Drinking The Koules-Aid For Charity

An interesting note from down in Tampa, where the Rays are on the verge of one of the biggest chokes in sports history Bolts are still looking for their first win and Steven Stamkos is still looking for his first point:

Lightning goalie Mike Smith on Saturday wore a mask... the team hopes will become a collector's item for fans of the grisly Saw movies. On one side, a picture of the creepy clown doll that taunts the movie's victims and police, on the other, the evil Jigsaw and his female accomplice, the architects of the bloody on-screen mayhem. Chains on both sides of the mask appear to pull apart a mouth.

Owner Oren Koules is the Hollywood producer responsible for the series that continues Friday with the release of Saw V. Goalie Olaf Kolzig also will wear a mask depicting the movie, but it has yet to arrive.

"It was unclear how many times the masks will be worn. Smith's will be auctioned to benefit the Lightning Foundation. Kolzig's will be auctioned to benefit Athletes Against Autism.

Now, it's for charity, so I can't knock it. But if we catch Jose Theodore sporting a Kicking It-themed mask, I may have to say something.

Green On CNN

Here's something I probably never expected to type - check out this Mike Green interview from CNN (and notice how not once does he say "I'll try to find you some and I'll bring them to ya"):

I'll Take "Potpourri" For $200, Alex

A few links have been sitting around, undeserving of their own posts (and even a mention for one of 'em), but in my never-ending effort to keep you well-informed, here they are, in descending order of importance:

• Rookie and Training Camp opening dates are set.
• Did Nicklas Backstrom nearly die at sea? Probably not, but it still sounds as if he had a relatively harrowing experience.
• I'm not sure which is easier to read - "Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Olie Kolzig" or "former Capitals goalie Olie Kolzig." Either way, Olie's off doin' good for a change.
  
• Last week it was Steve Poapst, today it's Chris Hajt's turn on "Where Is That Crappy Former Caps Blueliner Now?"

Your Chance To Play Donald Brashear To Cancer's Aaron Downey

From the press release from the fine folks at Put Cancer On Ice:

PUT CANCER ON ICE to Hold Second Annual Dave Fay Charity Hockey Game and Silent Auction to Benefit Hockey Fights Cancer

July 14, 2008 - Washington, DC - Put Cancer On Ice™ (PCOI) will hold the Second Annual Dave Fay Memorial Hockey game this Saturday July 19, 2008 at 8:30 p.m. at Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Arlington, Virginia.

With support from the Washington Capitals and the NHL Hockey Fights Cancer, PCOI will augment this year’s game funds by holding a silent auction for authentic, autographed NHL and Capitals team items. The 14 auction items include a Western Conference All-Stars jersey, a Nicklas Backstrom jersey, and a Limited Edition Young Guns (Ovechkin, Backstrom, Green and Semin) signed and framed poster, among others. A full listing and photos of the auction items may be found on the PCOI website at www.putcanceronice.org.

...

We invite you to come out and watch the game and cheer on your home team as they play to win Lord Brown’s Boot and support the fight against cancer. There is no admission fee to watch the game, but donations are always appreciated.

For event information, visit the organization’s website at www.putcanceronice.org.

[Not from the press release: If you don't get the reference in the title, click here.]

Take Cancer. Put It On Ice. Do It Now.

We've used this space in the past to plug the great work the folks over at Put Cancer On Ice do, and yet there still is no cure for the disease, so we'll continue to tell you about them, their cause, and what they're doing about it.

Coming up next month (Saturday July 19, 2008 at 8:30 p.m., to be precise), PCOI is holding the Second Annual Dave Fay Memorial Hockey game at Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Arlington, Virginia and donating the proceeds to Hockey Fights Cancer. In addition to the game, PCOI will hold a silent auction for authentic, autographed Capitals items including a Nicklas Backstrom jersey and a Young Guns signed and framed poster.

So head on out to Kettler to watch noble Marylanders battle evil Virginians, and have some fun for a good cause and to honor a good man. And if you can't make it out there, you can always donate in other ways.

That's Just Olie Being Olie

Not that there has ever been any question about the type of person Olie Kolzig is away from the game of hockey, but you can never get too many reminders thereof. Case in point, Kolzig's participation in the 7th Annual KEEN Sports Festival this past weekend in Potomac.

As an aside, I'm sure Kolzig could have worn a polo or any old shirt to the event... but he didn't:

Photo: Laurie DeWitt⁄The Gazette
For more on KEEN and/or to donate, visit their website.

Monday Roundup

Rather than recap a couple of tough weekend losses - one more gut-wrenching than the other - I thought I'd use this space today to promote a good cause, namely a fundraiser for the Wilson High hockey team.

The long and the short of it is that Wilson is D.C.'s only public high school with a varsity hockey team and following the loss of their coach last winter to pneumonia, the program is on the verge of being dissolved (more details can be found over at OFB).

In an effort to help out a little bit, a group of bloggers (led by OFB) is hosting a fundraiser this coming Friday night at Clyde's of Gallery Place. For $10 a head, you can help out a great cause AND have a good shot at some great prizes (including items signed by Caps and Hershey Bears players).

So come on out for a good time, a good cause and maybe, just maybe, a Caps win.

Elsewhere 'Round the Rinks:

Happy 22nd Birthday to Jeff Schultz.... Don't go over to Mirtle's site and vote on who should win Coach of the Year (he blamed me for Alex Ovechkin running away with the Hart in his last poll).... "Major bonus points" for Caps fans.... Finally, one year ago today we recapped a Caps/Devils game (how 'bout that?), noted a silly trade rumor from a silly rumor-monger, and looked at the market values of Dainius Zubrus and blueliners.

Daily Awards

• Hart: Teemu Selanne (3G, 2A, +3, 2 SOG)
  
• Ross: Teemu Selanne (5 points)
  
• Norris: Marek Malik (G, A, +2, 2 SOG)
  
• Vezina: Ilya Bryzgalov (35-save shutout win)
  
• Richard: Teemu Selanne (3G)
  
• Calder: Jonathan Toews (3A, 2 SOG)
  
• Aiken: Patrick Lalime (L, 5 goals allowed on 25 shots against in 48:38 of work)
  

'Tis The Season

Per a PRNewswire story, Mike Green is "supporting Children's National [Medical Center] as part of America's Giving Challenge, sponsored by Parade.com. He has created a 'charity badge' that others can post on their websites or blogs, or attach to their emails. Donations of $10 or more will count as a 'vote' for his campaign."

Well, here's that badge - give if and what you can, and be sure to check out a new profile of Greenie in the CP:

Pokulok, Bouchard To Play In Charity Game

A handful of French-Canadian NHLers and prospects will take to the ice next Saturday night in Châteauguay, Quebec for a charity game to raise money for cancer research (perhaps they got the idea from these guys), and notable participants include Caps prospects Sasha Pokulok and François Bouchard.

Hopefully Pokulok's participation is an indication that his concussion woes are behind him and that the former Cornell Big Red (and in this case, I do mean big) is ready to put in a full year at AHL Hershey.

Hate Cancer? Love Hockey?

The Put Cancer On Ice folks are holding their monthly pickup hockey game over at Kettler on July 29 (details are here) and donating the proceeds to Hockey Fights Cancer.

As you probably would guess, this month's game takes on a little extra significance with the recent passing of WTimes beat writer Dave Fay and, to that end, the money raised at this month's event will be donated in Fay's name.

So head out to Kettler and lace 'em up for a good cause and to honor a good man. And if you can't make it out there, you can always donate in other ways.

Instead Of That Latte Tomorrow Morning...

NHL.com has a great feature up on Athletes Against Autism's recent fundraising golf tournament, and it's probably more worthy of your time than just about anything else I point to, so go check it out. And when you're done, head on over to the charity's site and make a donation if you're so moved. Remember, every little bit helps.

H/t to KingClancyKolzig on the link.

Wednesday Roundup: Where'd You Come From?

I saw this on Capitol Punishment the other day and decided I needed to rip off Chris ripping off Ducksnorts ripping off Will Young (jeez, we could do a rip-off tree just as easily). Basically, it traces how (a somewhat arbitrary list of) the 2006-07 Caps came to be Caps, and is pretty self-explanatory if you typically read left-to-right. Without further ado, here it is (click on it to enlarge, and then click again, depending on browser, to see it full size):

I didn't note where draft picks had been acquired via trade, but might at some point. Also, there may be some mistakes on there, and I'd happily correct 'em if you point 'em out.

What I found interesting is that of the ten players acquired via trade, Jakub Klepis and Tomas Fleischmann are the only ones who were acquired for players that weren't orginally Caps draft picks. I'm not sure exactly what that means - maybe that the organization (mostly thanks to the prior regime) has been able to draft and move a bunch of quality NHLers. Or that they've been reluctant to bring in quality players from outside the organization, even pre-dating the Jaromir Jagr experiment. Or that they've been conservative in the frequency of moves they've made. One thing clearly shows is that they didn't get jack squat for Jagr (other than a season so awful they had the chance to win the draft lottery and draft Alex Ovechkin, which ain't bad but sure ain't thanks to any managerial skill).

Also noteworthy is that little is left (and nothing on this list) from the great Adam Oates coup at 2002's trade deadline (you'll recall that the Caps sent Oates to the Flyers for Maxime Ouellet, a 1st (later traded to Dallas which became Martin Vagner), a 2nd (Maxime Daigneault) and a 3rd (Derek Krestanovich) round selections in 2002), save a mid-level goaltending prospect in Daigneault. Oh well - it looked great at the time and was a move you'd make every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

The larger point is that Caps fans need to remember that this team is still very much rebuilding and nowhere close to rebuilt (OFB has a must-read that really hammers home this point). Most of the free agent signings are stop-gaps and placeholders, and once this team is rebuilt, it will be built to last, not just to make one or two runs at success.

Elsewhere 'Round The Rinks

• Mirtle has a blurb on GMGM's trip to Sweden to sweet talk the "very shy and reserved" Nick Bäckström. Luckily, AO has enough personality (and talent) to carry his future teammate a bit.
• Speaking of the World Juniors, through four games, Caps prospect Semen Varlamov is 4-0-0 with a .964 save percentage and a 0.75 GAA. Fellow future Cap (fourth-round find), Finnish forward Oskar Osala has five goals and two assists in five games. High five!
• This Saturday night's game against the Thrashers is the Caps second annual Autism Awareness Night. Spread the word and give until you can't give any more, then give a little more. Just a little.
  

Daily Awards

• Hart: Sidney Crosby (2G, including game-winner, A, +2)
  
• Ross: P.-M. Bouchard (4 points)
  
• Norris: Francis Boullion (2A, +1, 1 SOG, 2 hits)
  
• Vezina: Nikolai Khabibulin (W, 38 saves on 39 shots against)
  
• Richard: Sidney Crosby, Matthew Lombardi, P.-M. Bouchard, Tomas Plekanec, Mark Parrish (2G each)
  
• Calder: Ryan Potulny (GWG on his only shot of the game in 3:48 of ice time)
  
• Aiken: Kari Lehtonen (L, 5 goals allowed on 35 shots against)

Every Little Bit Helps

With the revelation that Bruin rookie Phil Kessel is being treated for testicular cancer sending shockwaves through the hockey world and this being the season for giving, I thought I'd make it easy on everyone to get in the spirit by providing links to donate to two of a nearly-infinite number of worthy causes.

The first is the Lance Armstrong Foundation for cancer research (for obvious reasons) and the second is a personal charity of choice, Athletes Against Autism, the organization founded by Olie Kolzig, Byron Dafoe and Scott Mellanby to raise awareness and funds for autism research, treatment and education programs.

Literally, every dollar helps, so pass on that latte this morning and give what you can. And say a prayer for Phil Kessel and anyone else you know - personally or otherwise - who is facing a similar uphill battle.