Ted's Take

He will be missed. Olie Kolzig was the most competitive person I know. He cared deeply about the team; his community; and his family. He was and is a class act and he is one of my favorite athletes of all time.

He was the greatest goaltender to date in our franchise’s history; a winner of a Vezina Trophy; and he took us to our lone Stanley Cup Final.

I respect Olie and consider him a friend.

(more…)

I am glad last night is over and happy we got the win and the two points.

I have received several emails on a couple of subjects so I will answer them here in a public fashion.

Question #1:  Why did we do a video tribute to Kolzig?

Answer:  He was probably the most beloved player in our franchise history and he was a fan icon. We felt he deserved this one of a kind tribute. And we have and will continue to take the high road in all matters.

Question #2:  Why didn’t the tribute happen before the game?

Answer:  We don’t program Tampa’s locker room and with Olie playing against us, it would be bad form to bring an opposing player out before the game. Tampa and Olie wouldn’t allow it anyway.

Question #3:  Why did we run the tribute video when we did?

Answer:  We program game presentations 24 hours ahead of time. We chose to show the tribute video at the first official timeout - 14 minutes in - regardless of the score.

As I stated, we paid homage to Olie and we got a win.

End of story. Time to move on now on this subject. We will NOT do anything else regarding Olie while he plays for another team. We play Tampa five more times this season. We must focus on our present and future and we need to amass as many points as possible within our division.

Thanks for all of your emails. No more comments from me regarding a player on another team. I hope you all understand. Go Caps!

Thom Loverro wrote a good story here about tonight’s game.

My comments are from the heart. I know what Olie Kolzig meant to our franchise and to our fans.

But we have a game to play tonight and we need the two points.

For the first time ever, we will show a video recognizing a player on another team. After Olie retires, we can all talk about his legacy. But for now, I hope we win the game against division rival Tampa.

In my mind, Olie will always be a Washington Capital but he signed with Tampa as a free agent and he will be in goal tonight against us so we have to put all of the memories aside and focus on a win. That is what the game is about tonight, two points.

Check it out. Well done.

This article just went up on our website. It is well done and very meaningful. I’m glad Mike was able to connect with Olie and get his thoughts out there. Good work.

A good perspective. Thanks Mike for getting our quotes of support to Olie out there.