Mike Green autographs a baby at last year’s Caps Con. (Photo credit: Chris Gordon)

The state of the Washington Capitals fan base is strong. Just this past weekend hundreds assembled for the team’s annual summer Fanfest, packing Kettler Capitals Iceplex on a July morning to watch to watch of bunch of teenagers and early 20-somethings play the final scrimmage of the team’s Development Camp. And while the Fanfest has become a big hit, the gathering many DC hockey fans eagerly await is the Capitals Convention, held during every pre-season for the past three years. Since its inception in 2009, Caps Con has grown into a huge event, with over 6,500 people making their way to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center a couple blocks away from Verizon Center last year. The event features panels with many Caps and NHL luminaries, autograph signings and over hockey-themed activities. But this year, however, Caps Con will not take place.

Though the news was expected (the team’s Mike Vogel relayed the info to a fan on Twitter last week), the club officially announced Monday that this year’s Convention has been cancelled, a product of the ambiguity of the CBA negations between the players union and the league. In the event that no new CBA has been agreed upon by the September 15 deadline the owners would likely lock the players out, baring them for using their facilities and participating in team events like Caps Con. Even if a new CBA is agreed upon by September — something many people don’t expect to happen — the financial risk of possibly having to cancel the Convention at the last minute would have been great. While the team’s decision makes sense, this is bad news for Caps fans. There will be no Alex Ovechkin autographs. There will be no baby stories from Brooks Laich’s mom. There will be on Braden Holtby playing street hockey with little kids. And there will be no Karl Alzner tales about how a fan asked him to sign a whip.

Here’s never-before-seen video from the 2011 Caps Convention where Jay Beagle and Braden Holtby try to teach a 2-year-old how to play street hockey and well… you’ll see.

Photo credit: Chris Gordon

In addition to the Kids Press Conference hosted by Karl Alzner and John Carlson, I also attended the “I Made It To The NHL” panel at the Caps Convention on Saturday.

Dennis Wideman and Mathieu Perreault sat down for an hour and answered questions about what it was like to finally see their dreams of playing in the NHL come true. There were a lot of great moments. One such example was when Perry was told by a fan at the podium that there are group of ravenous Caps supporters out there that refer to him as “Perreaultcho-Cinco,” a nickname inspired by Patriots’ Wide Receiver Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson. Perreault, confused and honored all at the same time, responded with a huge grin and a shrug: “I don’t really follow football that much.” Sigh.

Dennis Wideman also shared many interesting stories from his career including the one day he roomed with Brooks Laich. Below the jump, check out some highlights from the panel courtesy of my flip cam.

Which player do you room with on the road?

What was the first thing you bought after you signed your first contract?

What is the Rookie Dinner like?

What are some of your superstitions?

Who’s the toughest players you’ve ever played against?

Elliot Segal glares as Alex Ovechkin high-fives an invisible child.

The second annual Caps Convention was held this past Saturday at the Washington Convention Center. Along with the entire Washington Capitals roster, a number of prominent alumni made appearances, including Olie Kolzig, Peter Bondra, Yvon Labre, and Rod Langway. Fans got to meet and greet their favorite players, get autographs, and demand “Happy Birthday” be sung to them.

The event was a tremendous success. RMNB’s own Neil Greenberg was there to document the day. Enjoy!

Alex Semin signs… is that a volleyball?

Sasha again, this time blowing a raspberry at a fan for no good reason.

Tom Poti, vouching for the quality of his dental work over the summer.

Doo-wop group, Semyon and the Varlamovettes, are playing Merriweather Post Pavillion on 10/18.

Matt Bradley didn’t say anything funny to make Ovechkin and Fehr laugh; they’re just astonished that someone asked him a question.

That 2D fan behind Ovechkin is about to commit sexual harassment.

Can we just take a moment to appreciate the head of hair on Karl Alzner? He looks like a Von Trapp child.

“Living in America” by James Brown was playing in the background during this shot.

Rife with troubling sociological subtext.

This kid could beat Fleischmann on the faceoff 67% of the time.

Neil took this photo just to scare Peter and Ian. Nightmares.

Fake locker room. Real locker room smell.

Bonzai signs for people who WERE NOT ALIVE WHEN HE WAS PLAYING.

Looks like Ted Leonsis is wearing M.C. Hammer pants.

The jersey Ovechkin wore in the Turin Olympics. The Russians did not medal, so this is kind of a bummer.

GMGM’s pantomime telephone routine delights Nate Ewell and the audience alike. “Listen, Eric Belanger, I’ve got some bad news…”

GMGM pretends to listen to a question, but he’s actually thinking about the roster for his fantasy hockey team, McPheeling Groovy.

At the Caps Convention today, there was a Kids Press Conference where Matt Bradley, Eric Fehr & Alex Ovechkin all took questions from young Caps Fans. The segment was adorable from the start, but it reached an epic level when a cute girl named MacKenzie took the mic. Her question for the players was, “Today is my birthday. Can Matt Bradley and Eric Fehr sing “Happy Birthday” to me in English? And can Ovi sing it to me in Russian?” Without hesitation, the guys started to sing. What a great birthday gift and what a great bunch of guys! Above, the video starts in the middle of Brads and Fehr’s rendition. Enjoy!

This is the first video I’ve seen where Semyon Varlamov has spoken in English, and boy is it adorable. In the advertisement above, Varly invites fans to come meet the team at the second annual Capitals Convention at the Washington Convention Center on Saturday, Oct. 2.

But there’s a bit more to this 15 second clip than Varly’s high-pitched english, manicured eyebrows and accompanying gold chain. It’s clear that Semyon is on a mission this year to change things up after missing most of last season with various groin and knee injuries. He returned back to DC more than a month and a half before training camp, changed his number to #1 (hint, hint Neuvy) & today started his own Russian language blog. Wuh oh. Somebody’s extra motivated.

In a recent interview with Sport-Express translated phenomenally by Japers Rink, Varly even talked about strengthening his body so that he can handle starting 65-70 games this year and shedding the image that he’s injury prone.

So sure, the video above is just a commercial. But we’re really happy to see that Varly is publicly giving English a try and finally starting to show off some of his awesome personality. Learning a second language is difficult and it’s cool to see that he’s making an effort to connect with us fans more.

Now, if only Sasha Minor had the same attitude..

A huge tip of the hat goes to Nate Ewell for setting up this video so it could be embeddable on our site.