The Ice Sheet: I've Been Here Before

As the puck squirted past goalie Simeon Varlamov, giving the Pittsburgh Penguins a 4-3 overtime victory over the Washington Capitals in Game 5 of their second round playoff series on Saturday night, part of me expected to feel crushed. After all, this series marks the eighth time the two teams have met in the postseason, with Pittsburgh taking six of the previous seven meetings. Now, after watching the Caps take the opening two games on home ice, the Penguins have roared back and now hold a 3-2 series lead going into Game 6 tonight back in Pittsburgh.

So why am I not crushed? Simply put, I have passed this way before, and the feeling is all too familiar.

Granted, I didn't grow up familiar with playoff hockey frustration. You see, I'm a native of Long Island, and grew up about 15 minutes from the Nassau Coliseum, home of the New York Islanders. And though that barn is one of the saddest in hockey these days, in my formative years, when I played hockey as a child, the Islanders were on top of the hockey world for what seemed like forever.

But as much as I loved that team and the game, much of their success for me happened at arm's length. So while I might have lived on Long Island until just a few weeks short of my 18th birthday, I only saw a game in person once all the years I was living there. For me, all of those Islanders championships were a television-only experience.

So by the time I moved to Washington in the mid-80s, I was determined to get to see the game up close more often. The first game I ever saw at the old Capital Centre was a 1988 Stanley Cup playoff match between the Caps and the Devils. And as I returned to the ice as an adult as a rec hockey player in the early 90s, my interest in the local team grew as well, as it so happened, just in time to see the rivalry with the Penguins grow into a full-blown festering wound.

With the exception of the five-game loss to Pittsburgh in 1991, I've watched at least a pair of games from every other playoff meeting between these two teams in person, and been disappointed more often than not. Sure, there were a few high points in there -- watching Joe Reekie salt away a win in 1994 with an empty net goal while then-owner Abe Pollin jumped for joy in his box was quite a moment -- the lows were as brutal as they could be, and that included being in attendance in 1996 when Peter Nedved stuck the dagger in deep with a game-winning goal in the fourth overtime period of Game 4.




But a funny thing happened in the midst of all that playoff misery. Without realizing it at the time, I was becoming a Washington Capitals fan. Looking back, it's easy to see how it happened, as I couldn't help but soak up all of the emotion and frustration now that I was watching it all up close.

So yes, I'll be in front of the television tonight at 7:00 PM ET for Game 6, but I won't be filled with dread, just a nagging feeling that I've been here before.

Every Monday morning The Ice Sheet will take a close look at everything that's happened in the NHL since Friday night at 5:00 PM -- or if need be, anything else the author wants to bleat about. To read them all, click here.