Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Caps Name Captain

The Caps today made Chris Clark the 13th captain in team history (making a plurality of voting Rink Readers happy). More later (when I'm not ostensibly working), but here's what GMGM had to say of "Clarkie":
“Leadership is not a sometime thing or a come and go thing,” said McPhee. “It is an all-the-time thing. Chris Clark has all-the-time leadership qualities. He is a leader in the mold of one of our all-time favorites, Dale Hunter; a quiet man off the ice, a cantankerous, ultra-competitive player on the ice.”
Obviously not everyone will be happy with this decision, and Eric at Off Wing and I had a pretty good back-and-forth on the topic last week. Two things we can all agree on: 1) Olie Kolzig is the real captain of this team and 2) Clark is just keeping the "C" warm until Alex Ovechkin is ready to captain the team.

UPDATE: I guess I spoke too soon - not everyone agrees on point 2 above, as Glen Hanlon was quick to say Clark's "not a stopgap captain," and in fact "Chris Clark is going to be the one that's going to hold the Stanley Cup over his head" when the Caps win Lord Stanley's Mug. Then again, judging from the latter statement, Hanlon may have been being sarcastic in the former.

4 comments:

faux rumors said...

We agree with your assessment of Clark. Good choice, but its still Ollie's team until he retires in 2 years at which time we're sure AO will be ready to take over

NDM1978 said...

I think it would have been interesting to put the "C" on the Goalie jersey. The Caps are all about going against the status quo, with their acceptance of bloggers et al. If any team would ever have a goalie as captain, it would have been the Caps. But true, Clark will wear the "C" well until AO is ready for it in a couple of years.

Anonymous said...

it would be interesting since it's against the nhl rulebook.

Anonymous said...

It's true that the Caps have leadership beyond their named "Captain" in Kolzig and Ovechkin. That is true of other teams as well.
It is nice to see a guy with such work ethic be rewarded, even if he isn't a perennial All-Star!
Good Job Caps!