From the Heart

What a great upcoming week for Ice Hockey in Washington! 

After an up-and-down season, the Caps finally pulled it off and clinched the playoffs this year, and they’re only going forward.  The DC Fans are up for whatever comes.   I remember back when Abe and I were in Montreal fighting to get an expansion team for Washington and all the competing potential owners were saying hockey would never make it here in Washington – the town was too Southern!  Well, our argument was that they didn’t know Washington.  Washington may be in the South but the people who lived here were from everywhere including all the Embassies from Northern Europe.

And, our fans are among the most loyal in the league.  And, they are also the most polite.  How many times did fans in cities like Philadelphia act extremely inappropriately towards Abe and I when we went to games there?

It was fun from getting to know the players and their families – we always had a family lounge for our players to meet their families after games.  Some players had very young families, sometimes even two or three kids under the age of five years old.   I fondly remember our players coming up to see their excited kids after playing a long game.  Their daddy would show up at the family lounge to pick the kids up and sometimes forget to put in his false teeth!  The children always laughed at that.  Back then, with less protective headgear, it was very common for hockey players to be missing teeth given the kind of contact they encounter at each game! 

 My husband always said when we got the team that he didn’t know anything about ice hockey but we loved going to games and he was a great study!

 So now it’s my turn to congratulate Ted Leonsis on making it even more exciting and having people on the waiting list for tickets!  Keep it up!  Onward and upward in the playoffs!

 Sports, like life, is never boring!