What has DC done to deserve this???

The Capitals, had a very roller coaster season that included an 8 game losing streak that ended very smiler to last season with an Eastern Conference "Regular Season" Championship.  They entered the playoffs just like last season, with the #1 seed and the belief of all the "Hockey's Whos-Whos" that the Capitals would make it to the Stanley Cup Finals.  Showing some signs of struggle in the first series, including going down 3-0 in the 2nd period in game 4, a game in which had the Rangers won, would have tied the series at a 2-2 tie.  They would rally back and win 4-3 in OT.  I suggested on twitter (@jbsully) at that point that Bruce boudreau might wanna pull up the ol' resume and start fine tuning when he gets home.  Those same signs of weakness took center stage in the next round against the Tampa Bay Lightning.  The Capitals struggled to stop the perceived lesser offense of the Lightning and it all came to a swift halt in 4 games last night in Tampa Bay. I could go into some analysis and try to show some hockey knowledge but that isn't what this particular blog is about...

This post is about how DC, the District of Columbia, Washington DC, The Capital, The Hockey District, Chocolate City and the Home of the Hungriest Fans in the Country have been so horribly wronged by each of our sports teams.

We, as a city haven't won a Championship since the Washington Redskins won the super Bowl in 1991.  We had won another 2 Super Bowls within 10 years prior as well.  The Washington Bullets(Now NBA's Washington Wizards) won the NBA Championship in the 1977-1978 season.  So to even remotely remember that you would have to essentially be 42-45 years old.  THATS IT! We got nothing else! This isn't the City of Champions that Pittsburgh is.  We aren't New York, LA, Chicago or Boston.  All of those cities have loads of championships spread out over loads of different sports.

Now sure, I feel very good about having an exciting team to watch in the Capitals who are going to make sure the entire season is a blast to watch.  Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Nick Backstrom, Mike Green and loads of other talent SEEMS to be set to be competitors for years to come.  Hopefully growing and maturing and getting beyond their youthful woes that have led to back-to-back early playoff exits.  As exciting as they have been, sooner or later they will need to put it all together and win in the playoffs or they will quickly lose this entire city that has come to love them as they seem to be our only hope to give us that elusive championship.

We only just became lucky enough to get a baseball team in the Nationals.  They came from the horrible Montreal Expos but have put together a pretty smart group of people who seem to be putting together a FUTURE competitor.  The likes of Danny Espinosa, Wilson Ramos, Ryan Zimmerman and the two young phenoms Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburgh give all of us great reason to have hope for upcoming seasons of POTENTIAL winning.

Now our perennial loser, the Wizards.  The Wizards are primed to go heavy youth under the ownership of Ted Leonsis, the same owner of the Capitals who guided this heavy youth movement.  they seem to be making smiler moves by building from the draft with the likes of Nick Young, JaVale McGee and John Wall.  They will have another lottery pick this year and should be in line to start to put some things together so they can finally make some sort of playoff push of their own, BUT until this point we have seen absolutely nothing from them.

And finally the Washington Redskins, the jewel of the district, and the heart of the our entire tri-state area(minus those tools in Baltimore - Really easy to cop out and run from the Skins when the other team up the beltway established themselves as winners).  I have to blame Daniel Snyder and if you've ever read my blog in regards to the Skins, then you know that I almost exclusively blame Snyder as we haven't REALLY won much of anything except for offseason titles since he took over the ownership back in the mid 90s.  If and when this team finally starts to put it together, we as a city will be all aboard.

There is your backstory... how often does a backstory take up 90% of a blog, I have no idea ;) Needless to say, I really want to know what it was that caused such a ferocious black cloud to plant itself above this sports city.  We're great fans who support through thick and thin. Yet still we cannot seem to get over the hump and the team that we placed all of our hopes and dreams upon was just swept in the 2nd round.  Do we fire a coach? Do we trade some pieces?? I have no clue and as much as I love to play armchair GM, I don't know what I would do in this situation.  ...I usually do.  I just want a winner in DC.

For your enjoyment, he are a couple picks from my most recent brewing session with my brother Adam.