2011-05-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

Outside of hometown newspaper accounts in N.Y. and D.C., this Associated Press story (below) is how hockey fans read about the first regular season game in Capitals history.

Worth noting is that the Caps and Rangers were tied 2-2 after two periods, and 3-3, early in the third. Hrycuik, the first goal-getter, played 20 more games with the Capitals and scored four more goals, before finishing his career in the minors.

That isn’t just a ticket stub at right; it’s a piece of history, as legendary scribe Bob Verdi wrote in the Chicago Tribune.

“Not far from our nation's capital, where earth-shaking events are daily propositions, a landmark of sorts was established when the Capitals recorded their first National Hockey League victory.”

Assistant GM Lefty McFadden described a jubilant locker room. "They were measuring one another for ring sizes. It was like they took the Stanley Cup."

Ron Low stopped all 18 3rd period shots, and 33 in total, for the milestone win. Denis Dupere scored twice, and Jack Egers potted the winner with 11 minutes left.

(Egers’ blazing shot earned him the nickname “Smokey.” So it was pre-ordained that his post-hockey career would be as a fire department Captain. Come to think of it, a novel way for Jack to say he wore the “C” on a uniform!)

Beating the Hawks represented “a reward for hard work,” Coach Jimmy Anderson told the AP. “Now they know they can do it, so if the guys don’t win more, I’ll be able to kick their butts.”

Anderson would have needed Manchester United and the Rockettes to do that much kicking – the Caps didn’t win again for more than a month.

The Kings game itself wasn’t special – just the promotion that proceeded it.

“Believed to be a sports first,” wrote the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, “The Caps opened their doors for Guaranteed Win Night. It turned out to be quite a gamble.”

On the ice maybe, where Washington fell despite a Tommy Williams goal and a competitive effort. But not at the box office, where the crowd of 12,527 was about 3,000 above the per-game average.

A week later vs. Pittsburgh, “Fans producing a stub from last Wednesday’s game were admitted for free.” And were rewarded. Hartland Monahan scored a hat trick plus one assist (all in the 3rd period!), and the Caps rallied from down 3-0 to earn a 6-6 tie.

As the Scouts built a 4-0 lead early in the 2nd period, Capitals coach Tom McVie had to be regretting his pregame bravado.

"Lose to these guys and I'll quit," McVie was quoted by AP, adding, "And some of our players ought to consider going back to Canada to drive a soda truck."

Even worse, the crowd of 11,235 at Capital Center included invited Japanese officials.

While watching the two clubs that would play exhibitions in the Far East a few weeks later, they might've wondered if shame ever drove NHL coaches to
Hara-kiri - Japanese ritual suicide.

Thankfully for all involved - except the Scouts - the Capitals mounted a furious comeback. Bob Sirois, Blair Stewart, and Jack Lynch scored within a 2 minute, 18 second span in the 3rd period to forge a 5-5 deadlock.

Now it was Kansas City's turn at verbal masochism.

(Keep in mind that this was KC's 20th straight game without a victory, which had seemed in the bag when the Scouts held 4-0 and 5-2 leads.)

“Jesus Christ and the disciples couldn’t help this team,” Steve Durbano said in the Kansas City Times. “This team stinks.” Funny and sad all at the same time, right?

The Scouts lost their last seven games, bringing their winless streak to 27. That erased a dubious Capitals NHL record of 25 in a row, suffered earlier the same season.

This game contained a Capitals first - and almost nobody was there to witness it.

Goalie Bernie Wolfe, shown in the game photo below right, recorded the first road shutout in team history. When does a goalie start thinking he has a whitewash in him? How about by the first intermission. "You're always aware of shutouts, but I knew there was 40 minutes to go," Bernie told UPI.

Wolfe overcame a bad back to stop all 26 Detroit shots, getting offensive support from Billy Collins shorthanded 2:38 into the game, and Yvon Labre in the middle period.

The game was pushed back a day so it wouldn't conflict with the Super Bowl. Too bad the delayed start then conflicted with a massive snowstorm.

AP estimated the attendance at 2,500, probably the smallest "crowd" ever to watch the Capitals play.

Fights! Unretirement! Fights! Rallies! Fights! And Free T-Shirts!

This game had everything except a winner. Washington’s Gerry Meehan made sure of that, scoring his second goal to tie the game with 1:22 left.

Minutes earlier, an amazing fight card: three bouts within 12 seconds of game time!

First, Smith and LeBlanc dropped the gloves at 17:24. A mere 5 seconds after play resumed, Labre and Polonich brawled. When they were sent off, the teams managed to play another 7 seconds before White and Bergeron tangled, with Bergeron adding a gross misconduct for good (bad?) measure.

For the first two periods, the story was Caps goalie Roger Crozier, playing his first game in 15 months.

The Capitals somehow coaxed the Hall-of-Famer from his Florida beachfront home. Before the game, “I prepared in my usual way, sitting around worrying,” Crozier joked to the Windsor Star.

“Then the game starts, and I don’t think the Wings got a shot for nine minutes.” Oh, Roger, they were about to make up for lost time.

Detroit tested Crozier 10 times in the first period, and forced Roger to make 20 saves, some spectacular, in the second. No wonder he spent the third period recuperating on the bench, while Bernie Wolfe finished up.

So fans at the Olympia went home with much more than their souvenir T-shirts.

The Washington Star called the Battle Royale a “15-minute, name-calling, hair-pulling, fist-fighting, jersey-pulling fracas.”

The Washington Post described it as “a 38-man tag team match, with half-dressed warriors punching and pushing until they were too tired to continue.”

Referee Ron Wicks had the Anthem replayed. “I didn’t know what else to do to stop guys from killing each other.”

It was all good fun for Detroit goalie Ron Low. He's in the upper left of the photo, his jersey pulled by former Capitals teammate Bernie Wolfe.

“I grabbed Bernie and told him that I had waited two years to punch him silly. Of course I was kidding, but you should have seen his eyes light up.”

Newer hockey fans might wonder whatever happened to that sort of bench-clearing brawl, the kind you can see in retro videos all over YouTube.

The NHL got rid of them by creating "Rule 72" before the 1987-88 season. It mandates a 10-game suspension - without pay - for the first player leaving the bench during a fight. Coaches also face suspension and a maximum fine of $10,000.

According to the NHL, there haven't been any full-team fights since. So long gone are humorous photos like this one. Wayne Stephenson, who tended goal for the Capitals from 1979-81, waits patiently for all his teammates and opponents to finish dancing.

Mark Lofthouse grew up 10 miles from Pacific Coliseum, home of the Canucks. Ryan Walter grew up even closer.

So we imagine lots of friends and family held tickets like the one at right, when Mark, Ryan, & Capitals teammates came calling. And they didn’t disappoint.

The evening started painfully for Lofthouse, during a line change on the fly. “He suffered a finger cut near the end of the first period,” the Vancouver Express reported, “when teammate Guy Charron’s skate went through his glove.”

It didn’t affect his scoring touch. Mark scored at 2:35 of the 2nd period, and again at 13:50. Later, Lofthouse would say, “I didn’t really play all that well. I put the pucks in the net, but all the work came from someone else.” That someone else was Walter, who assisted on both goals.

During the 2nd intermission, Lofthouse received five stitches to close the stinging wound. Then he went out and completed his hat trick at 8:18 of the 3rd period – with Walter picking up his third assist.

Fame is fleeting; Mark was sent down a month later . He finished with 13 goals for the Capitals, and scored 15 during the ’79-’80 season.

On a side note, Express game story writer Tony Gallagher took Vancouver’s loss hard, judging by words like “timid”, “folly”, “lesson in humility”, “agonizing” and “weather balloon” (yup, weather balloon). For good measure, he ripped the Caps' “Central League defence.” Bitter much, Tony?

The Rangers got rid of Greg Polis, according to legendsofhockey.net, because he made “too many single-man rushes that were halted at the blueline.”

Polis got sweet revenge just nine days later, after being claimed off waivers by Washington. Late in the 2nd period against his former club, Greg began an end-to-end rush that would make Bobby Orr proud.

One writer compared the 180-foot dash to a jet slicing through the fog at National Airport. Polis split the Rangers defense, parked a backhander, collided with the post, and spun into the boards, in perhaps the greatest rink-length rush in Capitals history. (Watch it in the "Video Vault.")

Polis’ goal was a clue - this wasn’t your typical midseason game. How about Caps coach Danny Belisle deploying three defensemen at one time during a Rangers power play. Or the referee missing the first period because of travel delays.

Most impressive of all, the Rangers came in with the 4th best record in the league, and left 5-1 losers. The Capitals recorded their 7th win in January, most in the NHL that month.

As for Polis, he eventually tried to exact revenge on the Caps, too. He sued for $5 million, claiming misdiagnosis of his injured knee.

In the final minute of this game, both benches emptied.
No, not for a brawl - for scoring celebrations.

It's a little-remembered fact that after a crucial goal, players on the bench used to join teammates celebrating on the ice.

Still, having it happen twice, a few seconds apart, with just a few seconds left, qualifies as unusual.

First, the North Stars spilled over the boards to congratulate Mike Fidler, who tied the game 4-4 with 0:35 remaining.

Bob Sirois (game action at right) restored Washington's lead at 19:47, banking a crossing pass off a Minnesota defender and in the net. Now the Caps held their own 20-man hug; and did so again, more traditionally, when the final horn sounded 13 seconds later.

(The NHL later banned this time-wasting tradition.)

When 40 year old Bobby Hull ended a year-long retirement, the Capitals were one of four teams that tried to trade for his rights.

The Golden Jet had also been absent from the NHL since 1972, when he jumped to the rival WHA. As it turned out, Hull made his long-awaited NHL re-debut against the Capitals, skating 10 uneventful shifts.

For Caps defenseman Robert Picard, the evening started out wobbly, and ended up shaky. But boy, did the middle make it all worthwhile!

In warm-ups, a wayward puck struck Picard in the face. Despite a dozen stitches, the Montreal native wasn’t about to miss playing against his hometown team.

Picard’s first couple of shifts felt like a tilt-a-whirl. Thankfully, he regained his equilibrium by the 2nd period, sending a right point blast through a maze of players for a 1-0 Caps lead.

Bengt Gustafsson’s brilliant individual effort re-established the D.C. lead with seven minutes left. Though outshot 32-16, the Caps hung on to beat the Habs for the first time, after 6 years, 31 losses and 3 ties.

The enormity of the achievement overwhelmed the 4th year d-man.

“I was shaking,” Picard said in a gleeful locker room. “I just stood there. I couldn’t do anything.”

It might not have seemed as big a deal to rookie coach Gary Green, winning his very first meeting with the Canadiens. “The guys played a very disciplined game,” Green observed. “We stood them up in the neutral zone and didn’t give them the blue line.”

Coincidentally, 1974 expansion twin Colorado also had a memorable evening, shocking powerful Philadelphia, 8-6. For one night at least, the meek had inherited the ice.

(Quotes from the Free Lance-Star ; Listen to highlights from the game broadcast Here.)

One Alan Hangsleben move triggered two remarkable events at 12:17 of the 3rd period.

When Alan scored on a wraparound, it marked the Capitals’ third power play goal in a 71-second span!

A couple of minute earlier, Pittsburgh’s Ron Stackhouse had slashed Hangsleben, while teammate Gary McAdam was already in the penalty box. Rod Schutt argued so forcefully, he drew a third penalty.

Gifted a 5-on-3-palooza, the Caps cashed in. First, Ryan Walter on a 30-foot wrister at 11:06. At 11:29, Mike Gartner connected from almost the same spot. With Schutt still in the box, Hangsleben completed the power play parade just 48 seconds later.

Washington now led 6-1, on a trio of extra-man scores in 1:11. The shift of a lifetime for Robert Picard, who assisted on all three goals!

So at 12:17, a goalie change was no suprise. Except that it was the Caps’ Wayne Stephenson called to the bench by coach Gary Green.

Stephenson had started virtually every game of the Capitals’ late-season playoff push. Given the chance to rest Wayne for the final 8 minutes, Green summoned backup Rollie Boutin to finish in net.

(The postseason chase ended cruelly on the last day of the season, when the Caps beat Detroit, 7-2, then listened on a radio in the locker room as Toronto also won, to grab the last playoff spot.

"It was like a death watch," said coach Green. "Agony.") (Canadian Press)

caps-notes