Holy Crap Capitals Games Are Expensive

Like shockingly so. For a franchise that has all of one Stanley Cup Final appearance in four decades, no championships and really very little historic greatness to speak of, it is amazing how much they can charge for a marquee game at the Verizon Center.

Then again, I guess they do have this guy.

I found this much out this week as I painstakingly monitored eBay auctions and kept a watch on Stubhub to guarantee that I might actually get to sit somewhere in the crowd for this Sunday's Blackhawks-Capitals game, a game I had pegged since past summer as my preferred visit at long last to see the Caps play hockey. I was hoping I might be able to swindle the ducats through work, but when that avenue dried up I had to resort to the secondary market to find that the Capitals, last year's Presidents' Trophy winners, have instituted a tiered pricing system for this season to get more money out of the more desirable matchups.

I don't really have a problem with this. After all, the Mets and just about every other Major League Baseball team has the same system, but for some reason it didn't occur to me that a game against the defending Stanley Cup Champions, which could very well serve as a preview of this spring's Stanley Cup Final would be one of those pricier games.

And boy howdy is it pricey.

I had anticipated that a markup would cause me to part with somewhere between $40-50 for a spot in the upper deck, but after looking at eBay auctions aplenty, I found that this would be nearly impossible and that face value for upper deck seats for this particular game -- behind the goal -- is $95. That's almost $100 to watch from the nosebleeds for a regular season game. Egads.

Now granted, I understand the magnitude of this Sunday's matchup. Both teams are suddenly on incredibly hot tears and happen to have some fo the best young players in the World, one who is younger than me and has already captained a Stanley Cup champion, and another who is younger than me, might be the best player on the planet and appears to have way more fun than I do.

That said, I really didn't want to pay $95 for a ticket, and it took some emotional convincing to finally find tickets that, while overpriced to start with, were still somewhat reasonable considering. In the end last night I purchased a pair of seats in section 407 for a total of $147.50, which, working out to $73.75 each, is technically lower than face value even if it is outrageous. Of course, there were some sticky issues with this. First of all, they're print out e-tickets, and for purposes of building up my personal collection of entertaining ticket stubs, I loathe e-tickets when it's my first time seeing a team.

I managed to convince the original ticket owner to mail me his hard tickets afterward so that I can keep them as a souvenir, so on that front all is well. But because this person obviously had season tickets they aren't victim to ills of tiered pricing which means they pay a flat average rate for each game over the course of the year, and that rate happens to be far lower than face value for this game if you bought it individually, and that rate -- which is a mere $29 -- happens to be plastered in the top left corner of my printed out e-tickets. This begs the question on how I can justify asking a friend to pay me back for all or even part of their ticket when it was more than twice what is listed on the ticket itself.

Conundrums abound.But it could be worse. After all, I still get to see this guy for the first time.



Of course, while I will be seeing two of the hotter teams in the League this Sunday for Team No. 39, I won't be seeing the hottest team, which of course remains the New Jersey Devils who are humming along after cutting down the current deficit to 8 points with 17 games remaining after a 20-2-2 stretch in their last 24 games. The miracle run is still alive, although some jerk is spreading doom and gloom about the Devils' legitimate postseason prospects, but lately talk has sprung up from some experts that New Jersey is not just a possible playoff participant, but a certain one. Even if the Devils don't make the impossible possible, some are saying, in my mind legitimately, that Jacques Lemaire should still be considered for coach of the year.

My guess is that unless New Jersey makes the playoffs, the award will go to Tampa Bay's Guy Boucher, but in any event, watching the Devils right now is a lot of fun -- something it hasn't been for a while.

Finally, and in news that none of you will care about other than me, something else that I haven't been able to watch for a while, Aussie Rules Football, is just over two weeks away from starting its season, and after finding this picture on the twitters yesterday, I'm hopeful there might be a new fan. Yes, that's President Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard testing out their best handballs with an authentic footy, known by many fans as a "Sherrin" in the oval office during a state visit by the Aussie head of state. Gillard, as I've mentioned before, apparently has quite the knack for prognostication when it comes to footy, and rumor has it she's an enormous Western Bulldogs supporter. During the visit she gave Obama a cultural education that, according to Barry, nearly cost the U.S. goverment a bust of Abe Lincoln.

Surely that's a joke, just like the price I paid for my tickets for this weekend. But either way, it should be a good visit, if for no other reason than to scratch a team off the list. And apparently it'll be a good visit for the Blackhawks even if they don't wind up coming away from the Verizon Center with two points Sunday. They may not have a Sherrin, but they have a big silver bowl. As a result, they get a day with the President, too.

Anyone Notice That The Devils Are Kind Of Really Good Right Now?

I am faced with a massive quandary as a Devils fan right now. In what has been a trying season -- New Jersey has spent most of the season with the League's worst record -- my team is suddenly hot as a pistol and making a wild, bizarre run at the final playoff spot in the East. That playoff spot is still a far, far ways off, but it's an awful lot closer than it used to be. Last night, New Jersey trailed in the third period in Toronto before Ilya Kovalchuk pushed himself end-to-end and fired a game-winner past James Reimer in the waning seconds of overtime.

And just like that the deficit was down to 13.

Now that may not seem like the most exciting revelation. After all, New Jersey is still third to last in the Eastern conference. But that 13-point deficit was 24 points not so long ago, and with 27 games remaining there is ample time for that deficit to start dropping bit by bit. In fact, that win over Toronto Thursday night has pushed New Jersey's mark to 11-1-2 in its last 14 games, which easily makes them the hottest team in the League at the moment. Thursday night was the Devils' second consecutive overtime victory after defeating the Hurricanes in OT Tuesday at The Rock -- a game I was actually in attendance for -- and it now may have the New Jersey building the adequate momentum to make a serious run at the final postseason seed.

The win in Toronto also put coach Jacques Lemaire in the 600-win club, a feat that was written up by some anonymous lackey at NHL.com.

Lemaire's accomplishments are a pivotal part of the story, of course. The man who led the Devils to their first Stanley Cup Championship in 1995, has showed a remarkable ability to get the most out of his teams -- as he did with the Devils a season ago in what was expected to be a one-season return to the Garden State before moving on into retirement. What he has done so far this season, however, may eclipse anything else he's done. New Jersey was 9-22-2 when Lemaire was brought in to replace company man John MacLean on Dec. 23. At that point the idea of a playoff run was well off the team's radar -- and in likelihood it still is. Instead for the Lemaire, the challenge was to remind the players that not only were they professionals, but they were expected to be Stanley Cup contenders when the season began.

Rediscovering the Devils' confidence under Lemaire has been a rough process -- New Jersey went 1-7-0 in its first eight games following the coaching change, culminating in a home-and-home sweep at the hands of the hated Flyers. Since then, there has been a change, however. And the results have been staggering.



New Jersey was 27 points behind eighth-place Montreal on Jan. 9. In 14 games, the deficit has been halved.

With 27 games remaining there is certainly time for the Devils to get closer and closer, and while they would likely have to continue playing at the same remarkable pace of the past month, fans like myself have slowly started to believe that anything is possible. So why not?

Well, probability is one reason to believe why not. Cool Standings as of today still lists the Devils' chances of making the postseason this year at less than .1%, and I generally find a reliance on numbers and statistics to be the likely outcome in the long run. But without knowing the actual math they use, I'm not sure they can account for intangibles like momentum, but I can also attest, mathematically speaking, to a belief in regression to the mean and the law of larger numbers. All season long the Devils have been playing beneath their expectations and their talent level, but the larger the sample size -- in this case, 82 games -- the more likely the Devils' final record should approach their expected performance this season.

Now the Devils were expected to compete for a division title against the likes of defending-Eastern Conference Champion Philadelphia and 2009 Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh. While the chances of winding up in that race are just about nil, sneaking into the postseason with the final seed, if this team continues to return to its expected level performance over the long haul, certainly doesn't seem all that outlandish to me.

So that aforementioned quandary is this. Do I lament the likely loss of the Devils first potential top-five draft pick in decades, which could be used to patch a number of holes? Or do I get behind the improbable comeback?

Is it likely? Probably not. In fact, earlier this week I decided that I would wait until New Jersey had closed the gap to 10 points, and that it would have to happen by the 61st game of the season, before I fully invested myself emotionally in the prospect of the Devils making a stunning and unlikely playoff run. But with five games and only three points to go before that threshold, I'm starting to believe. It's only been a month of this season that the team has actually shown any signs of life, but now they're as lively as can be. And if they knock off the hottest team in the West in Newark tonight, (though I should note tonight's Chicago-Dallas game is also pretty intriguing as this preview attests) things could really get interesting.

And then I'd really start to believe that it's possible. In the end, short of a Championship, believing, in any season, is all you can really hope for.

NFL Picks Week Sixteen: In Which I Forget Week Fifteen

Let me tell you all, I have had a doozy of a week so far and once you're done reading through that riveting Senators-Predators preview you're reading I'm going to tell you all about it. Ok, good. Yes, I know things could be worse, and in general life is fine, but some of you might have noticed that I didn't write for a whole week, and that is because when some awful, horrifying, unexpected, gut-wrenching things happen you are left speechless.

I am without speech. Still.

Sunday's colossal debacle against the Eagles, which saw the Giants go from likely No. 2 seed to playoff life support in a matter of seven and a half minutes is not something that I have yet been able to comprehend or grasp. In fact, I'm still not able to speak about it out loud with thoughts of anger and depression over what could have been. Granted, the Giants aren't exactly done. If they defeat the Packers this Sunday they'll have clinched a berth and will still have an outside chance of winning the No. 5 seed lottery to face whatever dung pile "wins" the NFC West, but should Big Blue not come through in Green Bay they'll need help on the final day of the season.

And ain't all that just a bit angst-inducing?

Well, yeah. It is. I do like New York's chances since Aaron Rodgers, while he is expected to be under center for the Pack, is still coming off a concussion that one would have to think leaves him a little woozy, no? I guess we'll find out on Sunday.

After the Giants game I was unable to think or comprehend anything. After all, only two other games, the blown 24-point lead against San Francisco in the 2002 playoffs, and Super Bowl XXXV come close to the gut punch this game delivered. But as I always tell myself, I can handle the depression with the greatest upset in football history in my back pocket.

Of course, that was just the start of a week that has quickly entered a downward spiral.

To make the pain worse, my fantasy football team decided to score all of one touchdown in the semifinals which robbed me of a potentially hefty payday. That one, I'm sure, matters to a lot of you.

But I had an ace up my sleeve. After two full years without seeing a Northwestern basketball game in person, the Wildcats were coming to Madison Square Garden this week, giving me the chance to see a squad that was one of eight remaining undefeateds in the country and just might be the one that finally breaks NU's hex of missing the NCAA Tournament. Of course, it was difficult to feel as though Northwestern's place in March was assured given it had played a non-conference schedule that a group of fifth-graders could probably finish at least .500 against. Still, like clockwork, the Cats took out St. Francis on Monday night with me and some 2,000 other of my closest friends watching.

All was well and good. Until Tuesday.

Before I go into the game itself, allow me to warn any of you from ever leaving a ticket at Will Call in Madison Square Garden. I had two unused tickets Tuesday, and after leaving one for my friend Kristen at Will Call, a homeless man asked if he could have any ticket to the game I could spare and feeling as if there were worse crimes in the world than letting a homeless man see a basketball game, I obliged him. This wound up biting me in the ass at halftime when Kristen showed up and called me with the revelation that MSG had lost my ticket. To make matters worse, the supervisor in charge of will call insisted that without a ticket there was nothing he could do. I'm fairly certain that really he just didn't want to help.

He's a big man after all.

After harassing the supervisor long enough, one of the will call employees, realizing that dozens of tickets which would not be used were still sitting on the table, simply handed Kristen one, prompting the supervisor to smugly chirp, "See? Everything works out."

I hope he's never known the touch of a woman without paying for it.

In any event, with Kristen in the building and Northwestern holding a halftime lead against St. John's, everything seemed nice and fine until the Wildcats suddenly forgot how to shoot and Luka Mirkovic forgot out to play defense in the paint. One unexpected loss to a team expected to be a nonfactor later and suddenly Northwestern's perfect record had a blemish that just may keep them from dancing in three months.

So all that was pretty bad. Then last night I got the flu. So everything's going great. Amazingly, the most normal thing that seems to be happening is that the Devils fired coach John MacLean this morning and brought in Jacques Lemaire for a third tour behind the bench. Then again, GM Lou Lamoriello goes through about seven coaches a season anyway.

Alright, time for some picks.

Last week: 6-10-0
Season: 110-105-10

PITTSBURGH (-15) over Carolina
Dallas (-7) over ARIZONA
NY Giants (+3) over GREEN BAY
New England (-9) over BUFFALO
NY Jets (+1) over CHICAGO
Baltimore (-4) over CLEVELAND
KANSAS CITY (-5) over Tennessee
ST. LOUIS (-2) over San Francisco
Detroit (+4) over MIAMI
JACKSONVILLE (-7) over Washington
San Diego (-8) over CINCINNATI
Houston (-3) over DENVER
Indianapolis (-3) over OAKLAND
TAMPA BAY (-6) over Seattle
Minnesota (+14) over PHILADELPHIA
ATLANTA (-3) over New Orleans

There you have it folks. Hopefully next week is better. Oh, and Merry Christmas.