SPORTS WITHOUT CHARM
By Dave Gilmore on Jun 1st, 2012
It’s June and the Orioles are in first place. Baltimore would feel a lot better about this fact if it weren’t appended by about three footnotes. It’s only been June for 12 hours. And that first-place position? A dead tie with Tampa Bay and everyone else in the AL East within a 3-game striking distance. In fact,…
By Dave Gilmore on May 15th, 2012
The 2011-12 Capitals were as frustrating as a hockey team can be. From night to night they vacillated between inspiring play and sheer disorganized chaos. They were a team that played for two head coaches, three starting goaltenders, and were without two of their stars for long stretches of the campaign. And yet, they not only made…
By Dave Gilmore on Apr 24th, 2012
The NFL Draft has grown steadily in popularity every year since has been televised. Now a primetime event with an in-your-face buildup and breakdown, a portion of the public is understandably suffering from “draftlash,” a knee-jerk aversion to all things speculative and celebratory about the league’s annual labor influx. Is the NFL Draft over-hyped and…
By Dave Gilmore on Apr 17th, 2012
Perhaps I’m just looking for a silver-lining after last night’s 4-3 loss by the Capitals to the Bruins. Or maybe I’m just geeked up for summer movie season. Being down two games to one isn’t an insurmountable hole from which to climb, but in the numbness that happens beyond the loss has me wondering why…
By Dave Gilmore on Apr 10th, 2012
“The whole thing is quite hopeless, so it’s no good worrying about tomorrow. It probably won’t come.” – Frodo, The Lord of the Rings The Washington Capitals are 30 to 1 longshots to skate with Lord Stanley. Only the Florida Panthers, who bested them at almost every crucial juncture of the season and won the…
By Dave Gilmore on Apr 3rd, 2012
There are few structures that mean as much to me as Oriole Park at Camden Yards. I didn’t go there a single time last summer. The Yard couldn’t have caught me during a more formative twenty years of my life. From age nine to 29, it has been my place of pilgrimage to the confusing…
By Dave Gilmore on Mar 30th, 2012
I like fantasy baseball in theory. I love drafting my team, reading the prognostications and listening to the podcasts that cover the game. Somewhere around July, especially if you’re in a rotisserie-style league, the grind wears on me and I start to lose interest. There has to be a better summer time-wasting activity than watching…
By Dave Gilmore on Mar 27th, 2012
For the second season in a row, small sample size notwithstanding, 22-year old Braden Holtby has been the Washington Capitals’ best goaltender. For the second win-or-die game in a row, coach Dale Hunter is giving the nod to Holtby tonight against Buffalo. In his NHL career, Holtby has played in 18 games, and in all…
By Dave Gilmore on Mar 20th, 2012
The NFL is benevolent socialism in a vacuum. Most people understand this, but few fans encourage their teams to act on it. Perhaps the fact that our country fought a 50-year Cold War against socialism that many fans still remember makes it hard to embrace this reality. It’s a shame really, because exploiting the cheapest…
By Dave Gilmore on Mar 6th, 2012
Pro football is a grown man’s game. I mean that in the sense that, while they are coached and instructed, ultimately everything good and bad carried out on the field is done by grown men. They are free to choose any profession they want to seek out, and they choose to play football in the…
