Not Just an Ordinary Practice

One of my jobs here at OffWing is to cover several Caps practices over the course of the rest of the season. Well Saturday morning I took the Metro over to Ballston and made my way to the Kettler Capitals IcePlex, the Caps' practice facility. I knew it was open to the public, but wasn't expecting too many people there. When I arrived at 10:30, it was packed. About 100 fans were there to watch the practice and maybe get some autographs. I wandered around the rink looking for a good vantage spot to watch the practice. Eventually I settled on a spot almost directly behind the net. As the practice continued and people began to leave, I moved a few feet to my left. This would turn out to be a very good move.

The plexiglass I was initially standing behind had been struck hard by a puck earlier, which had resulted in a spiderweb-like maze of cracks radiating out from the point of contact. Towards the end of practice, after I had moved, most of the players had left the ice. But at my end Donald Brashear was still getting some work in, taking passes at the face-off circles from Assistant Coach Dean Evason in the corner and shooting them on the empty net. After several minutes of this, one of Brashear's shots whistled just past the top corner of the net, striking the cracked plexiglass pane next to me. The puck had hit the lower portion of the cracked area, and ended up knocking a jagged, triangular chunk out of the pane. The roughly square foot piece was knocked about 5 feet back from the boards and onto the floor next to me. Turns out practice isn't as boring as I thought it is.

Joe Dumas 09:33 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.ericmcerlain.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/7157

Comments

Post a comment