“Woe is me” isn’t me.
The NHL has 30 teams that are all competitive and stocked with the best players and coaches in the world.
We don’t have a right and we aren’t enabled to be winners. We have to do the work.
We have to make our own breaks. We have to gain perspective. We have played 33 games to date. There are 49 games left to play. 98 points left to “go get.” We have 40 points to date. Six teams have 40 or more points in the NHL to date.
HBO will soon leave us. There will still be a lot of the season left to play. We aren’t playing a video game. We aren’t working within a screenplay. It is a season that is long. It isn’t like an episode of “Law and Order” where the crime is committed and solved and the jury is picked and the trial is completed and the criminal is sentenced all in one tidy little 60 minute show!
This is a simple proposition. It is all about winning games. It is NOT about the Winter Classic; HBO; sell outs; Red outs or whatever. All of our focus needs to be on playing the game; shedding outside pressures; focusing on shifts, periods and games at hand; staying together; qualifying for the playoffs; and then starting the second season with intensity and drive.
Each game matters but every game has 3 possible points at stake. The season is long. Points matter. Let us go get some points. Let us go win some games. Let us get back to winning more than we are losing. Then the snow ball fights and laughter and hugs and kisses will be plentiful. They will be there whether on camera or not.
HBO’s 24/7 is an early season phenomenon built around a game held on January 1st. It isn’t a series about the playoff qualifying run or the playoffs. Exhale. They are doing exactly what they are brilliant at – making for drama and story and arc all to drive interest and ratings! It is working but…it is December people. 
Every team that is in the midst of a 7 game losing streak looks bad. Every team that has won a bunch of games in a row looks good. We know. We have been there but it is how you bounce back from adversity that matters to me.
We live in a transparent world.
We won’t be the first or the last group that people get to see struggle. On TV or online.
If we are successful the way we want to be this season, the HBO cameras will be long gone anyway.
It is on us.
Let us focus on the games. Let us focus on signal. The rest is noise. We have a long season left. It isn’t a season that will be summed up in 3 more episodes of reality television that is so well produced. The season won’t end on January 1st at the Winter Classic. We will still have 42 games left to play! More than half of the season is left to play AFTER the Winter Classic. It is ok to exhale now.
Let us go back to having a bit more fun.
Let us not lose perspective.
Go Caps!
Teddy, OVIE says it all, “THINK ABOUT THE WIN”! I agree the power of thinking positively brings a smile. Yes we can. Lets Go Caps!
Ted,
It’s funny how a losing streak can turn so many off on the Winter Classic simply because of HBO’s documentary. So many Capital fans seem to take this success for granted. Was it not that long ago the team was struggling to draw 12,000 for games against division opponents that now routinely sell out?
Your team has come a far way. Being in this year’s Winter Classic and having Gary Bettman’s promise of one being held in DC soon is proof of that.
Instead of trying to hide from the spectacle that you worked so hard to get your franchise to be a part of, how about embracing it? You really have no choice, and it seems so hypocritical after the importance you put on the Winter Classic back when you sat down with the league brass. As many times as you try to dilute it’s importance by saying it’s just another game, it simply isn’t. No other game on Jan. 1 is going to have a pre-game concert, the pomp and pageantry, a crowd of nearly 70,000 people, or the viewership numbers.
Lay an egg on a stage that big and scrutinized and the after effects could easily reflect that of a playoff defeat. Because the national media won’t be understating things by simply remarking the “Caps lost an opportunity at two points”. It will be, “Why can’t the Capitals handle high pressure games?”
Simply put- if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Hey Ted-
Very inspiring, fun to read On Frozen in the morning and this in the afternoon. Very manic! Totally agree, i believe it was last year that the caps had 12 straight before losing up north on a bad call on OV pushing the d and the puck into the net. Can you please let the NHL know that in Manhattan NY we cannot see the Caps or any out of market game in HD becasue of time warner. I called Gary B. on NHL live and told him but nothing has been done. Here is my letter from Time Warner. We need the caps in HD. NHL Center ice is in SD
Thank you for your recent correspondence to Time Warner Cable.
Please be advised that Time Warner Cable does not control which hockey games will be aired in SD or
HD, the NHL does. Furthermore, we cannot put games in SD on an HD channel as we don?t have the
rights to make those changes or decisions.
The Caps could lose 15 more games and I would still love em. 7 games, compare that to how many years since the other local franchises have done anything. It won’t be too long before Teddy has the Wizz on track too! They (The Caps) just need to get back healthy and get on a roll. Also love #25 Chimera he is my favorite Cap! Hustles his butt off every night.
As a Cap fan from the beginning and longtime season ticket holder I am so sick of the hype surrounding the Winter Classic that I can’t wait until it is over. I think it and the HBO series has been a major distraction for the team. I have heard people compare the Winter Classic to the Super Bowl. What a joke, it is simply one REGULAR season game, admittedly against a hated rival, but when all is said and done, as Ted says, we have 42 games left to play in the REGULAR season. When it is over the team can focus on the remainder of the season and then the playoffs which everyone agrees is all that matters anyway.
I love this team no matter what. December has been a hard month for us. I know it will get better — it just has to. 24/7 is set up on my DVR, not sure when I will be able to bring myself to actually watch it. But I guess if you are going to have a rough patch documented, you can do worse than have narrated with the dulcet tones of Liev Schreiber.
well said! lots of ups and downs in a season. keep the faith!!! LETS GO CAPS!!!!
Well said! Sure, I wish we were the team that HBO showed having fun being loose, but I have faith that this will be turned around. Go Caps!
I completely agree. The series is serving its purpose which is to hype up the game on Jan. 1st. As a lifetime fan, it was admittedly difficult to watch and experience the somberness throughout the locker room – especially when at the same time the Pens are peaking and taking it in stride – it’s like salt on an open wound. But, the Winter Classic isn’t the culmination. The playoffs and the Stanley Cup are, and we’re a long way from both.
CAPS- I hope inspiration finds you again very soon. Play for the game, yourselves and each other, and it will. I’ll be there at Heinz field cheering you on and I hope things turn before then. If not, then it will just make for a better story in Apr. when you’re once again atop the Eastern Conference leading the charge into the playoffs.