WingsFanInDC

Yup, being there to witness it was really special. Seeing all the pittsburgh fans all bummed out after hours of relentless tauntings, priceless. As for rehydrating, oh yeah. NASCAR drivers hydrate 48 hours before some races when the weather calls for temps in the mid 90's with 75% humidity. Imagine how hot it is in the car while you're wearing several layers of fire protection, and not to mention all the sponsor patches.

Yup, That's Malone. He was probably the last person to leave the igloo. This was about 20-25 minutes after the Red Wing's team bus left. Everyone that was there was like "who's covertible benz still in the parking lot??" lol but yep, he's got class. He left the arena with his mom and grandmother. Classy guy, especially knowing he's originally from Pittsburgh. Lot of interesting stuff that night, friend getting probably one of Malone's last autographs as a Penguins, and the pic of Hasek stretching out on the ice and really taking his time. I think he was thinking of how much he's accomplished throughout the years, and he was doing one of those *deep breaths* "this might be my last game as a NHL player...". I hope to see Hasek play one more time somewhere before he finally hangs the skates up. B

I've updated my photo site with more pictures from training camp. They're basically all of the pictures I took. So, if some suck, oh well. Same link as my initial post. Enjoy!

Folks, I'm a loyal wings fan, growing up in Flint and moving to DC for work. The caps have grown on me over the last several years (Before Ovechkin was part of the team). I've made weekly trips to the Verizon center for going to the NHL games. I decided to purchase season tickets for this year and that includes seeing my Wings come to DC. I also went to opening day of training camp with my new Canon XSI DSLR armed with a set of high end zoom lens. Below is a link of the pics I put up online. Feel free to check out the pics. I took about 300 pics that day but posted up some of the better ones. If any of you want the full size pics, shoot me a PM with your email address and i'll send you a higher resolution pic. One thing you'll notice, in which i'm not sure if it's ever been mentioned, but Ovechkin ALWAYS plays with these yellow/neon yellow laces on his skates while everyone else will have black or white. There's an awesome close-up of ovie's skates. (yes, he was standing 2 feet away from me) http://picasaweb.google.com/bfguns/Washing...lsTrainingCamp# feedback is apprecieated! enjoy! Brian

Last night i saw some of the sickest puck handling ever. Ovie had 2 defensemen on him and either he had a string on the puck or he's just using the force, but after 20 seconds or so, one of the flyers finally got a hold of the puck by "falling" on it. Needless to say, the crowd gave Ovie some positive feedback on his puck handling skills. Sooo Wow!

Comcast of Montgomery County, Maryland is *NOT* showing the free preview for center ice. Further more, they're not showing it in HD. This blows. I thought about switching to Direct TV but in order for me to get VS, i have to sign up with their premium package. this blows. deregulation my ass. B

Went to a season ticket holder private party with the caps. Got to see the team up close. More pics from the link below. Please do post your response after you see Ovie's pic when his roller coaster was coming back from zooming all over the place. It's priceless! http://picasaweb.google.com/bfguns/Washing...ePartySixFlags# Enjoy! (Anyone want pics from the Stanley Cup game in Pittsburgh when Wings won?) Brian (as usual, if anyone wants full sized pics, please PM me)

I'll go through my pictures again. I can probably just go and upload them all. As for the camera, get a good one. I picked up a Canon Rebel XSI with the standard lens kit and whenever I have the need to use some high profile zoom lens, i rent them. 2.8fstop 70-200 mm lens, 26 bucks for a weekend rental. Sure beats plunking down 1200 bucks for the same lens. stay tuned for pics...

That's Ovechkin! lol! Coach made the players skate around the goalie nets for about maybe 10 mins non-stop. Each time the players skated around the net, he would pull the goalie net towards the center about 5 feet each time. That's why in some of the pictures, you see the players lined up while skating. Looked like some kind of time trials for the winter olympic skating events. I went to a private party today with the Caps. (Thursday night) They held a private event at six flags. just about all of the top players were there signing autographs and talking to the fans, riding on the roller coasters with fans. I got a bunch of new pictures. Wait until you see the pic of Ovie on a roller coaster. He walked up, sat down in the first row of the coaster, and had a little kid sit next to him.. then whoosh! off they went. When they returned, the face on Ovie is worth a million bucks. All in all, I got autographs from Mike Green, Backstrom. Nylander, Laich, Semin, Feds, Kozlov, theodore (that dude loves to wear All-Star shoes, black.) Even better was when i taught Ovie the sign for "8". I'm hard of hearing and thought "hmm instead of everyone saying "good luck, blah blah kick their ass, go caps!", i decided to try a diff approach and I got his attention for a little bit. It was awesome. Keep an eye out for more pics soon.... Oh yeah, i hope the Caps maim the Flyers in friday's pre-season matchup. -B

No Feds and Ovie pics. They had their training by diff groups. 3 diff groups of about 18-20 players and prospects. Hopefully when the games start, i'll be able to snap up some more pics. Isnt OV and Backstrom good enough? -B

40 views and no one posted a comment? bahumbug!

So did anyone get the ovechkin jersey? I go to the caps games usually wearing a wings jersey (damn those folks still hold a grudge from a while back), but i'm gonna get one if i can see an actual pic from someone on here who got theirs. I'm not worried about it taking a while to get here, but wanted to see some pics. Thanks! B

Topic says it all. I was at the game. (yes, the fugly igloo). Actually, i'm going to tell you all what I endured. If anyone was watching the channel 4 news out of Detroit, and happened to be recording it, please PM me. I didn't see it yet but a friend of mine called me up and said she saw me. I was the guy wearing Osgood's jersey standing next to a tall blonde reporter and the other person was a pen's fan. I'm also on the freep.com site - http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery...mp;Profile=1053 (I look like crap.. happens when you're walking around and it starts POURING outside). Anyways, back to my lovely story. I live just outside of DC, and my co-worker and his family all went to the game with me. They're die-hard pens fans. The plan was leave DC at 10 and arrive in Pittsburgh at around 2pm. We arrived on time, and parked the car. I was the only person wearing a wings jersey, and already, i was drawing stares from people. I felt so alone, so lonely, knowing i might've been the only wings fan in town. wink.gif then down the grass a bit (they had a jumbotron for projecting the game outside) and saw a red car, saw a wings logo on it, and saw some gal holding the famous octopus. i ran down screaming "my frieeennddsss!" (ok, i'm exaggerating here...) But it was the news 4 channel from detroit. That's why i asked if anyone might've taped it. Ok, it's been an hour.. time is now around 3pm. I'm hanging out across the street at the mariott hotel. There's a live radio show going on hosted by ESPN (i think it's 1520 AM), and they had some people encouraging the pen fans to make signs. I made one for myself. On one side, i wrote "GO WINGS" and on the other, i wrote "Only Wings Fan In Town" with a couple of arrows pointing down at me. Few minutes later, a couple of pens fans made some signs.. couple more fans showed up, then a couple of wings fans shows up. Actually, the first person who i THOUGHT was a wings fan was trying to make some money. asked him how much a ticket was. one thousand he said. I cringed. So, i've been in the lobby for about 15 minutes or so, finally a pens fan tries to taunt me with a sign. i started laughing and asked if they needed 10 playoff games to win instead of 8. They looked puzzled. I had to point out that it's an octopus that should be on that sign, not the word "squid" with a circle around it and a line through it. smile.gif We then started walking across the street to pick up our tickets. I saw some people selling tickets outside.. took one look and some were fakes. It spelled "melon" arena. i told one person to look at the name of the building. On the way up to the box office, i heard some evil things said my way. Above the garage where the teams drive in, there's an overpass where you can watch for some players to drive in. One guy standing up there screamed "RED WINGS SUCK!!!" then had a doll with red wings clothing on it and it was being hanged by a rope on a stick. i wasn't impressed. Finally we get our tickets from the will call office. it was around 6:30pm. in my head, the sounds of people saying "boo", "you suck!" "Wings Suck!" "Osgoooood" were echoing in my head. Nah, it wasnt traumatizing.. just never thought the people here would hate me so much because of my jersey. Actually, i encouraged it. I have several jerseys with different names on them. Kozlov, Yzerman, Osgood, Chelios, and my last name. I wore Osgood on purpose. biggrin.gif So, back to my stroll around the outside of the arena.. we walked up to the area where the jumbotron was again. There were probably about 250-300 people there, the unlucky ones that didnt get tickets. My friend decided to blow his horn and divert all attention my way. Little by little, the boos got louder. about 10 seconds later, i had 200 people screaming at me, booing at me, giving me the pretty one finger salutes, and all i could do was just shrug my shoulders. It sorta felt like i was in the movie "300". biggrin.gif While i was walking in front of the rabid fans, i put my hand in my pocket and felt the ticket. This was where i was building a great comeback. I screamed out... "awwwww you're all out here in the rain??? Oh my! look what i have here?!?!? It's a TICKET to tonight's game! YES! WOOOO! WOOOOO! SUCKS TO BE YOU!!!!. lol (thank god no one chased me down for that). Finally, i'm inside the igloo. that place is an absolute s***hole. i don't know if any of you have been in there, but the seats are really screwy. I was in the lower level, but the bottom part of the upper level blocks the scoreboard view. It's a good thing they're building a new bldg for the team. still, the boos continued. But then came some "wooo! yayyys!" I was seeing people on my side. loyal red wings fans. We were the small army that attended the event - the bold, the proud, and the GUTSY. Game finally went underway. Detroit drew first blood... again, the gustsy wings fans stood and cheered. out of over 17,000 people at the event, i'd say just around 650-700 were wings fans. There was one section reserved for friends and family of the wings. everywhere else, you'd see a speck of red in the crowd. game's gone underway.. end of the 2nd period, i decide to head to the rest room. i'm the only one in red in there. so far, so good. (it was pretty packed) Finally it's my turn to do my business and while i'm standing there, some 10 year old kid starts poking my back screaming "red wings suck! red wings suck!" i was sort of thinking.. what the hell??? i had two options. 1) turn around and just whiz all over him, or 2) just nod and say "yeah yeah yeah..whatever." (last thing i'd want is a brawl in the men's room....) made it back to the seat alive, more boos, jeers, taunts are thrown my way. finally it came to the end of the game. I did what everyone in tje arena WISHED they could have done - scream as loud as you can in celebration. some jerk in front of me was cussing me out and i ignored him. Then he started to try and pick a fight. I left my seat and went down to the ice level to greet the other fans. I took a bunch of pictures but from where I was, it was the opposite end of where the trophy was being displayed. but standing there, with the fans, and seeing the expressions on the players, it was just priceless. My friend's sister went out to the back of the arena to try and get pics and autographs of the players when they leave. I managed to get Ryan Malone to pose for a pic with me. (he's TALL!) Also got a pic of Lebda up close. I have a bunch of other pics, but i'll post them up in a day or two when i get a chance. One thing i did notice, all of the pens players shaved their beards after the game. Is this sort of part of the playoff beard ritual or they just decided on their own? Time to catch up on sleep. Check back for pics soon. -B

that sucks. Now the problem is this - i have a bud meeting me at champps sports bar in columbia, MD but the place doesnt know if they're going to be able to pull the game in on direct tv. does anyone know if Direct TV is showing this in other areas? They won't dedicate a big screen tv for the game. apparently the *vcough cough* NFL Draft is more important. Picking players is*NOT* a sport! Anyone know if the wings game can be pulled in on direct tv where they're showing the rangers/devils game?