Your savory breakfast links:
- Bruce Boudreau threw out the ceremonial first pitch at last night’s Nats game (video), and here’s a shot of him signing baseballs beforehand (wait – the Nats didn’t retire Ryan Church‘s #19?). [@paulrovnak]
- Of course, Boudreau was a heck of a baseball player growing up, and nearly signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Buy the book and read about it.
- More Gabby (video of his WPL appearance), with an interesting note – Anton Gustafsson is already in town. [Capitals Insider]
- One last Bruce note – on a week in August in which Stephen Strasburg signed and Skins pre-season is in full swing, he’s fourth in “buzz” among local sports figures. [Washington Times]
- It continues to not suck to be Alex Ovechkin. [Championat.tv via Caps Message Board]
- Further to that end, “When asked where Ovechkomania is more evident: in the US or in Russia, Ovechkin said: ‘At my dacha.'” Jesus. [@dchesnokov]
- All that aside, AO knows it’s time to get down to business: “My vacation is over, now I will have a pre-olympic camp at the end of August and then I will fly to Washington.” [Alex Ovetjkin]
- Ron Lalonde was an original Cap and played 291 games for the team over five seasons. He chatted about it, and more, with Vogs. [Caps365 (video)]
- The Caps introduced their “Caps at School” program in which kids will learn math using AO’s stats (though I’m not sure “8>87” is sound mathematics), reading from Chris Clark, some hippie crap from Matt Bradley, and how to be healthy and active from Mike Green. That last note, by the way, isn’t a punchline. [Capitals.com]
- John Carlson will likely be wearing a Caps sweater on February 27, but will it be in Hershey or D.C.? [HersheyBears.com]
- If you’re waiting on a Trade Deadline deal to fill-in whatever holes you think the Caps might have, here’s a list of 2010’s top UFA’s who might be in play. [The Hockey News]
- Apparently Caps and Wings bloggers have “a complete ignorance of the game of hockey” (writes the guy who wrote this). [NHL Home Ice]
- A really great interview with one of our heroes, Allan Ryder, on the use of advanced statistics in hockey. Money quote: “The holy grail of sports analytics is a good attribution of team success to individual players.” I’m in love. [Cult of Hockey]
- The NHL has a new fan site chock full of all manner of technology where they call SB Nation “the largest… network of fan-centric blogs.” Does this browser make the site look fat? [NHL Fans]