Now that we have your attention, it’s NHL season again. And the Washington Capitals have reached out to WNST during the offseason and we’re trying to have some fun during trying political and unstable times.
For anyone who has followed my career, you know I have one pretty strong lifelong passion that I was truly self-indulgent about: hockey.
The breakthrough in my sports media career came when I was 16 years old and covering Baltimore Skipjacks and Washington Capitals games at The News American. I also covered both of those teams in various forms (as well as the Bandits) for The Evening Sun. I was the beat writer and in 1991 I met Kenny Albert. We did a talk show together and — voila — WNST is born.
Well, sorta…
It would be impossible to tell you how much fun and how much joy hockey has added to my life.
The many, many Stanley Cup playoff excursion I’ve been on…
To Vancouver, Anaheim, Dallas, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Long Island, Manhattan, Raleigh, Miami, Nashville – I’ve seen playoff games in all of these cities.
I’m great pals with Predators coach Barry Trotz and would fulfill a lifetime dream of mine, drinking a tasty beverage from Lord Stanley’s goblet if Nashville ever won The Cup.
I met my wife at a hockey game, an AHL classic in Manchester, N.H.
Hockey Meg is in my life because of hockey. So is Howard Scher, Ed Frankovic and a bunch of other cool people.
Hockey is great. And honestly, people who love hockey are great. And even the players who play hockey with their super quirky Canadian accents are also pretty cool and were always a blast to be around.
If I ever got wealthy from WNST.net, the first and only really stupid thing I’d do is fulfill my wish to own a hockey team. Truth be told, I’d bring a team here in a nano-second and try to market it and make it work.
I love hockey.
The Washington Capitals, who brought me so many cool memories back in the 1980’s at the Capital Centre that I don’t even know where to begin discussing how much fun I had back in the days with Phil Jackman, have reached out to WNST and said this:
“How can we get people from Baltimore to embrace the Capitals?”
Drew Forrester and I went down to Northern Virginia (and WOW, what a facility they have down there) and told them that we could put some real hockey fans together from Baltimore who would like to embrace the Capitals if the Capitals wanted to embrace us.
So, lo and behold, we’re offering many discounts on the website for Caps game and we plan to go to many games this year with some official “WNST Puck Buses” to games in D.C.
We’ll discount the tickets (natch!) and we’ll see if we can create some memories and some fun.
I miss hockey badly. I get to Nashville on occasion. I go to games when my wife goes home to New Hampshire. And sometimes we even take in a game in Hershey on a Saturday night around Christmas.
But we’re going to “Rock the Red” during 2008-09 and try to find some “old-time hockey” spirit.
Anyone interested in being included on the “Puck Bus” presale (coming in the next week), drop me a note at nasty@wnst.net
The first roadie is Nov. 6th vs. Carolina. We’re going to keep the tickets in the $50 to $60 range with all of the trimmings: food, beer, soda for kids, ticket, ride, swag, fun, DVDs, meeting other hockey idiots with puckheads like me.
Stay tuned…
