Apparently Oilers’ GM Kevin Lowe is not just capable of doing stupid things, but of saying them too:

After a year of enduring the wrath of Brian Burke, Edmonton Oilers general manager Kevin Lowe finally fired back at the Anaheim Ducks’ executive on Friday.

In a candid interview with Edmonton’s Team 1260, Lowe - who stayed relatively quiet each time Burke went after him over the last 12 months - finally let it all out.”Where do I begin?,” started Lowe. “He’s a moron, first of all. Secondly, he really believes that any news for the NHL is good news. Thirdly, he loves the limelight and I don’t think anyone in hockey will dispute that.

Lastly, he’s in a pathetic hockey market where they can’t get on any page of the newspaper let alone the front page of the sports, so any of this stuff carries on.“

Last year Anaheim played to an average of 17,193 fans and 102.6% capacity. Edmonton played to an average of 16,828; 98.4% capacity.

This doesn’t directly relate to the Capitals, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth noting. Why? Because this kind of attitude is all too common amongst hockey fans (and apparently officials) in Canada and the northern United States and it’s not only incorrect, it’s detrimental to the league and its followers.

As a hockey fan who grew up in Virginia and has lived in Illinois and Atlanta, I can say that while hockey does not have the same kind of rabid following in the Sunshine Belt that it does in New England or the Midwest, it has more than enough current fans (and more than enough youngsters playing the game) for NHL franchises to not only survive, but to prosper.

That Canadians, New Englanders and Minnesotans are proud of their hockey heritage is understandable and in and of itself not a bad thing. However, to call Anaheim a “pathetic hockey market” when the Ducks have played to better than 95% capacity each of the last two seasons, claim that D.C. is not a good enough hockey market for Alexander Ovechkin although the Capitals have outdrawn the Bruins in seven of the last eleven seasons and some pundits have done, or mock the idea of hockey in Florida even though Tampa Bay hasn’t been lower than 12th in attendance since 2003 and has had two seasons in the top three in overall attendance goes beyond pride and into the realm of willful ignorance.

Of course not every team based in the American South has been successful and those who want to insist that hockey can’t flourish in “non-traditional markets” often point to the Thrashers, Coyotes or Panthers as examples. The issue in these cases isn’t the viability of the market, but rather the on-ice product: Atlanta has made the playoffs just once in its eight NHL seasons and has never won a playoff game, Florida hasn’t been to the playoffs since 2000 and hasn’t won a playoff game since 1997, and Phoenix posted four straight losing seasons before finishing one game above .500 in 2007-08. Poor management and a weak team will kill fan support, no matter what the overall interest in hockey is in a market; one need look no further than the sparse crowds at NHL games in Chicago, Long Island and Boston to see that (other examples include the significant drops in attendance in Pittsburgh and St. Louis when the Penguins and Blues were struggling). Let’s put it this way: if Ken Holland were in Atlanta, Lou Lamoriello were in Miami and Bob Gainey were in Phoenix, those teams would be faring better at the box office.

The strange thing is that, most die-hard Capitals fans must be able to relate to this attitude to a certain degree. While most of the Washington sports community was either mocking or ignoring the Capitals, the die-hards were the ones monitoring prospect rankings, checking statistics from Hershey and assessing the development of players most Washingtonians had never heard of. To have been in that position and then to see people who had derided the Capitals suddenly rush out buy Ovechkin jerseys and pledge allegiance to a team they’d been ambivalent at best towards for years can understandably inspire resentment and frustration, and at first fans who had been with the team through thick and thin were reluctant to let new fans into the club. But the attitude quickly dissipated. After all, the allure of hockey is unquestionable to us die-hards and it’s not the fault of others than they were a little late to the party.

This is the same position that many fans in colder climates and older markets face: the fear that their game will be corrupted by the same contingent that has, in many ways, turned the NFL from a sport to an entertainment novelty (if you don’t know what I mean, you’ve never heard of “Jacked Up!“). After all, the Hockey Night in Canada pregame show consists of commentators discussing the sport calmly in a living room type setting whereas NFL pregame shows often consist of former players shouting over one another and making bad jokes while a throng of already-drunk fans whoop it up behind them until the cutaway to a mediocre comedian’s thoughts on the day’s games. Couple this with the fact that hockey fans are more loyal and as must steeped in tradition as fans of any other sport and it’s not surprise the die-hards are wary of the influence of the sports-loving masses.

But to whatever degree this attitude is a detriment or a positive, the idea that it’s based primarily on geography is asinine: there are die-hards in Miami and Nashville, just as there are bandwagon jumpers in Calgary, Philadelphia and Buffalo. The club of NHL fans is expanding, and that is a good thing for the league and for the sport. The reasonable and mature thing for us long-term fans to do is to welcome new fans with open arms and a willingness to provide insights into the nuances of the game….provided, of course, that the new fans aren’t being drawn into the Sidney Crosby marketing machine and rooting for the Penguins.

Capitals 5, Oilers 4 (SO)

When your opponents’ powerplay is clicking and the referees are trigger-happy, you’re usually in for a long night and that’s exactly what the Capitals had to endure last night against the Oilers.

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Edmonton Oilers at Washington Capitals
Thursday, January 17th, 2008
Verizon Center in Washington, D.C.
Last Meeting: 10/28/2006, Capitals lose 4-0

Let’s be frank. The Capitals should win this game. Period.

They’re at home, just proved to the NHL they can beat top-flight opposition (four times without losing), and if it weren’t for the the shootout (or as Peerless calls it “Bettman’s gimmick”) the Oilers might just have the fewest points in the NHL.

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