Ted's Take

Here is what I saw and what I did:

 I saw Nicklas Backstrom and grabbed him and gave him a big hug. He laughed and hugged me back. Unfortunately he was a big sweat ball after a hard skate and I was wearing a nice blue suit. Bad move. We both laughed hard over that one. I told him "If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. We love you. Your team mates love you. End of story." I then brought in some fans from Sweden who had been emailing me who came to DC to see Backstrom play. They came into the lounge and talked with Nicklas. He was happy to hear some Swedish and they chatted about winters in the homeland and how they had seen Nicklas play in past years as a young man back home. A good moment. I then saw Alex Ovechkin and Alex Semin. We talked about the "OvechKam" and some advice from me on do’s and dont’s. There was some Russian spoken that I didn’t understand but I think these two have something funny planned for the game. We shall see. Alex Semin is always talking on his cell phone. He walks around naked after showering with his cell phone. He eats with his cell phone glued to his ear. Who is he talking to anyway? And he understands everything that I say. I dropped a subtle little joke today. He got it and laughed.  I saw Fedorov. He is upbeat. He knows the math and the importance of our two games against Carolina.  I saw George and Bruce. They all seemed to think that it was another day at the office and that the practice was serious and the guys played hard and are ready to go on Wednesday night. As I said "life goes on".

That is exactly the right spirit and tonality. Just win and let the cards fall where they may.

Mark and I differ just a bit in our approach regarding this one. I am for total open access to all that support a basic bloggers bill of rights. I believe that we need to jumpstart the next generation of sports coverage and help activate as much online Web 2.0 coverage for teams as possible. This benefits our web savvy consumer and fan base. I believe there are now close to 2,000 blogs and sites dedicated to the NHL. The NHL is growing in popularity and its ratings are up as are its revenues. Perhaps there is a coincidence here?

Mark and I differ just a bit in our approach regarding this one. I am for total open access to all that support a basic bloggers bill of rights. I believe that we need to jumpstart the next generation of sports coverage and help activate as much online Web 2.0 coverage for teams as possible. This benefits our web savvy consumer and fan base. I believe there are now close to 2,000 blogs and sites dedicated to the NHL. The NHL is growing in popularity and its ratings are up as are its revenues. Perhaps there is a coincidence here? We must balance our respect for mainstream media. The Washington Post and Washington Times each dedicate a full-time, well-liked and respected professional reporter to our team with expanding our universe of keystrokes dedicated to the franchise. We have only two shrinking newspapers in town and four broadcast networks with declining ratings that dedicate less than five minutes per night to all local sports. And now we have dozens and dozens of dedicated bloggers with sites that are booming in terms of unique visitors and page views to the team and the league. The new is overwhelming the old. As I said in 1986 - 22 years ago - "New Rules. New Media."  I also encourage the mainstream media to consider all of their journalists as bloggers with the print property just being one of the many outlets for the bloggers work. I also encourage the newspapers to have more people work on stories regarding our team. It is also interesting to see some of the independent bloggers starting out on the internet and now seeing their work expand into print and onto TV and radio. They are becoming "kings of all media". Also, the newspaper reporters that are blogging have their work on the internet distributed much deeper and farther than within the confines of the print property. It is real time. It is interactive and it is global. The blogs are just better products than the confines within the newspaper as far as I am concerned.  Our goal is to collectively feed that algorithm in the sky and make information available far and wide regarding our team. There is dedicated professional journalism which is vitally important and respected. There are bloggers that are becoming more and more of a force to be reckoned with and respected and there is user-generated content on message boards and via email. Bring it all on. The more the merrier!

George Mason University is a big part of our community and is the largest school based on enrollment in our area. The school is led by a very dynamic President and has a culturally diverse community of students.

George Mason University is a big part of our community and is the largest school based on enrollment in our area. The school is led by a very dynamic President and has a culturally diverse community of students. Two years ago, George Mason won four games in the NCAA tournament and shocked the basketball world. And now, they get a chance to "dance" again. This is such great news for the school and for the student body. Everyone roots for an underdog.