This morning, Dale Hunter was announced as the new head coach of the Washington Capitals. more ›

Last night, the Washington Capitals defeated the Anaheim Ducks in a dramatic game which featured the team coming back from a three-goal deficit in the second period and eventually winning in overtime. But all everyone wants to talk about is Alexander Ovechkin's potty mouth. more ›

Yes, it's hockey season again. more ›

Results from a new Washington Post poll partially released this weekend confirms much of what we already suspected about sports fans living in the D.C. region: we hate the villains, love the winners, and remain divided between the lifelong locals and recent transplants. more ›

Ever since the San Francisco Giants released their It Gets Better video, we had wondered whether any Washingtonian teams would follow their lead. D.C. United has done just that. more ›

Earlier today, the power went out at Kettler Iceplex as the Capitals were on the ice, preparing for their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series against Tampa Bay which kicks off tomorrow night at the Verizon Center. Geez, I sure hope the power outage didn't have anything to do with Lightning. more ›

Sure, we probably could pound out a few hundred words about the Capitals' epic comeback from 3-0 down against the Rangers in Madison Square Garden last night. (After all, the campaign to dub the rally and Jason Chimera's double overtime game-winner as the "Miracle on 34th Street" appears to be picking up steam.) But this image, taken from the back cover of this morning's New York Daily News, just wraps things up perfectly. more ›

Alexander Ovechkin: the man with a slap shot so powerful, it could be used as a boastful metaphor for the purportedly wide network of Capital One banks in the Washington, D.C. region! more ›

Have you ever wondered how the Verizon Center transforms from a hockey rink into a basketball court when the Capitals and the Wizards play at home on the same day? TBD's Sara Kenigsberg filmed this awesome behind-the-scenes look at the transformation in action, as crews resurface the ice, take down the glass around the rink, lay down concrete slabs, take out the penalty boxes and boards, retract and install a bunch of seats, and then hammer the maple basketball floor down into place -- all in the span of about three hours. more ›

For being such a rugged sport, hockey sure does require a certain set of conditions in order to be played optimally and without interruption -- namely, it needs to be chilly and clear. So there are some concerns about the upcoming Winter Classic, the NHL's annual New Year's Day showcase game which, this year, will be played outdoors at Pittsburgh's Heinz Field and contested between the Washington Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins. more ›

The idea of being a professional athlete is an appealing to you, is it? Well, never forget: these guys have bosses too. And, often times, they enjoy utilizing the expletive slang. more ›

Yesterday, four members of the Washington Capitals -- forwards Nicklas Backstrom and Marcus Johansson, and defensemen Karl Alzner and John Carlson -- took a break from their usual weekend routine to get back to basics on the National Mall. more ›

With a tip of the cap to Russian Machine Never Breaks, here's footage of commercial star, noted feminist and goal-scorer (though not so much of late) Alexander Ovechkin, exhibiting some of his finest dance moves, many of them at Club Glow. If you're at all offended by truly awful dancing, this will be nearly as graphic to you as those Missy Reilly Smith advertisements. more ›

There are plenty of people out there who believe that fighting in professional ice hockey is something of an unnecessary distraction from the natural ebb and flow of the game. I am not one of those people. That said, it is with pride that I present to you this excellent video of an epic fight between the Caps' brilliantly-mustachioed John Erskine and Atlanta's Eric Boulton during last night's 6-4 Washington win. more ›

Walking to my neighborhood grocery store yesterday, it was hard to miss all of the film equipment and crew near the Harris Teeter on Kalorama Road. I made some inquiries and did some Internet searching, but no one knew what was filming. Well, leave it to Prince of Petworth to find out the scoop: seems like Capitals player Alex Ovechkin is filming in in the area. He speculates it could be for a Capital One commercial, as he's done commercials for them before. Any Ovechkin spottings in Adams Morgan? more ›

Washington Capitals megastar Alexander Ovechkin does not suffer for attention from the ladies -- this much we already knew. But in a profile in the November issue of GQ, Ovechkin delivers the most backhanded of all compliments, calling D.C. "a quiet, calm family town" -- while at the same time delivering some rather pointed remarks on the difference between Russian and American ladies. more ›

Dan Steinberg shares an embeddable version the Capitals' new pre-game introduction video this morning, which obviously prompts us to consider whether or not D.C. is a Hockey Town, capital letters and all. more ›

Well, that certainly crept up on us -- the Capitals face off with the Atlanta Thrashers this evening to kick off their 2010-11 season. To think, it's been only a few months since we were licking our wounds as Jaroslav Halak ripped out Washington's collective heart and spit on the Caps' record regular season. We know it's Friday afternoon, so here's some images from last weekend's fan convention to get you ready. more ›

UPDATE: A source from within the Kettler Iceplex organization tells us that the deceased man is Brian St. Louis, a youth hockey coach. ARLnow gets the scoop that police are investigating a death at Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Ballston. Reportedly, a man in his 20s or 30s suffered some kind of medical emergency late this morning; after he was transported to the hospital, the man died. The Capitals, who use the facility for practices, were using a different rink than the one where the man collapsed. ARLnow reports that the man may have been a youth hockey coach, but Arlington County police are still investigating and have not officially released any details as of yet.
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One interesting aspect of Vince Gray's campaign was his view on D.C. statehood. Gray took a much more assertive view than Adrian Fenty, going as far as advocating for civil disobedience. It remains to be seen if the presumptive Mayor Gray will handcuff himself to a light pole holding a sign "Honk if you support voting rights!" Perhaps, though, we will see some more serious dialogue on what the future holds for the District and its place in the union. more ›

The Capitals wrapped up their development camp Saturday with a Fan Fest and a scrimmage that had not one, but two fights, and went into a shootout. Not bad for a July game. more ›

This week, the Capitals are hosting their annual development camp for top prospects in the system. One of these is goalie Braden Holtby, whose resume has filled out significantly since we last chatted with him during training camp in 2009. Holtby started the season in net for the ECHL's South Carolina Stingrays and finished with a Calder Cup in Hershey. He also got five call-ups to the Capitals last year, though he didn't get any time on the ice. DCist caught up with Holtby this week to see what he's learned from last year. more ›

We've written about ESPN's Ultimate Standings before -- last year, the big story was the 39-place jump that the Capitals made, placing sixth. This year, the Caps maintained a high ranking (11th), but the real story is how pitiful the Redskins fared. Dan Snyder's boys dropped all the way to 105th out of 122 teams, lower than such moribund franchises as the Kansas City Royals, the Buffalo Bills and the New York Islanders -- even the Nationals finished well above the 'Skins, although 94th place is hardly anything to write home about. One look at the metrics utilizaed, and one immediately understands why the Redskins did poorly: fan relations, ownership, affordability, stadium experience, players and "bang for the buck" are hardly criteria which the Redskins have excelled in in recent years. The Redskins can take solace in the fact that they didn't finish as the lowest Washingtonian representative in the rankings: that honor goes to the Wizards, who finished third-to-last. (Still better than the Clippers, though.) more ›

On Thursday, the NHL allows unrestricted free agents to begin negotiating with new teams. Players who have reached the end of their contracts and achieved the right combination of age and experience -- usually guys over twenty-seven years old -- can go play anywhere they want, for whatever someone will pay them. more ›

Who is Evgeny Kuznetsov? A lot of D.C. publications will ask this question in the next few weeks, but we won't. Okay, sure, he's a six foot tall, 172 pound kid who was born in a time when Courtney Love was a legitimate feminist icon and global superstar. But it's not when he was born, what he eats for breakfast, what kind of music he listens to, what he believes in or how many goals he scored as captain of his team in the under-18 world championships (five, plus seven assists -- in seven games) that made Kuznetsov the right choice for the Capitals in last night's 2010 NHL Entry Draft. It's where he was born. In Russia. more ›

The newly-crowned King of the Verizon Center and the man who has come to save the Washington Wizards, Ted Leonsis, held an incredibly well-attended press conference at his new Chinatown digs this afternoon. Not surprisingly, a quick glance at Twitter reveals that the Leonsis era is going to be an interesting one for the Wiz, just as transparent and fan-friendly as his ownership of the Caps has been. more ›

Well what do you know, there's some non-Strasburg sports news today after all. Wizards Insider reports that the sale of the Washington Wizards to Ted Leonsis has been approved by the NBA Board of Governors. more ›

It's not as hard as netting a game-winner or facing down Steve Downie (after all, we can't all be Matt Bradley), but covering the NHL's top team during the regular season is a pressure-filled assignment for the Washington media. Since we get to cast judgments and analyze the Capitals' play all year, it only seemed fair to ask the players themselves how well we -- the media -- have performed this season. more ›

I have to admit, I didn't expect to be writing this story in April. As a crowd of reporters waited outside the Capitals locker room for post-game interviews following last night's Game 7 loss, it felt like waiting for the dentist. We could hear the cheers from the Montreal Canadiens as they celebrated their 2-1 win on their way to the dressing room. more ›