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If
hockey bores the piss out of you, you might as well just skip this.
I've been following the Capitals and
hockey in general for less than 10 years, so I'm kind of
a hockey neophyte. I never played it growing up and I only started
following the Caps out of sheer boredom. Some of the rules were a little
confusing to me at first (ok, some of them are still confusing--I
mean, why the hell do the refs wash out icing sometimes?), but I did
manage to pick
up on most of them from watching the games on TV. Other things--such as
who the players are, NHL history, etc.--I've sort of learned over time,
but by no means am I a hockey expert. But I'm not a total idiot either. On a scale of 1-to-10, I'd give
myself a solid 5 on hockey knowledge.
I'm pointing all of this out because as Beth and I were driving home from the Caps
playoff game on Wednesday night, we were trying to figure out why they
lost (4-3). Now, if I had watched the game on TV, I think I might have
had a decent idea why they lost, but it's a little different in person
than watching on TV (and we only go to a few games every year). The view is different
in person and, in all honesty, I'm
a little less knowledgeable without the announcers.
Anyway, I came up
with four reasons why they lost:
1) Several times, they allowed the Rangers to
just waltz in and take shots from close range (resulting in three
goals).
2) They were outworked and outhustled by the Rangers in the
2nd period (Beth came up with this one, actually).
3) Our defense, in general,
sucked.
4) The Caps had plenty of scoring chances (and plenty of
shots on goal), but didn't capitalize on them.
One thing that I didn't think
contributed to the loss was our goaltending. Our goalie, Jose Theodore, may have let
in one soft goal, but I thought he played okay overall. If anything, the
rest of the team let him down (see #3 above, especially) rather than
vice versa.
So when I got home, I checked the news recaps,
blogs and message boards to see if my theories were correct...
...and, of course, I was way off base.
Everyone--and I do mean everyone--agreed that
Theodore played like crap and he was the main reason why the Caps lost.
Too many soft goals. Out of position on some goals. Didn't challenge the
shooters enough. And on and on. Even Theodore himself told the media after
the game that he was the reason they lost.
Hmm. Well, then. Maybe a 5 on the 1-to-10 scale
is a little too high.
(Cue Barney calling Theodore "Three-Or-More" in
the comments section in 3, 2, 1...) |
2000-2009