Ted's Take

Everything else is secondary. Alex is a performer and an entertainer but he is a great teammate first and foremost.

Without Etan Thomas, Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler? The Wizards are playing terrific team basketball. They are getting results; playing hard for one another; and will make the playoffs. To lose three of your starting five players and two All-Star quality players and still qualify for the playoffs is a remarkable achievement.

We play the Calgary Flames, the division leaders in the Northwest division. They are red hot. They have great goaltending, great defense and are led by Jarome Iginla who is perhaps the most or one of the most complete player in the NHL. I know he is a player for instance that Alex Ovechkin has always admired.

 Tonight’s game could actually - statistically - be our toughest test for the remainder of the season. I view tonight and the two games against the Hurricanes as real stiff competition and games that we will have to play our best hockey to get two points. 

With perhaps one of the greatest first lines in modern poetry, here it is in its entirety. All three poems strung together. Check it out.

Allen Ginsberg’s great poem "Howl" was banned for obscenity. Nowadays, just about every rap song you hear has worse lyrics with much more suggestive overtones.