Caps jobbing to the Penguins, and to prematurely begin engraving the Stanley Cup with this year’s Penguins personnel. And then the Penguins went on to win game 1 of the best of seven, further reinforcing the feeling of déjà vu of another Caps shortcoming and another DC sports team, collapsing.