Tag: hockey history

pksuburban:

Today y’all are going to learn two very important people in hockey history.

One of them is Willie Eldon O’Ree. He was born in New Brunswick in 1935 which makes him 81 years old. In 1958 he was called up to the Boston Bruins and became the first black player in the NHL.

Coming eleven years after the integration of Major League Baseball with Jackie Robinson, Willie O’Ree became the first black NHL player, but he was not the first to break the color barrier in the NHL. That honor belongs to Chinese Canadian, Larry Kwong – born Eng Kai Geong in Vernon, British Columbia in 1923 (making him 93). He was the first person of Asian descent and first person of color to play in the NHL just one year after Jackie Robinson integrated baseball (1948). He played for the New York Rangers.

Larry Kwong was called up to the Rangers in March of ‘48 where he only saw the ice in the 3rd period for a very short amount of time. Unfortunately this was his only NHL ice time as he was soon sent back down. Despite being the leading scorer for the Rangers’ farm team, he was never called back up. He then left to play hockey in Canada’s senior leagues. He later moved to Switzerland and coached hockey there where he became the first person of Chinese descent to coach a professional hockey team (and he also became a tennis coach).

Willie O’Ree, however, impacted the NHL strongly as a person of color as he had more opportunities and playing time. Despite only having 5% of vision in his right eye that he hid, O’Ree was called up to the Bruins to replace an injured player. His first game he played for the Bruins was against the longtime rivals, the Montreal Canadiens, in January of 1958. He only played two games that year and then came back for 43 games in 1961. In his time playing, he said that racist remarks from fans were much worse in the United States than they were in Toronto or Montreal. However, he spent most of his career in the minor leagues and one of the teams he spent time with, the San Diego Gulls (now AHL affiliate for the Anaheim Ducks), retired his number.

After Willie O’Ree played in the NHL, the next black player didn’t even come until 1974 when the Washington Capitals drafted Mike Marson. Now there are currently 23 active black NHL players. The NHL teams are now required to have diversity training before each season and racist remarks are not tolerated and can warrant fines and suspensions. He is a part of the NHL/USA Hockey Diversity Task Force that helps out youth hockey programs. Just this past season, Joel Ward (another black NHLer) of the San Jose Sharks said that O’Ree was one of his role models and that there should be a league-wide retirement of his number (22) just like there was a league-wide retirement of Jackie Robinson’s number. I agree.

The history you should know before calling yourself a caps fan

vncntphntmhv:

this is gonna be a special rant bc my ass actually logged onto tumblr on my computer and it was special requested to put out some knowledge bc apparently no one cares enough about the caps franchise before we got successful and thats a BIG ISSUE for me so we’re gonna start at the very beginning.

The Very Beginning:
Think of the worst team in the NHL right now. Who came to mind? The Oilers? The Leafs? Okay now imagine them like 8,000 times worse and you get the inagural 1974-1975 Washington Capitals hockey team. Widely regarded as “the worst team to ever skate”. The worst record right now is the Vancouver Canucks with a record of 27-34-13. The Caps inagural season record? 8-67-5. If going down in the record books as the literal worst team in NHL history here are some other records they hold:
-Fewest wins by an NHL team playing at least 70 games
-The worst winning percentage in history (.131)
-Most road losses (39 out of 40)
-Most consecutive road losses (37)
-Most consecutive losses (17)
The Washington Capitals earned themselves a total of 21 points that season, which is just truly astounding to think about imho because HOLY SHIT this team made history by being the worst
Things became really unstable for The Washington Capitals throught the rest of the decade. The Caps varried from “horrible team burn it all to the ground and start again” and “we were in playoff contention until literally the last day of the regular season”. The good thing to come out of all the pain? Dem draft picks son. Y’all should know at least one of the guys because his number is hanging in our fucking rafters. #11, Mike Gartner. Dude finished second to Gretzky for Rookie of the Year honors (i believe in the WHA). Gartner played with the Capitals for nearly ten seasons and when he was traded to the Minnesota North Stars, he held the records for franchise leader in career goals, assists, and points. Even with Ovi, Backstrom and Bondra (who we will get to later) taking over he still stands as 3rd, 4th, and 3rd respectively.

Moving Out or Moving On?
Because of the Capitals awful records, there was serious talk of the team leaving D.C. and fans were like “lmao you thought” so #SaveTheCaps started and two major things happened to ensure the caps would stay. One of the biggest trades in frachise history gave us Rod Langway, Brian Engblom, Doug Jarvis, and Craig Laughlin (We know him as Locker now) for Ryan Walter and Rick Green. You know who else is up in the rafters? Rod Langway. #5. They man, the myth, the legend. The named captain who led the Capitals to post-season appearances every year he played in Washington, which was 11 btw. Langway is probably one the greatest, if not the greatest defenseman in franchise history and with Langway, Gartner and later drafted Dman Scott Stevens the Capitals would have their first ever playoff appearance in 1983. Needless to say, we didn’t go very far. We lost to the 3 time defending and going FOUR the Dynasty New York Islanders. This turn arround essentially assured that the Capitals were #HereToStay

The Miricale Run
Fast forward a couple years because if you want to look at all the post-season defeats do it on your own time though I recomend looking up the Easter Epic game because holy shit bruh. Anyways, the year is 1998 and the Capitals are in fucking form. You got Peter Bondra, Dale Hunter (Also a retired number, look him up), Joe Juneau and Oatsie (who was a great player but an awful coach), and my personal favorite OALLIE THE GOALIE. I don’t have time to tell you all about these guys but please, please look them up because I will fight skin and teeth to see Bondra (#12) and Kolzig (#37) hanging in the rafters. Anyways, The capitals defeat the Bruins, trump the Senators and in a dramatic OT GWG by Joe Jeneau in game 6, pass the Sabres to make their only Stanley Cup finals appreance. Unfortunately, the Capitals would not hold up against the defending champs (Detroit Red Wings) and got swept in 4 games.
(Fun Fact: in this season Oates, Housley, and Hunter all hit 1,000points, the only time in NHL history 3 players on the same team reach the same milestone in the same season)

Sad times in DC
The season after the miricale run the caps finished with a record of 31-45-6 and the team was sold to current owner and probably the sweetest owner ever Ted Leonsis (luv u Ted).in 2000 an 2001 the Caps won b2b SE division titles but lost to the fucking pens in the first round. After the 2000-2001 season actual fuckface Oates demanded a trade but management was like “nah, plus cause ur a fuckface you don’t get to be captain anymore lmao”

Why I hate Jaromir Jagr
In the summer of 2001 the capitals signed the biggest fucking contract in NHL history for living legend Jaromir Jagr. $77Mil over 7 years. We gave up a lot of young and good talent for Jagr and he played like he didn’t want to fucking be here. Look at his numbers from the last year playing with the Pens (121 points) his highest year with the Caps (79 points) and the year after he got traded to the Rangers (123 points). Jagr was suppossed to be our franchise guy and while I respect the accomplisments he has acheived and I recognize his undeniable talent and I acknowledge his title as a literal living legend who is still playing at 43 years old, fuck that guy for what he did to us. After this whole debacle, the Capitals went into rebuild mode trading Bondra to the Sens and Gonchar to the Bruins and if there was one good thing that came out of this it was Oh Captain, My Captain Alexander Ovechkin.
(Side note: during this rebuild Robert Lang the League’s leading scorer was traded mid-season, the first time that has happened, yet another milestone)

The Ovi Era

Guess who we got in 2004? Take a wild guess because the Pens could have gotten him but we won the mother fucking draft lottery and we got him instead. FIRST OVERALL PICK AND FUTURE CAPTAIN, ALEXANDER OVECHKIN. Ovi would lead the NHL rookies in goals, points, PPGs, and shots. He finished third overall in NHL scoring IN HIS ROOKIE SEASON. Alex Ovechkin beat out Crosby and Phaneuf for the Calder and everyone was happy except for the pens fans bc god fucking bless Ovi. There were also a lot of long-time capitals who had career years so please, look them up because I cannot cover all of them in this already super long post. In 2007 we saw the breakout of fellow russian, Alexander Semin who scored 38 goals in just his second NHL season. Guess who we drafted in 2006? Everyone’s favorite, Lars Nicklas Backstrom AKA Papa. We also signed
-Semyon Varlamov (G)
-Tom Poti (D)
-Viktor Kozlov (RW)
-Michael Nylander © (Yes, that’s William Nylander’s dad, yes i’m emotional about it because the leafs are my second team)
With all of this, the Captials spirits were raised going into the 2006-2007 season. But lmao JK with a 6-14-1 start the Capitals fired the head coach and replaced him with Bruuuuuuce Boudreau. Happy Thanksgiving.
On Jan 10th, 2008 the Capitals make another block-buster contract for Ovi at $124MIL for 13 years (the second longest term contract in NHL history).  Because of some key deadline deals (read: Sergei Fedorov) the season would be lead by Ovi with 65 goals and Mike Green’s defensive leading 18 goals. Caps win the SE division title and the Capitals set another milestone by becoming the first team in NHL history to make the playoffs after being ranked 14th or lower in their conference standings at mid-season. We drag the first round with the Flyers out but eventually lose. However, with the improvement seen we give Bruuuuuuce a long term contract extension. Ovi is back at it again with the making history because he was the first player in NHL history to win the
-Art Ross
-Rocket Richard
-Hart
-Pearson
all in the same season. He was also the first player to win an MVP award in any major sport since Theismann in 1983. Backstrom was nominated for Calder but lost it to awful human being who i’m not going to mention by name but you can figure it out. Bruce won the Jack Adams and all was beautiful.
In 2008-2009 we lost in the second round the eventual Stanley Cup winners, the pens. Rough man.
In 2009-2010 the Capitals won the presidents trophy and Ovi and Backstrom both had over 100 points each. This was the year the caps were predicted to contend but the fucking Habs beat us out in the third round bc fucking goalies man.

From here on out, I think the majority of the fanbase knows and if you don’t here’s a summary: killin it in the reg, being killed in the playoffs. Life sucks with game sevens and 1st and 2nd round exists but this team has something magical in them and now you know the history and can learn yourself up about the legends I didn’t cover in depth. Please, Please look into Capitals history because it is so amazing and so important to know where we come from as an organization. And, if you made it this far, i’ll buy you a drink because you care about this team more than most people so thank you, so so much.