….so I will too.

Thanks to (1) getting older and smarter (2) the internet as a means of fact-checking and (3) the genius that is FireJoeMorgan.com, I have discovered the joys of bad sports journalism. And boy do we have a whopper today, in the form of a Hockey News blog entry by Mike Brophy that argues the Capitals should trade Alexander Ovechkin (or at least look into trading him).

Read what Peerless (The Peerless Prognosticator) and CapsChick (A View From the Cheap Seats) had to say.

The argument goes something like: The Capitals aren’t winning with Ovechkin and he’s not going to be happy there and Washington doesn’t deserve him, thus they should trade him in a deal reminiscent of the Lindros-for-the-world swap.

Now for the fun part: picking apart this argument bit-by-bit.

Point #1: Ovechkin is/will be unhappy in Washington: But what if Ovechkin doesn’t want to play in Washington any longer?

Why Point #1 is stupid: Despite the fantasies of some bigger/older hockey markets Ovechkin hasn’t said anything to indicate he is unhappy in Washington. He say he likes the team, likes the fans, likes the city, likes his teammates and likes the direction the franchise is headed. He has said he wished he played in front of bigger crowds, but I’m sure he know that when the Caps starting winning, the fans will come. Maybe writers in other hockey markets are hoping that if they keep saying Ovechkin wants out of D.C., Ovechkin will decide that’s the case.

Point #2: Washington doesn’t deserve Ovechkin. What if the young superstar tells the Caps he’d prefer to play someplace a little more cosmopolitan than Washington?

Why Point #2 is stupid: With its highly educated and highly skilled workforce, abundance of restaurants/bars and myriad of cultural opportunities (including many of the world’s best museums, which are free), Washington clearly doesn’t stack up in terms of cosmopolitan-ness, right? Naturally Ovechkin will want to go to some other cultural hotbed like Detroit, Buffalo, Edmonton or Raleigh. This statement by Brophy is one of those ones that’s so stupid it makes the whole article lose credibility. If anything, the fact that Washington is so cosmopolitan hurts the Capitals because there’s so much else to do.

Really though this just comes down to another point writers have been trying to make - Washington doesn’t deserve Ovechkin. Why is that? Because the Capitals haven’t won a Cup? Philly hasn’t won one since 1975; Toronto since 1967, but I’d bet no one would complain they don’t deserve Ovechkin. Because of low attendance? Over the last ten years the Capitals have outdrawn the Bruins six times, even though Washington has been terrible for several years. Yet, would anyone claim Boston is not enough of a hockey town to deserve a player like Ovechkin?

Just for the record here’s my cosmopolitan-ness rankings for NHL cities:
(1) New York
(2) Washington
(3) Toronto

Point #3: The Capitals aren’t going to win any time soon. Let’s face it, with Ovechkin in their lineup, the Capitals have shown no signs of being a playoff team.

Why Point #3 is stupid: The Capitals are five points out of a playoff spot and seven points out of the division lead and fifth spot in the East. They’re 7-4-2 since Boudreau took over. They have this year beaten Ottawa and Detroit, in Ottawa and Detroit, when each team was the best in the league.

Point #4: The Caps don’t have enough young talent/enough depth. Let’s face it, with Ovechkin in their lineup, the Capitals have shown no signs of being a playoff team…There are no guarantees re-signing Ovechkin will make the Capitals a successful franchise. In fact, if history has taught us anything, moving a young star just might be the best medicine for a struggling team…[discussion of Lindros trade]

Why Point #4 is stupid: No young talent? No depth on the team or in the farm system? Alexander Semin, Shaone Morrison, Boyd Gordon, Matt Pettinger, Nicklas Backstrom, Mike Green, Jeff Schultz, Karl Alzner, Josh Godfrey, Semen Varlamov, Michael Neuvirth, Chris Bourque, Francois Bouchard, Sasha Pokulok. Yeah, the Capitals need more young talent.

Point #5: The Capitals could get a haul similar to what the Nordiques got for Lindros. When the franchise was still located in Quebec, Eric Lindros put a gun to the team’s head, demanding a trade. The Nordiques considered a few options and ultimately traded Lindros for a package that included Peter Forsberg, Ron Hextall, Chris Simon, Mike Ricci, Kerry Huffman, Steve Duchesne, a first round draft pick and $15 million.

Why Point #5 is stupid: The Nordiques got six players for Lindros, $15 million and two first round picks. The six players were: a sure-fire Hall of Famer and probably the most dominant player in the league in his prime (Forsberg), a very good goalie (Hextall), a tough guy with some skill (Simon), a great defensive player with good offensive upside (Ricci), a solid defenseman (Huffman) and a great offensive defenseman (Duchesne).

Who even has that kind of talent in the NHL with the parity that exists? I’d say the best team in terms of young talent are Los Angeles and Pittsburgh. With that in mind I give you Mike Brophy’s potential trade ideas:

Ovechkin to Los Angeles for Kopitar (Forsberg), Johnathon Bernier (Hextall), Jack Johnson and Brad Stuart (Huffman and Duchesne), Alexander Frolov (Ricci) and…someone else who’s analogous to Simon. Oh yeah, and $15 million dollars, adjusted upwards for twenty years of inflation. And two first round draft picks.

Ovechkin to Pittsburgh for Malkin (Forsberg), Fleury (Hextall), Staal (Ricci), Orpik and Gonchar (Huffman and Duchesne), and again someone unknown who’s analogous to Simon. Oh yeah, and $15 million dollars, adjusted upwards for twenty years of inflation. And two first round draft picks.

What do you think, guys? Would Pittsburgh or L.A. go for it? I bet they would! Because handing over money and cost-controlled skilled youngsters is a formula for success in the salary cap era of the NHL! Oh, wait….

Plus, I still don’t think either of those trades would be as good as what Quebec got for Lindros.

Point #6: It would be a good idea for the Capitals. [whole article]

Why Point #6 is stupid: Washington’s fans are already skeptical of management’s commitment to win and whether the Capitals can achieve success and trading Ovechkin could deal a blow to the fan base that it may never recover from.

Conclusion: This article is stupid and Mike Brophy probably knows it. But it’s getting people to talk about it, write about it, and visit The Hockey News website.

So what do the Red Wings have to say after last night’s game? The Peerless Prognosticator has compiled a nice assortment here. I highly recommend it.

I’ve discovered a hockey-related pet peeve: when people use stupid derogatory names for opposing teams. Specifically I am referring to people called the Capitals the ‘craps’ or ‘crapitals’.

Now, I don’t have an inherent aversion to teasing teams or their fans by calling them something other than their actual name. I have no problem with people using the terms Rags (Rangers), Kitties (Panthers) or Fishsticks (Islanders). But ‘crapitals’ offends me. Not because I am a Capitals fan but because it brutalizes the English language because it is is such a bad pun. It’s not clever in any sense, it’s not a very inventive play on words and frankly, it’s childishly crude. Again this isn’t because I’m a Capitals fan - I get almost as irritated when people refers to Atlanta as the ‘Trashers’ (it’s just as bad a pun but it doesn’t have the fourth-grade level ’slight crudeness=funny’ aspect to it so it doesn’t bug me as much).

What got me thinking aout this was actually Facebook (yes, I am young enough that Facebook was a must-have for the end of my undergraduate career). After friending Ted Leonsis (seriously) and seeing he had the Washington Capitals Fan application, I added it. This little thing lets you discuss the Capitals, post articles, etc. One of the features is “Smack Talk”, that matches fans of each team against one another on a common page in the days leading up to a head-to-head match-up and basically lets them rip into each other. A more depressing thing I have not seen on the internet in a long while.

What you might have hoped for would be (relatively) good-natured ribbing: teasing about Mike Green’s haircut, arena quality, jerseys, and so on. Rather it quickly turned into people making baseless assertions (one person referred to the “skill and teamwork” of a group of players that included Ryan Hollweg and Jagr; another said Kolzig was one of the best goalies in the NHL) and personally attacking other people and the cities they lived in (often with rampant profanity) and the constant use of the term “gay” as an insult (another pet peeve of mine). I was actually considering going back and looking up some comments and posting them here but honestly I was afraid it would just depress me.

But once I started to look on the bright side it made me realize how lucky the NHL, and the Capitals, are to have such an active and intelligent blogosphere. Sure, there are still blowhards and jerks out there, but they’re less likely to muck things up and they’re less likely to survive, since a blog that’s just profane complaining and insults isn’t going to get read and isn’t going to last very long. People who have nothing to contribute but clichés, insults and wishes of bodily harm to players they would love if they wore the right sweater but instead hate and who take the game more seriously than the players who play in it are either forced to adapted or are weeded out. Intelligent discourse reigns in the blogosphere.

We Capitals fans are lucky to have so many intelligent, devoted and insightful fans who are willing to share their thoughts with the rest of us and make being a Capitals fan a little bit more interesting and fun every day. Thank you, CapsChick, Peerless, JP, Shmee, Mark, those at On Frozen Blog and all the other Capitals bloggers out there who are helping make the internet what it can be: a forum for intelligent and passionate discussion, rather than a place for people to take out their frustrations about life in general at others from behind the anonymity and protection of a keyboard.