Every sports team in existence will tell you “one game at a time.” It’s the oldest cliché in sports, but also the most accurate. You can’t get to tomorrow without today. That sort of thing. The other day I imagined how Jay Wright – maybe OGAAT’s biggest backer in this area – would instill this next season in a team now filled with pseudo-celebrities. I imagined how he would explain to them that winning another National Championship is possible, but doing so will require forgetting about the goal and focusing on the now. I thought it was a good speech, that I concocted in my head while driving.

Anyway, I don’t think Capitals coach Barry Trotz, whose team is about as reliable in the playoffs as Andy Reid during a two-minute drill, got the message what with XVI hats and t-shirts with a list of cities his team will have to go through. Few things:

  1. These things never work. Remember the Flyers’ 16 Knock, Knocks shirts a few years ago? How’d that work out?
  2. Talk about taking your eye off the here and now. For two months now, the Capitals have been dealing with questions about turning up their intensity come playoff time. So what better way to focus on ONE SHIFT AT A TIME, BOYS than by wearing hats counting the number of wins until a Stanley Cup. Are they going to wear XV hats if they win a game? Did they get a batch of 15 different styles made (16 would be the champs hat)? I don’t know.
  3. I love how the front of the shirt says Entitled To Nothing and then the back features a list of cities the Capitals may have to play in en route to their ostensible Stanley Cup. Here’s a shirt, jackasses: It has one word on the back– “Philly.” Anything else is irrelevant.

Flyers in 5. #WinForEd