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BO: Don’t forget, you promised to come to a game!
As President Barack Obama tries to gain more public support for his plan to avoid the fiscal cliff, he did an interview Thursday with Minneapolis’s Frank Vascellaro of WCCO-TV. Vascellaro, who traveled to Washington DC to meet up with POTUS, was given permission to ask five questions. So Frank asked about the fiscal cliff negotiations, spending cuts, trust on Capitol Hill, the medical devices tax (?), and… hockey!
Timmy and the Obama signs on NBCSN. (Photo credit: @levnaginsky)
On Sunday we posted some highly scientific analysis about the Tim Thomas – Barack Obama connection, as well as two printable posters and an Obama mask that could be cut out and worn all over your pretty face. The response was enthusiastic and varied. It is truly an honor to appear on Bruins blogs and Glenn Beck’s site in the same day.
We were flanked in our effort to psyche out Timmy by our friends at Sick Unbelievable, Brooks Laichyear, and Homer McFanboy. Whatever you make of the political dimension of the campaign or its impact on the game, at least we got to see how tight this Caps fan community is. It’s large-scale silliness and public mayhem for a good cause.
We’ve got all kinds of meta-coverage below the jump, so please follow along.
After the first two games of the quarterfinal round, Bruins goalie Tim Thomas is sporting a .964 save percentage, having stopped 54 of the 56 shots he has faced. Last season’s Vezina and Conn Smythe winner, Thomas has already had a successful follow-up campaign, earning a 35-19-1 record during the regular season. He is the calm core of Boston’s defense and a reliable presence to backstop the league’s third best offense.
But Thomas’s composure came somewhat unspooled on Saturday night. After a whistle, he punched the previously concussed Nick Backstrom, who ended up scoring the game-winner in double overtime. While Thomas escaped without the match penalty recommended in rule 51.3 for goalies who use a blocker pad to punch a skater, he has not escaped the attention and ire of the Washington Capitals and their fans.
Games Three and Four of the series will be played in DC, and we just figured out precisely how we will troll.
Behold! Alexsandr's other "We Are The Champions" painting
Did you think this would be a slow news week? Maybe an injury update here or a scouting report there, but overall an uneventful period before the semifinals. Well, you were wrong. From the Internet’s very own disreputable flea market emerges what might become the cultural moment of the hockey season.
(Are we building this up too much?)
Artist Aleksandr Reut has crafted Washington Capitals – We are the Champions!, an exquisite 40″ x 32″ oil painting on canvas. This inspired (yet absurdly premature) work of celebratory art and its partner piece are available for bid or purchase on eBay right now. Starting bid is only $5,000, so crack open those piggy banks.
A 50-something Ukranian ex-pat living in Harrisonburg, Virginia, Reut fills the daytime hours as an architect, but the muses compel him to high art. A decade-old profile from Harrisonburg’s Daily News-Record (reprinted here by brama.com) extols Reut’s passion for mixed media as a sculptor, but he tells me that it’s hockey that really inspires him.
Photo credit: Chris Gordon
Mike Green was back in a Capitals jersey on Friday, though unfortunately for him, he won’t be seeing game action in one for at least a week. Suffering from a concussion after taking a blow to the head from Derek Stepan of the Rangers, Green was placed on long-term injured reserve, holding him out until March 22nd at the earliest. Russian Machine Never Breaks caught up with the 25 year-old Canadian on Friday at the White House. Green had been invited to participate in a street hockey clinic at part of Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign. The First Lady even asked Green how to drop the puck to begin the event. “I told her, ‘Just drop it. Don’t throw it up in the air,’ Green recalled. “She was fine.” He also had a front row seat when the Chicago Blackhawks were honored for their 2010 Stanley Cup championship by President Barack Obama. I assume, however, he would me much happier to be on the other side of that picture next year.
On Friday afternoon, President Barack Obama welcomed the Chicago Blackhawks to the White House to celebrate their Stanley Cup championship last season. The ‘Hawks presented Mr. Obama with a jersey bearing his name and the number 44. “I think we’ve even got some blood on here,” the president said after he was given the sweater. “It shows it’s authentic. Fantastic.”
After the ceremony, First Lady Michelle Obama hosted a street hockey clinic with local children on the South Lawn as part of her “Let’s Move” campaign to help keep kids fit. Washington Capitals defenseman Mike Green was attendance to help Mrs. Obama kick off her event. Below the jump, I chronicle the day in pictures.
Photo by Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images
All those that thought President Obama would attend a Caps game before physicists figure out how to teleport an object all the way across the galaxy, please step forward to claim your prize. Wait a minute, everyone, not so fast…
All hope is not lost. The Washington Post’s new Caps beat reporter Katie Carrera informed us that Barack Obama attended yesterday’s Washington Mystics game at the Verizon Center. Those of us here at Barack The Red were instantly filled with heartbreak.
To prepare for the playoffs, we at RMNB were compelled to revamp our store. Gone are the Bruce WTF, inSEMINation & We Want Wings tees. In their place we bring you five awesome, new designs. Peep the store and chat it up in the comments.
RMNB’s answer to the Wizznutzz’s jaw-dropping Agent Zero Metallic Gold Portrait Tees, the Game Over Portrait T-Shirt shows everyone’s favorite disrespected defenseman mugging for the ladies. The shirt comes in black and green, and with or without the psychological baggage of the Olympic snubbing. Also, for the first time ever, our Game Over graphics will be printed in a beautiful, space-age Metallic Silver. You can microwave a pizza on it!*
* Please don’t microwave a pizza on it.
Weird bounces, Long goal reviews & Floating Pucks. What a fun night. (Photos by Nick Wass)
Funny isn’t it that the Capitals and Bruins will meet twice in the last week of the regular season before playing one another in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. If tonight’s game sets a precedence for next week, we’re due for some entertaining hockey.
Tonight’s victory over Boston saw goals from fan favorites Nicky Backstrom, Mike Knuble and Books Laich, who secured the overtime gamewinner. Despite the everpresent physicality of Zdeno Chara’s bleeding nose and the dynamism of Patrice Bergeron, the Caps emerged victorious. Three games or bust.
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