There's A First Time For Everything

Let's go back in time, particularly to the early 1900s and before then. Women didn't play much of a role, expect for being housewives and mothers. 100 years later, women are now being represented more and more in jobs, especially in a league that is predominantly ruled by men.

There are two notable women that recently made history. Melanie Newman and Suzie Cool are the radio play-by-play and color announcers for the Salem Red Sox, the Advanced-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. They made history by being the first women to do both duties in the radio booth in all of professional baseball. There are still women that work in various roles in other organizations but these two are part of a really special type of history. Last Tuesday, I had the one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to interview both of them for the NBC affiliate in Boston, as well as for NBC4 here in DC. 

They are both still relatively young and just starting the opening stages of their careers. They both had really good stories and show really great passion for the game of baseball not only in their careers, but also in their personal lives. I wish them nothing but the best and hope this takes them farther into their careers for years to come!

Defending Champs Go Down

What do you think of when you hear the words "Game 7"? Are you excited, stressed, a little bit of both? For most Capitals fans, hearing those words more than likely stresses them out.

After leading the first round series against the Carolina Hurricanes 2-0, then losing 2 in a row in Carolina, winning Game 5 at home in dominating fashion, then losing in Carolina AGAIN, the Caps went into Wednesday's Game 7 hoping for the Capital One Arena faithful to give them a spark leading into the next series against former coach Barry Trotz and the New York Islanders.

After a pretty dominating 1st period leading 2-0 and then leading 3-1 for part of the 2nd period thanks to the first goals of the series by star players Andre Burakovsky and Evgeny Kuznetsov, Carolina rocked the Caps like a hurricane, scoring 3 unanswered goals and ended up winning the game and the series 4-3 in double overtime on a Brock McGinn goal and the Carolina Hurricanes advanced to the second round against the Islanders, while the Caps were eliminated in the first round for the first time in a few seasons.

We will see if the Caps can rebound and have better success next year, but it looks like the Carolina Hurricanes are an up and coming team for years to come.

Big Sparks

After a tough two games in Raleigh, NC, the Caps came back to Capital One Arena last night hoping their fans would power their confidence towards a victory after the Carolina Hurricanes, who haven't hosted and even been in the playoffs since the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals, absolutely dominated the defending champs in their home arena.

Reports over the weekend came out that TJ Oshie will miss the remainder of the Stanley Cup Playoffs after undergoing surgery to repair a broken collarbone. That didn't stop the star player from cheering on his team from outside the arena, tweeting to his fans to be loud and root on the home team.That motivation from Oshie seemed to really help the Caps and their fans.

The player that took Oshie's spot on the roster was Devante Smith-Pelly, one of the heroes from the Stanley Cup run last year. He made his return to the lineup for the first time since February, after being sent down to the AHL because of somehow struggling this season. That was another sort of a spark.

Spoiler alert: with both of those things mentioned, the Caps really played a dominating game in their return home last night, winning by a 6-0 score. Nicklas Backstrom was a big reason for the win, scoring the Caps' first 2 goals and assisting on 2 more.

Game 6 will take place tomorrow night back in Raleigh. Let's hope the Caps can close it out. Otherwise, they will be back here Wednesday night for Game 7.

Struggling Champs

After winning the first two games at home, the Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes moved down to Raleigh with the Caps up 2-0 in this best-of-7 series. After a 10-year drought without playoff hockey in the Carolinas, the crowd at PNC Arena at Raleigh was expected to be loud. Well, it was just that and then some.

After sweeping the regular season series from Carolina 4-0 and winning these first two playoff games in DC, momentum was expected to be in the Caps favor shifting to another location, due to their extensive history of playoff experience. It looked like the complete opposite of that. Game 3 was absolutely dominated by the Hurricanes by a 5-0 shutout led by two goals apiece from third year player Warren Foegele and veteran Dougie Hamilton, along with a very underwhelming 18 shots by the Caps, in which all of them were saved by goalie Petr Mrazek.

After Game 3, the Caps had two days off between games. The first day off, they didn't even hit the ice, which was a good thing for the team to recharge their batteries for a day before hitting the ice for practice the next day in preparation for Game 4.

Speaking of Game 4, the Capitals played a lot better than Game 3, but still struggled a little bit. The aforementioned Warren Foegele scored only 17 seconds into the entire game, then Caps Captain Alex Ovechkin scored to tie it in the second and then at the end of the second period, Carolina took the lead and never looked back, winning 2-1 and evened the series 2-2 going back to DC. It also got even worse for the Caps, as star right winger TJ Oshie broke his collarbone in the 3rd period of Game 4 and will miss the remainder of the playoffs.

Stay tuned for a recap of Game 5.

Back On Top

I am not much of a golf fan at all. In fact, I don't really watch it because it is one of the slowest paced sports out there, even though some people put up arguments for baseball being really slow. One of the more notable individuals that plays golf is Tiger Woods. He has been back and forth in and out of golf for personal troubles, as well as some issues with being healthy.

This weekend, Woods participated in this year's Masters Tournament at Augusta National and had a really successful weekend. In fact, it was so successful, Woods won his first Major golf event since 2008 and his first Master's since 2005. It was long overdue for the longtime pro and when he sunk that last shot at the Master's, the crowd went absolutely wild, as well as his family, who were in attendance to cheer them on.

There are individuals that dislike Woods because of his personal issues. From cheating on his wife, to being arrested for driving under the influence of drugs, a lot of people were done with him. He also had a lot of nagging back issues that weren't helping at all. Now, that has all come to and end and he is now back on top of the golfing world for the first time in a long time. Congrats to Tiger!

Defending Champs Are Rocking!

For the first time in franchise history, the Washington Capitals enter the Stanley Cup Playoffs as the defending champions! It was something long overdue for the team from the capital of the United States. As legendary NHL broadcaster Mike "Doc Emrick" said when the Caps clinched the cup in Game 5 of last year's Stanley Cup Playoffs, "The capital of the country is the capital of the hockey playoffs!"

The Caps' first round opponent, the Carolina Hurricanes, are back in the playoffs for the first time since 2009, when they lost to the then-eventual champion Penguins in the Eastern Conference Finals. There is no current player on Carolina's roster that was on that playoff team. However, their coach, Rod Brind'Amour, was. In his first year as an NHL head coach, Brind'Amour led Carolina to a 46-29-7 regular season record and the first Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

 As for the Caps, their head coach, Todd Reirden, is a former assistant of Stanley Cup winning head coach Barry Trotz. Reirden was promoted to head coach after Barry Trotz became the head coach of the New York Islanders this offsesason. As for Reirden, he lead the Caps to a 48-26-8 record, good for first in the Metropolitan Division.

After the first 2 playoff games in this series, the Caps have won both games. Game 1, they won 4-2 and yesterday in Game 2, they won 4-3 in OT. Both games have been very competitive and physical on both sides so as this series shifts down to Carolina, it will continue to be very competitive.

To the Ice Round 1

It is hard to believe it has almost been a year since the Washington Capitals won their first Stanley Cup! We are 3 days away from the start of this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Caps however, will start on Thursday night.

Here is a look at the First Round Matchups. In the Eastern Conference, the President's Trophy winning Tampa Bay Lightning will take on the Columbus Blue Jackets, the defending champion Capitals will take on the Carolina Hurricanes, the Boston Bruins will take on the Toronto Maple Leafs in a rematch of last year's opening round and the New York Islanders will take on the Pittsburgh Penguins.

In the Western Conference: the Calgary Flames will take on the Colorado Avalanche, the Nashville Predators will take on the Dallas Stars, the Winnipeg Jets will take on the St. Louis Blues and the San Jose Sharks will take on the Vegas Golden Knights.

Here are my predictions:

Eastern Conference
Lightning over Blue Jackets in 4
Caps over Hurricanes in 5
Maple Leafs over Bruins in 7
Islanders over Penguins in 7

Western Conference
Flames over Avalanche in 5
Predators over Stars in 5
Blues over Jets in 6
Golden Knights over Sharks in 7

Unpleasant Return

When Bryce Harper made his return to DC Tuesday night as a member of the Phillies, the big question was would he get cheers or would he get booed? Especially with him signing with one of the Nationals' biggest rivals about 3 hours north.

To answer that question, mostly boos, from the Nationals fans. However, there were a great amount of cheers, but it was from the busfuls of Phillies fans that made the trip down to see Harper's return to DC in person. To me, it didn't seem like an early season game, it felt like an early October game being played in April because of how loud the stadium and fans were! It was so loud, everyone could hear how loud the boos were in the press box!

I got to witness everything in person as part of the media and it was fun. I went to Harper's press conference, which seemed pretty heartfelt to me, from him talking about his memories in DC, to going to his favorite restaurants when he got back into town. After the press conference was over and shadowing 3 different sports segments, while toughing it out in the rain wearing my brand new suit, I made my way up to the press box to watch the game. What an experience! I saw a great game until I left in the 6th inning and that was when the good stuff occurred. Harper homered against his former team and the Phillies blew out the Nats in the end.

If this is a sign of how this season is going to go, imagine how it's going to be over the next 13 years under Harper's contract in Philadelphia.