If the comments on last Friday’s Caps Briefing didn’t give it away, the Capitals don’t get a lot of respect in other cities around the NHL. We had thought this changed in the last month when Alex Ovechkin led the league in goals and points, led the team into the playoffs, and became the consensus pick as the NHL’s MVP. Boy were we wrong.

Friday night the Caps overcame a two goal deficit and beat the Flyers on an Ovechkin goal with three minutes left. Then on Sunday, with the Caps trailing the Flyers by two after two, on national television, NBC commentator Mike Milbury was asked to make believe he was the team’s coach and gave his analysis of what the team needed to do to win: “so, I’m in the Washington cra-capaitals dre–ahh. I said Crapitals. That’s what it is today. Washington Capitals dressing room…”

Milbury halfway apologized for using the same dumb insult for the Caps that immature fans of teams in cities like Boston and New York have been using for decades. It’s understandable. He’s worked most of his career for teams in those towns, and at least Milbury doesn’t call the play by play. At least he’s only on screen between periods. At least the play by play comes from experienced professionals, led by respected veteran announcer Mike Emerick.

Wait, did we say respected? Okay, well, at least he’s not Milbury. Anyway, with 12:12 left to play, in a lull, Emerick also called the team the Crapitals. He said it quickly and so smoothly that we wanted to think we had misheard. We didn’t believe our ears. We did, however, believe our DVR. We’re not sure why he would do that, but we thought it was disrespectful and inappropriate for a supposedly unbiased national broadcast, and we hope Emetick finds an opportunity to apologize to the Capitals before the next time he interviews Donald Brashear.