DC Sports Quadfecta
When we came to DC, I
was excited to maybe catch a baseball or hockey game while I was here. The DC natives have it rough when it comes to
sports. The Redskins, Nationals and Wizards
are perennial loveable losers and the Capitals, while close, but have never
brought home the Stanley Cup. Little did
I know I would actually catch all four major sports teams before the year was
up, completing the elusive and ultimately not-really-worth-it DC sports
quadfecta.
Basketball
Feb 29th
vs. the Chicago Bulls
The Washington
Wizards were in a tight race all year….the race to be the worst team in all of
basketball. Ultimately they lost the
title to the Charlotte Bobcats, but not for lack of trying--or maybe that's
exactly why. Anyways, the point is
they're terrible. So when the Bulls came
into town, but Chicago-loving brother-in-law and I decided to go to a game and
tickets were dirt cheap. We had a
bro-tastic dinner in Chinatown, then watched the Bulls destroy the Wizards to a
packed house of 19,500 Bulls fans and one poor bastard who gets paid by the
team to be a "die-hard fan."
All-in-all it was a great time and a good start to my DC sports
experience.
Hockey
May 2nd
Round 2 vs. the New York Rangers
With the current
hockey strike going on, we got crazy lucky that the dream for a DC Grand Slam
didn't die here. I assumed we'd have a
chance to go in the Fall, but when the Washington Capitals made it to the
playoffs and even upset the second place team in the first round, we decided if
we're going to one hockey game this year, might as well go big. That along with the fact that my beloved
Avalanche have not given me many chances to cheer, much less go to the playoffs
lately, made me extra excited for the hockey playoff atmosphere.
I found some tickets
on Stub Hub on the first level, nothing fancy, but solid seats for our trip to
the Verizon Center. Then things got
awesome. Stub Hub sent the tickets and the
row/seat didn't line up with what I remember I'd purchased. Since I got them on Stub Hub, they didn't
have the exact seat/row on the e-receipt I got, but I could confirm that where
the seats were, didn’t correspond with how much I paid. They were WAY better! Jenn and I showed up and sat three rows
behind the glass right next to the penalty box.
This was and will probably be the best seats we’ve ever had. Not sure what happened, but Stub Hub sent us
the wrong tickets and somebody else was probably royally pissed off.
Baseball
July 18th
vs. the New York Mets
Oct 3rd
vs. the Philadelphia Phillies
The Nationals were
the only DC team I was actually excited to see.
Strasburg and Harper are two sensational rookies that I was excited to check
out up close and personal. I was so
excited I saw this team twice. The first
visit was with my sister and the amazing family she married into. Her husband, Mitch, and his three kids came
along and we had a great time. I got an
awesome deal on tickets that were right along the left outfield line and my
niece almost caught a homerun that rang off the foul pole! Mitch purchased two tall margaritas for the ladies
(niece excluded) and the party was on.
We had a great time celebrating my nephew Henry’s birthday at their
first time ever to a major league game and our first time at the Nationals
stadium.
My second visit was a
little more sporadic. The guys at work
and I decided to go to the Nationals’ last game, which was conveniently during
the work day. We played hooky and got to
see two great events. The first: The
Nationals won the game to clinch home field advantage throughout the
playoffs. Oddly enough, the one that got
more cheering was when Teddy Roosevelt put on his green Usain Bolt shoes and won
the President’s Race with a little help from the Philly Phanatic. No, I didn’t just have a stroke while
typing. The President’s Race is a fun
tradition at Washington Nationals park.
Every game in the middle of the fourth inning, George Washington,
Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt race around the ball park
in huge over-sized head costumes. And
for 525 games, they have never let Teddy win.
Teddy Roosevelt was 0-525 going into the final game of the season when
he broke the curse. Fitting since the
Nats were headed to the playoffs for the first time since 1932.
They lost in the
first round. Thanks for nothing, Teddy.
Football
Nov 4th
vs. the Carolina Panthers
And as the trees
turned brilliant shades of red, orange and yellow, we came upon football
season; the last frontier in my quest to hit the DC sports cycle. My co-worker Jim and a couple of his buddies
went to the game. We got seats at the
club level and had amazing weather for a Redskins game in November. I’m a little frustrated at the Redskins right
now because as they toil away at the bottom of the NFL pecking order, my
beloved Broncos are on route to win the division with a real good chance to get
to the Superbowl with Peyton Manning at the helm. I mean, would it kill the NFL to sign a deal
with the cable companies to allow for other team’s to get purchased, so I don’t
have to get Direct TV to see my team from 2000 miles away? But I digress…
It turns out my
co-workers are not the timid engineers I expected, but full-on Peter Lovegrove
worthy enablers. By halftime I had
consumed way too much alcohol, watched a little bit of football and stumbled
our way back to the metro for some post game appetizers and sobering up. I met a bunch of guys in my line of work I
wouldn’t have been able to otherwise and we all got some good blackmail
material on each other. Ahhh…good times.
All in all it’s been
a fun year getting to see sports from the East Coast. With that said, look out Avalanche, Broncos,
Rockies and yes even you Nuggets, I’m coming back!
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