Ready for the future, respect for the past

It has been a day of change here in Arlington. Nine days ago, Washington suffered an ugly loss in Toronto against the Maple Leafs at Air Canada Centre. One week later, that effort was followed by something worse in Buffalo.  A 7-0 start seemed a distant memory as the team struggled throughout the month of November. The loss to the Sabres seemed particularly painful to watch, with nine regulars out of the Buffalo lineup, and scoring chances for D.C. were few and far between. It was clear that something had to give, that the status quo at the one-quarter mark of the season was no longer good enough. Which led us to the events of Monday morning here at Kettler.

The Capitals on Monday relieved Bruce Boudreau of his coaching duties, replacing him with Caps legend Dale Hunter. One of this franchise’s most revered figures is here to drive the club back onto a winning path. We all look forward to getting back to winning hockey, hopefully starting Tuesday night against St. Louis. But I also want to look back at Bruce Boudreau, and the transformation of Washington as a hockey town that happened under his watch. His contributions, on and off the ice, are an important part of this team’s history now.

I learned of Bruce’s dismissal this morning around 8:00 a.m. As I drove into Arlington, I listened to the coverage of the coaching change on WTOP when a sad irony hit me. On Washington’s most listened to radio station this morning, the coverage of the coaching change was wall-to-wall. News at the top of the hour. Fan reaction on the talk back line. Sports at :15 and :45 was almost all Capitals. Joe Beninati on in the 9:00 a.m. hour (who was outstanding, classy and honest in his assessment of the situation). Mike Vogel was on mid-morning on 103.5, and I was also on this afternoon. This happened on a Monday during football season. The Redskins won a football game yesterday, and there was almost no mention of it today. Has that ever happened around here?

Would this event have been covered the same way four years ago? Would a coach of the Washington Capitals being let go have trumped the Redskins winning on Sunday?  I would suggest to you that it would not have, certainly not to the extent in which it was covered on both television and radio. There were so many media members here this morning, Mike Vogel and I retreated to our recording studio to watch it on TV. We couldn’t get close enough to hear everyone’s remarks due to the size of the media scrum.

Bruce Boudreau helped to make Washington a better hockey town. He made hockey fun to a lot of people.  He won a ton of games here, and helped to bring huge crowds to Verizon Center. But most importantly, he wove hockey into the DNA of D.C., Maryland and Virginia like it had never been present before. Caps shirts and jerseys are all over town. When the weather is nice, you see street hockey played on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House. TV ratings are sky high, and our radio network is far and away as big as it has ever been. The irony, of course, is that it took his dismissal to give us such a clear example of how far hockey and its coverage have come since he took over here in 2007.

From a personal standpoint, I owe a lot to Bruce. I have one Calder Cup ring because of him directly, and two more because of the legacy he left behind in Hershey. I’m an NHL play-by-play man in part because of him. It’s a day of change, and there is some pain that comes with that. There’s no question in my mind he will land on his feet.  There’s also no question that his place in Washington Capitals history is secure.

As a new era begins, I hope we remember the road that brought us here, making the path perhaps shorter in getting to the ultimate goal. Thank you Bruce, for what you did for me, and for this franchise.

We look forward to the future, but with an appreciation for our past.