Why Caps Fans Are Happy
Right now, your average Capitals fans is as happy as a lobbyist with a wad of cash to spend. Their team is riding the best winning streak in franchise history. Alex Ovechkin is crashing every NHL goalie's party and leading the league in goals, points, and plus-minus, with his teammates cracking the top five in two of those categories.
You can connect the dots back to when owner Ted Leonsis, then a 28-year-old millionaire, was sitting on a plane and told it may crash in 35 minutes. He made a list of 101 things he would do to find happiness if he got off the plane alive. One of them was own a sports franchise.
Leonsis retells the story of his day of reckoning in his new book, The Business of Happiness, in which he lays out the principles he's followed to success, and, well, happiness. Even though the book isn't about the Caps per se (though they inevitably come up), it's a good place to start if you're curious about the psyche behind one of the most successful sports franchises in recent D.C. history.
"When you write a book, you put yourself out there," Leonsis told DCist during a recent interview. He said his daughter told him after reading it, "It really is you, and there's so many sentences and concepts and words I've heard from you a million times."
Like so much in Leonsis' life, the plan for happiness he's applied to building the Caps franchise (which he talks about in the book) has proved to have the Midas touch, down to rebuilding relations with the AHL affiliate Hershey Bears, whose success right now is perhaps the only thing showing the Caps up.
"On the happiness side, this has been very conscious," Leonsis said. "That's why I felt confident to write the book. The success of the Washington Capitals does not come from just luck ... there really was a plan that was articulated before it happened."
And the more you read about Leonsis' ideas of how to find happiness and how those make you successful, the more you realize how perfect Alex Ovechkin is for an owner who believes in giving back and building a community.
When you mention this to Leonsis, he reflects back to before the Great 8 had ever skated a shift for the Capitals: the day they drafted him.
"We had a little party, and we told all our draft picks to be there at 5 o'clock," Leonsis said. "And he showed up there at 4:45 and he greeted people at the door, with a big smile on his face, eating cantaloupes like you couldn't believe, and he just was inhaling life.
"I remember talking to (General Manager) George McPhee, and I said, 'If this kid can play up to half of his charisma and the way he approaches things, we're going to have one of the greatest players ever.'"
Of course, with a thriving roster and franchise comes a colorful fan base. So when Leonsis sees fans like the Capstronaut and invites said fan to the owner's box, does that invitation come from Leonsis' sense of community?
"Yeah -- it also came from my sense of, 'Who is this guy?'" Leonsis chuckled. "Certainly, it gave him a little bit more legitimacy."
Though Leonsis is easily one of the most accessible owners in pro sports (does Dan Snyder even know what a blog is?), he actually expects his more public persona with the team to fade as the Caps continue building their success.
"For the most part, owners should be in the background," Leonsis said. "The more successful we've gotten, the more I've retreated into the background. All the accolades should go to the players, to the coach, to the general manager."
In the meantime, you'll find Leonsis on the book circuit. He'll read from and sign copies of The Business of Happiness at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue on Feb. 24.
(Full disclosure: In addition to being a DCist sports contributor, Elisabeth Meinecke is a news producer at humanevents.com, which is owned by Eagle Publishing. Eagle Publishing also owns Regnery Press, the publisher of The Business of Happiness).