March 12, 2008 – Washington, DC
Having visited many of the teams in the Western Conference, as they are closer to Calgary and easier to get to, we decided it was time to head East and see some of the teams that even the Flames themselves don’t see very often. The problem with planning a road trip to see the Flames play in the East is that you need to travel a long distance to do so, and then they usually only play one or two games before returning to Calgary or the West. It often isn’t practical to fly four or five hours to see one or two games. This year’s schedule however, afforded us an opportunity to hit the road for four games. The plan was to fly to Toronto and rent a car. From there, we would drive to Washington DC, Atlanta, back North to Chicago, over to Columbus and finally back to Toronto. All said, I had estimated the entire trip would cover 5000km, 14 states, nine days, four arenas and a hell of a lot of fast food joints.
We arrived in Toronto late in the evening, and had planned to drive to Washington, DC through the night. We’d arrive in the capital early in the morning, catch a nap, and then head into the city to do some sightseeing before the game. Of course, things don’t always work out as planned. We hit a snowstorm outside of Erie, Pennsylvania at about 2:00 in the morning. Our speed fell to under 30MPH as our visibility was reduced to almost nothing. Realizing it was fruitless to continue, we checked into a motel in Meadville, PA, stopping over a few hours, hoping the snow would clear. We continued our trek in the morning under sunny skies, passing through Maryland and West Virginia, and arrived in “DC” in the early afternoon, only a few hours behind schedule. After checking into our hotel, we jumped onto the subway and headed for city center.
We emerged from the subway right in the middle of the Mall, near the Washington Monument. By this time we only had about an hour before we needed to be at the arena, so it ended up being a rushed mini-tour of the many sights to be seen. The Washington Monument is something we’ve all seen in countless movies and TV shows, so it was neat to see from that perspective. It also holds the distinction of being the tallest building in the capital. From there we ran, okay jogged, okay walked quickly past the World War II memorial to the Reflecting Pool, which stretches to the Lincoln Memorial (you might remember it from Forrest Gump). After a few quick snapshots, we headed to the White House, about three blocks away. On our way there as we waited to cross the street, wearing our Flames jerseys, at the height of rush hour, I heard someone yell, “Stampeders Suck!” This was one of the last things I expected to hear standing on a street corner in Washington DC. Looking around, we spotted a man and woman across the street in Roughrider t-shirts. We exchanged waves as the light changed and went on our separate ways.
As we approached Pennsylvania Avenue, police sirens began to sound and policemen filled the streets of the intersection. Suddenly, through the police, a motorcade consisting of four black Suburbans, 12 motorcycles and two limousines roared by, coming from the direction of the White House. The convoy was gone in under 20 seconds, the police disappeared back into the crowds of rush hour and everything returned to normal. Through later investigation, I found it was not the President as he was out of town at the time, but it was obviously someone of some importance.
We arrived in front of the White House for some obligatory pictures, and marvelled at its location. In the movies or on television, it appears to have massive sprawling gardens around the house, almost making it seem like it is in some acreage community on the outskirts of town. In reality, it is in the center of downtown. While the gardens or lawns are larger than the average home, they are not the sprawling, Xanadu-type yards I had been expecting. The security of the White House was also something to see. More obvious things were the snipers walking the roof of the house, and the overhead helicopter surveillance. Less noticeable was the absence of garbage cans, manhole covers, or storm drains within two blocks of the house. My own idea of home security, which consists of leaving the upstairs light on and double checking that the door is locked, suddenly felt inadequate. Having seen the President’s home, it was then time to head to the Verizon Center. The arena is only about five blocks away, and a simple walk from the White House. With such a convenient location, I wonder why the President doesn’t take in more games.
The Verizon Center is located in the heart of Chinatown in Washington’s downtown. The arena goes from sidewalk to sidewalk on all four sides, and is surrounded by shops and restaurants. To incorporate the arena into Chinatown, the outside signage has ‘Verizon Center’ in Mandarin as well as English. Unlike most of the other arenas we had been to, the Verizon Center was not surrounded by parking lots, nor was it off in a dark corner of an underused industrial park; it was smack in the middle of the city, surrounded by office buildings, hotels, galleries, shops, restaurants and, uniquely Washington, foreign embassies. It is a great location for an arena, and something I’d like to see for Calgary if the Dome was ever replaced.
We entered the arena across the street from the National Portrait Gallery, and began our customary tour of the concourse. The Verizon Center is very similar to most new arenas, with wide, well-lit, clean and organized concourses and tunnels. The concessions, for the most part, were serving standard things like nachos, hot dogs and the like. One unique shop however, was the fitness centre located within the arena, and accessible from the street. Vida Fitness is a full service gym, with weight room, cardio, yoga studios, Japanese soak tubs and more. It seems like an odd thing to have in an arena, I guess a pre-game workout might help burn off the above mentioned hot dogs and nachos.
The seating bowl at the Verizon Center is also fairly standard with two levels of luxury suites, and club seating in between those. The rafters in the Verizon Center are particularly bare, as neither the Capitals nor the Wizards (ne Bullets) have had much success over the years. We made our way to our seats, which were located in the 2nd row behind Olaf Kolzig’s net, in time for the National Anthems. I found the tickets on eBay, where we paid $50 per ticket, despite a $76 face value. It’s always hard to believe you can get tickets in the lower bowl for under $100, and that you can buy tickets on eBay for less than face value. Such is hockey in the United States.
This was our first game seeing Ovechkin, so we were keen to see if he lived up to the hype of being the most exciting player in the NHL. The Caps opened the scoring only 56 seconds into the game, as Viktor Kozlov scored on a tip in, and Jarome tied it up in the final minute of the period. In the 2nd period, Kristian Huselius put the Flames ahead 2-1 with a nice wrist shot. It was at this point that Ovechkin did surface, as he tied it up with two minutes left in the 2nd period and then scored the go ahead goal with 1:56 left in the third. To be honest, this wasn’t the game I was looking for from Ovechkin; I was thinking more that he would score a couple of exciting goals as the Flames went on to win 9-2. The win was the 300th of goalie Olaf Kolzig’s career, becoming the 23rd goalie to do so and there was a short ceremony following the game. It may be the quietest any goalie has ever recorded 300 wins.
I heard an interesting comment from a Caps fan who was sitting behind us. After a nice defensive play from Dion Phaneuf, he said, “It must be nice to see a Norris candidate, Vezina candidate and MVP candidate playing every night,” referring to Phaneuf, Kiprusoff and Iginla. I had never thought of it that way, but I guess as Flames fans, we are pretty lucky right now.
After this visit to the Verizon Center, we’ve seen eight arenas, with twenty-two to go…
-TheRev
Verizon Center Fast Facts
Seats: Section 116; $50 (face value $76); eBay
Score: Flames 2, Capitals 3
Arena Rating: 8.6
Unique Concession: none
Souvenir Stick: Alexander Ovechkin stick, white, plastic
Public Transit: Subway underneath the arena
Unique Arena Trait: Outside signage in Mandarin and English
Swag: none
Photos
The next stop is to see the Flames play in their original home; Atlanta, GA.
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