Ted's Take

I received a very passionate email from a fan. He is very unhappy at my lack of communications to the fan base during this playoff push. He says - in all sincerity - that he feels I have done a poor job in staying connected to the fan base this season. I can’t tell if he is being sarcastic or not.

I received a very passionate email from a fan. He is very unhappy at my lack of communications to the fan base during this playoff push. He says - in all sincerity - that he feels I have done a poor job in staying connected to the fan base this season. I can’t tell if he is being sarcastic or not. Here is how I responded: I can be reached at Washingtoncaps@aol.com. I read and respond to all of my email three times per day. I receive more than 60 emails per day everyday. I am on Facebook. Friend me - almost 2,000 people have to date. I have joined numerous Facebook clubs too. I do a daily blog at Ted’s Take. You can leave me messages there. I do a monthly XM radio call-in show.  Just about every month, I am on a local radio show like the Junkies or Elliot In The Morning and am available as call-in host. I have been on Washington Post Live on Comcast SportsNet and have taken fan calls. I read the message boards two to four times per month at Washingtoncaps.com. I get a sense of what is on many people’s minds that way. I mingle with fans at just about every game outside of suite 103. I do regular Owner’s Corner columns. I am available always to be interviewed by mainstream media and bloggers. I make speeches at many games to fans, season ticket holders, groups and sponsors. I invite fans into our suite to hang out with me and our partners in the teams. I make selected phone calls to season ticket holders to take their pulse on how are we doing. I talk to fans at Kettler Capitals Iceplex during practices. If there is more that I should be doing, please let me know. Also, if you know of another owner that is doing as much, please show me so I can emulate that best practice. What else should I be doing?

When we had our sell off to rebuild our team, we made some extremely painful personnel decisions. We had to trade older great players, fan favorites and great people for young prospects. We took great risk. We rightly received a lot of fan hate mail and media criticism.

 We realized that several of our players would soon be retired or be on the downside of their career. And if we wanted to rebuild around youth, we would need to make some trades. We would have to get bad so we could get good by scoring some high draft picks and by developing young prospects. Without the sell off, we wouldn’t have Alexander Ovechkin, Mike Green and Nicklas Backstrom as examples of the efficacy of that strategy to build around the draft. Alex Semin, Jeff Schultz and Eric Fehr were also draft picks for our team as further example of the power of the draft. Brooks Laich was a second round pick for Ottawa. We made a trade to send Peter Bondra to Ottawa in hopes that he would join a contender and perhaps win a Stanley Cup. We got what first appeared to be a throw in prospect in Brooks Laich in return. Peter Bondra is now retired and is GM of the Slovakia team. You can meet him in the arena and we are friends for life with him. Peter is one of our most celebrated former players and one of my favorite players in Caps history. Nothing will ever take away what Peter did for our franchise. But time moves on. Brooks Laich is now a young player coming into his own. He will score 20 goals this year. He is a heart and soul kind of player; a young leader in the locker room; a big, fast, strong skater; and an important contributor to the new set of Caps players and prospects that I am hopeful will grow into a championship caliber team. He is growing up with the team and improving and has upside which is what we contemplated with our moves pre-lockout. Brooks is also becoming a media favorite and a fan favorite. I am proud of him and proud of our pro scouts who specifically asked for him by name in the trade.

OK on to the NCAA tournament now for Georgetown after a tough Big East championship game upset against Pittsburgh. Key players got themselves into foul trouble and we were beaten soundly on the boards for rebounds and second chance shots. Today is Selection Sunday and I am sure Georgetown will be a high seed in the tournament.