Let's go Caps!!

I have had a love affair with hockey ever since high school. I was playing floor hockey when I hip checked a guy (of course I was a defenseman) into the seats. It was something that I saw when I watched games on TV. After I did it, I was waiting for the whistle, knowing that I had committed a penalty.

There was no whistle. It was a legal play. I've been in love ever since. It doesn't hurt that it's the one sport that the officials allow you to fight during the game to settle any differences that you may have.

My feelings for the sport were only amplified when my home team, The Capitals were founded in 1974. A team to call my own. While the Bullets and the Washington franchise were my main squeezes, the Caps were the girl that I always liked when I was growing up.

As things turn out, we go against the Penguins in second round of this year's playoffs. To give you an ideal of the intensity level, we like the Penguins just as much as the Ravens like the Steelers. That has only been enhanced by the recent history between the teams in the playoffs. The last four times the teams these teams have met, not only have the Penguins beat the Caps, they went on to win the Stanley Cup.  

The latest chapter between the two teams started Thursday night. If Cap fans can't stand the Penguins in general, they really can't stand their superstar Sidney Crosby. He staked the Pens to a 2-0 lead scoring his career 52nd and 53rd playoff goals in 53 seconds. Although our superstar Alex Ovechkin scored his 45th playoff tally of his own, it wasn't enough as Pittsburgh took game one 3-2.

This is usually the time where I would complain about how the Caps get seem to get beat by these guys in the playoffs and start to let down. But after watching game one, I see a different Caps team. This team  played hard the entire game and had no quit in them. Take away the two goals that Crosby scored and the Caps might be up 1-0.

But man, those Penguins are good. After all, they are the defending champs. But this year's Caps do not want you to cry them a river. That's because there is no crying in hockey.

- BreezyG