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…

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…

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…

Written by DCist contributor Eli Resnick Playing two games in two nights, four hundred miles apart, the Washington Capitals looked like a team in the middle of a grueling road trip last night, in their uninspired 4-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens at Verizon Center. There were flashes of hope along the way. Lawrence Nycholat’s first-period slap-shot was deflected into the net, but the goal was immediately washed out. The Capitals also dished out a…