Thursday, September 22, 2011

2011-2012 Capitals Training Camp -- Day 6

Day 6 of Caps Training Camp 2011 is in the books, with two pre-season games having been played and two groups remaining to take the ice. As to the latter, what happened on the rink?

A lot of today was spent working on the power play. It looks as if the Caps are installing some new wrinkles, so things went slowly and methodically, with players going through the drills against only a goalie, then against defensemen, then against skaters. There was quite a bit of explanation and instruction on the part of Coach Bruce Boudreau, who ran the power play portion of the session.

The search for a right wing continues. Joel Ward was today’s contestant manning the right side on the Johansson-Ovechkin line. That makes Mike Knuble, Troy Brouwer, Joel Ward, Alexander Semin, Tony Kornheiser, and Jim Cantore, who was in town hoping for some other weather disaster to rumble by.

In the second session there was the odd sight of Troy Brouwer and Mike Knuble exchanging jersey colors (Knuble from gray to red, Brouwer the reverse), leading us to wonder if an intervention is needed concerning Bruce Boudreau’s obsession with fiddling with lines.

We also noticed that…

“Eggscuse me, Peerless, but aren’t you forgetting ze most important development.”

Why, it’s our old friend, Dr. Vynot Schootdepuck, Director of Advanced Applications at the Bettman Institute of Technology and Competitive Hockey (BITCH).

“Ze Institute changed its name, Mr. Peerless…it is now the Hockey Experimental And Developmental Sciences Headquarters for Obscure Technologies.”

HEADSHOT?

“Ja…ve couldn’t get any grrrants mit de name “Bettman” in our name.”

Anyway, what about this “important development?”

“Vell, it vuss ein eggschperimental schtick vun uff ze Cepps was using.”

I don’t follow, eggschper…experimental stick?

“Ja, made uff schpace age materials. Verrry hush-hush.”

Can you elaborate?

“I menaged to bring zum equipment to ze rink to conduct zum observations, and I found zat the schtick zat Joel Rechlicz vuss using vuss verrrrrry unusual.”



Did you come up with anything?

“I beleef zat ze schtick is uff a brand new composition, an organic composite far more durable zen ze inorganic composites players heff been using in recent years.”

An organic composite?

“One of impressive tensile strength, able to absorb ze stresses of repetitive shooting of ze puck. I alzo noticed parallel striations in the material that I zusspect only increases ze strength and durability of ze material.”

"Hey cuz…who’s the guy in the lab coat?"

“Cheerless, this is Dr. Vynot Schootdepuck, the renowned eggschperi...experimental scientist.”

"Yeah, well, I saw this stick you’re talking about."

And?

“Those starry-ayshuns Doctor Who is talkin’ about… that’s grain. The stick is made of wood. Heck, I can probably whittle one up in 20 minutes if’n you want.”

Doc? Do you want to say anything?

“I vuss just going to mention zat…”

Uh-huh…lets get to the pictures…











1 comment:

Justin said...

You're already in mid-season form.