Simeon Varlamov’s long trip from Hershey, PA meant he didn’t arrive in time to back up Brent Johnson when the puck dropped Friday against the Ottawa Senators. Instead, the Caps had to rely on team Web Producer and former Division III goalie Brett Leonhardt as their backup goalie for ten minutes of nail-biting NHL action. The Senators took every possible opportunity to try to hurt Johnson and get to Leonhardt, the only Division III goalie…

As the Capitals make international headlines by signing free agents, local hockey players and fans are just as interested in the future of D.C. native Stephen Werner. The first locally born player ever drafted to the NHL, Werner played with the Washington Little Capitals until he made the unlikely move to playing at UMass. Now, as he rises up through the minor league ranks, Werner’s struggle to play a game from the Canadian tundra at…

The Capitals have assigned Ben Clymer to their farm team. For two years, Clymer has provided the Caps with leadership, toughness and first hand knowledge of what it’s like to win a Stanley Cup. This year and next year, he’ll take that knowledge to the American Hockey League’s Hershey Bears. Clymer joins Stanley Cup winner Joe Motzko, whom the Caps signed this summer as a free agent and demoted over the weekend, in giving the…

Last night the Hershey Bears lost the decisive fifth game of the Calder Cup Finals to the Hamilton Bulldogs. The Bulldogs will now get raises and promotions to the NHL, while the Bears will go home to dark, empty apartments and watch nature shows, searching for an equally absurd example of an obnoxious housepet dominating a bear. Actually, losing in the finals is a perfectly acceptable outcome from the Capitals’ standpoint. Their young players got…

On Friday night The Hershey Bears were torn apart by Bulldogs in an embarrassing 3-0 home loss in game one of the Calder Cup Finals. After putting on a convincing impression of “the big bad wolf” in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Bears got burned at the beginning of the big dance by reclusive nineteen year old named Carey. Of course, the night’s events did not warp into a Stephen King novel. The Bears faced…

That’s right. Caps are in the finals! Admittedly, the Capitals are not in this year’s Stanley Cup Finals. That honor is shared by the Anaheim No-Longer-Mighty Ducks and the Ottawa Senators. However, many Capitals are still in the finals. No, we’re not talking about Ottawa’s Antoine Vermette, who was only a Capital for one beautiful summer day, when the Caps claimed him off waivers and then traded him right back to Ottawa. We’re not even…

In a best of seven playoff series, any team with a 3-1 lead has distinct advantage. This is entirely false when that team is the Washington Capitals, and it holds that slim advantage over the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Capitals blew 3-1 leads against the Penguins in 1992 and 1995, and blew a 2-0 lead to the Penguins in 1996. Since this season’s Hershey Bears are one-third composed of players from this season’s Washington Capitals, they…

Last week we reported that seven guys who played for the Capitals this year are now tearing up the American Hockey League playoffs with the Hershey Bears. Over the weekend, the Bears beat the evil Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins two more times, taking a 3-0 lead in the best of seven East Division Final series. The Bears weren’t the only Capitals beating up on less talented players, though. Alex Ovechkin spends his summer vacations playing in the…

What’s that, reader? You thought the hockey season had come to a merciful end? You thought that Caps players like Mike Green, Jeff Schultz, Jakub Klepis, Eric Fehr, Alexandre Giroux, Dave Steckel and Frederic Cassivi had shown they belong in the minor leagues, and would now spend the summer playing golf and healing unspecified injuries? Well, smartypants, you got the first part right. All those Caps players do belong in the minor leagues, and…

Written by DCist Contributor Eli Resnick Several recent Washington Capitals draft picks and free agent signings have combined their efforts to take their team on a five-game winning streak, tightening the defending champions’ hold on the league lead. Their team, of course, is the Hershey Bears, the Caps affiliate in the American Hockey League. However, far from a random factoid, this is terrific news for the Capitals, who can’t always get by on the heroics…