Bleacher Report - Articles by Chad Ainsworth

Counterpoint to Barry Svrluga's Capitals Atrocity in the Washington Post

Chad Ainsworth — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:06:58 -0500

On Thursday, January 15, Washington Post sports writer Barry Svrluga wrote and published an article entitled "A Juicy Melodrama Adds Subplots in Latest Chapter" about the rivalry between the Washington Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

In short, the article basically covered many situations and occurances between a few Caps players and Pens players that, by the end of the article, made the Caps look bad.

Now keep in mind that this is a Washington sports writer for the Washington Post, and that the Capitals are a Washington sports team.

In fact, the only Washington sports team that is having a successful run this season.

In the article, Svrluga writes, "Alex Ovechkin, the reigning MVP who scored twice, was booed virtually every time he touched the puck, because he apparently has a rift with Penguins sharpshooter Evgeni Malkin, who has more points than any player in the league."

He then proceeds to talk about scuffle at a Moscow nightclub two years ago where Ovechkin punched Malkin's agent. Now, he did not discuss what caused Ovechkin to act that way—so he was obviously trying to put down Ovechkin in that scenario.

Again, Svrluga writes, "Alexander Semin, too, was booed when the puck came his way—and especially when his second-period goal tied the game—because the Capitals winger had degraded Pittsburgh's sacred son, Sidney Crosby, who won the MVP two seasons ago and beat out Ovechkin for rookie of the year four seasons ago."

Now, first things first, Ovechkin won the Rookie of the Year Award four years ago—not Crosby. And secondly, why mention Crosby winning the league MVP two seasons ago as an attempt to lift him above Ovechkin? Ovie won four awards last season, including MVP, and scored 65 goals—something Crosby has yet to do.

Svrluga writes in another touching paragraph: "Throw in the fact that Ovechkin does things like he did late in the second period, driving Crosby into the boards with a hard check, then having Pittsburgh's Matt Cooke get called for a retaliation penalty seconds later."

Now what else could Svrluga be trying to accomplish by saying this other than downgrading Ovechkin? Ovechkin plays hard during every minute of the game, and when you get in his way, he'll bulldozer right through you.

Ovie's probably also sick and tired of all the hype the NHL puts around Crosby while he gets barely any recognition. The 2009 All-Star starting line-up proves that.

Crosby was voted to the starting line-up with a substantially large gap in votes over Ovechkin, but it has already been proven that Pittsburgh had set up a repetitive voting machine that continuously voted for Crosby online again and again, while Washington just left the voting up to a fair run for the fans.

Svrluga also writes, "Twist all that together double helix-style, and it can't be sorted out—particularly when you throw in an incident just before the start of the third period in which Ovechkin appeared to jaw with either Crosby, Malkin, or both near the Pittsburgh bench. Moments later, Ovechkin was leaping off the ice, celebrating his tiebreaking goal."

Here again, the only thing you get out of this snippet is how Ovechkin seems to have bad character and sportsmanship, when the truth of the matter was that Petr Sykora said that he had no idea and didn't see Ovechkin do anything like that near the Penguins bench.

And regardless of that, Malkin gave a cheap shot hit in the face from behind without Ovechkin being able to see him coming.

Now, it's understandable how Malkin could be so upset because Ovie kept smashing through and over him along with Crosby all throughout the game, but Ovechkin never cheap shots. He hits someone as hard as he can with that player seeing him coming the whole way.

In the end, Barry Svrluga needs to make sure his facts are correct before publishing an article in the hometown newspaper of the hometown team he's bashing, especially when the Caps are the only winning hometown team.

D.C. is going to have to come a long way before it can ever become a hockey town, especially since it's own sports writers don't have their facts straight and criticize and downgrade their own hockey team.

The Hockey January Awards

Chad Ainsworth — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:55:13 -0500

Once again, it's January and a New Year has begun... the holidays are over... football has it's playoffs wrapping things up... So now what? Is it time to sit back and start planning the family beach vacation for next July? No, it most certainly isn't.

The Washington Capitals' season is only half way through with 40 games down and 40 to go. So, where do the Caps stand in the Eastern Conference standings? Southeast Division Standings? And who on the Caps deserves recognition for the great or... not so great things they have done so far.

Well, here's a little segment I like to call "The January Awards".

Firstly, the Washington Capitals are currently sitting in second place in the Eastern Conference with 59 points. Boston still remains in first place with 70 points and the Rangers sit right behind the Caps in third place with 56 points. But, in the Southeast Division the Capitals are far ahead of the second place Carolina Hurricanes who have 47 points.

As far as these midseason January awards go, the first is going to be "The Game Changer" award. The winner of this must be the kind of player who steps up to the challenge and does something drastic to alter the pace or outcome of a game.

"The Game Changer" award goes to Alexander Ovechkin. Ovie currently has 29 goals and 28 assists, most of which are scored during the third period where a game changing moment might be most critical to happen.

The second award is called "Best Unexpected Surprise". The winner of this award resembles someone who stepped up to the plate and did much better than anyone thought they could have.

The "Best Unexpected Surprise" goes to Simeon Varlamov, the Caps' third-string goaltender. He only played two games, but shocked everyone with his amazing play, which resulted in 1.5 goals allowed per game average (a 0.953 percent save percentage) and two wins.

The next award is called "Most Productively Persistent" and the winner of this award has shown tremendous efforts and consistent positive production throughout the season even when a few slaps in the face where thrown his way.

The award goes to Viktor Kozlov for his outstanding efforts. He has twice now stepped up to the first line with Ovie when Alexander Semin was injured and produced great results.

But yet again when Semin returns he is sent back down to the second line even though he was doing a great job on the first line. He plays better with Ovie and produces more points on that line as well, so he should have stayed there because he earned it... twice now.

The fourth and final award is called "Best Cat Fight on Ice" and it goes to Alexander Semin for his first fight a few games ago where his shoulder pads, jersey and helmet were ripped off of him. However, he still ended up on top of his opponent... the funny part was that he was open-handed slapping the guy in the faces repeatedly till the referees broke up the "fight".

It was quite a treat to see.

Alexander Ovechkin Not in All-Star Starting Lineup

Chad Ainsworth — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:47:08 -0500

Alexander Ovechkin has been labeled the Great 8, but apparently NHL fans don't think that's too important when it comes to voting for the 2009 All-Star starting lineup. Ovie wasn't voted to be on the starting lineup for this upcoming All-Star game.

In the NFL, one third of the All-Star voting is up to the fans, another third to the players, and the final third for the coaches, but in the NHL the fans have total control and say over the All-Star starting lineup. Some critics say that the NHL should follow the same voting philosophy as the NFL because it has more truth to the results.

Ovechkin won four awards, including the MVP of the league, last season for his tremendous efforts and results. He finished the 2007-08 season with 65 goals and is well on his way to possibly achieving the same thing again this season with him already having scored 27, but for some reason NHL fans don't think he's worthy of being in the starting lineup at the 2009 All-Star game.

Ovechkin deserves to be in the starting lineup at the All-Star game. He's earned it. The starting lineup is actually comprised of players from just four NHL teams. Ovechkin and at least one Bruin and Shark should be in there.

This same thing has seemed to bleed through into the officiating as well in the NHL. If one of the few other "chosen ones" (like the precious Sidney Crosby) get cheap-shotted in any way, penalties will be thrown out left and right to anyone involved, but for Ovechkin that doesn't seem to be the story. Ovie has to fight through tremendous roughness and cheap shots every game, and still comes out the MVP of the league.

Alex is also willing to sacrifice his body with several pounding hits in every game (something Crosby can't even hold a candle to).

Everyone can agree that the voting results for the starting lineup of the 2009 All-Star games are completely idiotic and that Alexander the Great should have been recognized for his amazing record-breaking 2007-08 season (and current results). Next year maybe the fans shouldn't have the total say in who gets to start at the All-Star games.