If they don’t do something about the ice, you have to wonder if it will start to scare away potential free agents. If an FA look at what’s happened to Clark, Poti, Semin, etc. will they think twice about possibly jeapordizing their careers with a long-term injury? Poti’s comments were about as blunt a shot at management as I’ve heard a player make in a long time.

Its got to be something the Ted takes up with the scheduling at the VC.

A basketball game that doesn’t end until 3 hours before the players are warming up will never allow for good ice. The arena can never cool down enough for the ice to stay hard. It will only get worse as the Spring comes on.

I’m interested to see what if any response we get from the front office on this.

- Hey Pete, I need a favor.

- Sure Bruce, what do you need.

- If you do this for me, I’ll really owe you one. Look, can you give a quote to the press after the game? The ice here today is really awful, and I want to get some attention to it…

it is pretty bad that opposing coaches say our bad ice is helping them. so much for home ice advantage. I know that there are few more conflicts this year, but it is something that has to be addressed.

Well, Ted has just weighed in on his blog…

"I was concerned about the conditions of the ice last night as it was unseasonably warm and there was a Georgetown basketball game that went into OT in the afternoon. The building staff has to really hustle to get the ice in game ready condition when this happens.

I asked our coaches about it after the game and they weren’t as displeased as I would have thought although I just read Tom Poti’s comments and am very concerned.

We are truly working these matters. We are very detailed about what we need to do as to temperature, timing, humidity and the like.

One of the things we will have to consider doing is not having any activities on the ice between intermissions. That extra 2 to 3 minutes may help us treat the ice. We are looking into this as a development now as well.

We are on it as is the building. We are looking at issues such as the building scheduling basketball games on our afternoons too although Georgetown has a schedule and is a tenant in the building and pays rent. And while the building tries to schedule their games before Wizards games, coordinating NHL, NBA and NCAA is an art not a science.

We are doing our best. We are making progress but we want to have great ice NOT acceptable ice and I hear Tom Poti loud and clear."

1) Yeah Ted hears Poti ‘loud and clear’. We bet Tom will be getting an ear full of Fat Ted loud and clear to not make such statements publicly in the future.
2) This is far from the first caps player to make such statements as JP has been keen to remind us. Almost a year since the last such proclomation and nothing has changed.
3) Yeah it was warm yesterday for February, but its not like it was 95. No excuse for the ice being in this condition the rest of the year!

Another scheduling thought, and imagine that TV drives this, but why are games on Saturdays at 7? Especially when there is a game in the arena earlier in the day. Moving the game to 8 seems like an easy way to make a difference without any cost or infrastructure changes…

Also, DeBoer is right, it probably hurts the Caps more, except that we should all be thankful that major on Mo didn’t come at the start of the period and came at the end. Bad ice will hurt any powerplay more than it would hurt the kill.