Looks like Bruce Boudreau's last stand as coach of the Washington Capitals came when he sat an uninjured Alexander Semin out of a game with Phoenix last week. The move woke up nobody, and Boudreau's gone.

A lot of folks pointed out at the time that the last time Semin was a healthy scratch came in the 2003-2004 season.

The Semin benching ain't the only similarity between this year and that.

That 2003-2004 season saw another Caps coach named Bruce—this one Cassidy—get canned because he couldn't get the international superstar team captain (this one Jaromir Jagr) or the rest of the lineup to play up to billing.

Caps management was peeved at both Bruces entering their last season for failing to get past Tampa Bay in the Stanley Cup playoffs a year before, also.

"You can't fire the players," was the mantra then and now.

One more similarity: George McPhee was the general manager who fired both Bruces.

Which brings up a couple questions: How can some NHL GM's basically get tenure, while coaches are deemed disposable? And, how long before McPhee's the scapegoat here?

You're Not From Here: The District has a reputation for being a pretty transient city, what with national political types coming and going every two years. The Census Bureau just crunched the numbers, and it turns out that reputation is mostly deserved: Only 37.3 percent of D.C. residents were born here, the third-lowest percentage in the nation behind only Florida and Nevada. Of course, it's not clear how many people in the D.C. metropolitan area are natives to the region, which would probably be more informative. Still, expect to see these census figures chewed over in the next round of local elections, along with frequent bandying of the phrase, "native Washingtonian." -1

Turn That Music Down: RFK Stadium gets pretty quiet when D.C. United's season is over. But this weekend, when the creaky old venue hosted Fall Massive, an electronic dance music festival, things were loud—so loud, in fact, that neighbors complained for blocks around. Calls to police led to the volume for the festival being turned down, but by then, that just meant no one—not concertgoers, not neighbors—was happy. -2

The Red, Rocked: Things started out so promisingly for the Washington Capitals this year—with seven wins in a row, in fact. But the club's gone into a tailspin since then, so much so that instead of flopping in the playoffs as usual, if things kept up at their current pace, they might just not qualify. So bid adieu to coach Bruce Boudreau, who was fired today and replaced with former Caps legend Dale Hunter (number 32 in your programs, still number 1 in your hearts). Hunter's been owning and coaching the London Knights in the Ontario Hockey League for the past few years; whether he's up for the NHL remains to be seen. They play tomorrow at the Verizon Center. -2

The Redskins, Rocking: The NFL will not be showing tapes of yesterday's Seattle Seahawks-Washington Redskins game as promotional material. It was ugly, it was boring, and in the end, the reason the Redskins managed to win, breaking a six-game losing streak, may have been that they're so inept that their attempts to lose fell short. (How else to explain a victory by the team that had not just a field goal, but an extra point, blocked?) Still, a win's a win. Hail! +2

Wednesday's Needle rating: 64 Today's score: -3 Today's Needle rating: 61

One fascinating (to me) part of the story that I didn't get into for space reasons: While sitting on the Anacostia building over the years, Monk and Mann, joined by Darrell Green, lobbied the residents of Sursum Corda, a low-income housing development off North Capitol Street NW, to turn control of that woeful development over to them. The ex-teammates made their pitch to redevelop the property right after the murder of 14 year-old Jahkema Princess Hansen. They did not get the job.

For both the Anacostia and Sursum Corda projects, Monk and Mann used the Bennett Group, a DC-based development firm headed by LuAnn Bennett, wife of a longtime Congressman, Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.).

Congress gave the Good Samaritan Foundation at least $775,000 in grants for the training center project.

The Bennett Group's slogan, which pops up every now and then on the firm's web site: "The bottom line for Bennett Group is value. For us, that means delivering projects on time and on budget, without compromising on quality."

That adage doesn't really jibe with what went on at the Carver Theatre site.

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(AFTER THE JUMP: Capitals announcer blows off Falls Church High School Reunion for Fan Fest? Anacostia High has chance at Worst Season in DC High School History? Will Eastern and Spingarn keep Anacostia from their date with destiny? The Nats no longer need to consult Mapquest on the Road to 100 Losses?)

There are two big get-togethers in the area this weekend: The reunion of the Falls Church High School Class of 1979, and the Washington Capitals Fan Convention.

Because of the latter, Wes Johnson won't be able to attend the former.

Johnson is the Caps longtime P.A. announcer, and far as I can tell the only guy from Falls Church (full disclosure: my alma mater, same class as Johnson) to ever make anything of himself. The only other alum from FCHS to get the spotlight was a Pizza Hut delivery man who jumped the White House fence and got shot in 1995.

Johnson, a professional voice-over artist when not riling up the home fans from his perch in the penalty box, has been working the microphone at Verizon Center since 2000.

He says he favored an understated delivery when he first got the Caps job, but turned into the over-the-top bellower fans now know and love after a gig for a video-game producer in which he had to play an arena announcer... for gladiators.

"For that job, I put my regular voice 'on steroids,'" says Johnson, speaking figuratively in case it's illegal for P.A. guys to be juiced, "and it carried over to what I do with the Caps. And, I've found the arena-announcer-for-gladiators voice works pretty well with hockey, too."

Johnson will spend all Saturday at the Caps event, to be held at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill. Other scheduled special guests include NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, owner Ted Leonsis, general manager George McPhee, head coach Bruce Boudreau and former fan favorites including Rod Langway, Al Iafrate, and the long-absent Dennis Maruk.

Tickets for the Caps event are sold out. If you want to go to the Falls Church High reunion, however, call 703-471-6700.

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Anacostia has a fighting chance of posting an 0-11 season. That might well have never happened in DC high school football history. Some DCIAA teams this year have added a game to the traditional 10-game maximum slate that has long been in place for prep football.

DC football has long been a game of haves and have nots, and Anacostia is the only one of the have-nots in the public school league to throw in the extra game on this year's schedule.

Anacostia has gotten off to the kind of start that makes the winless, record-breaking season seem very possible:  The Indians are already 0-4 and have suffered some major blowouts, including a 60-0 pounding from Dunbar last week.

But ignominy isn't going to come so easily:  Anacostia has games at the end of the season against Spingarn and Eastern, the reigning kings of DC's Have-Nots.

So far in 2009, Spingarn and Eastern have a combined record of 0-4, and have been outscored 168-12. Both schools will take big time beatings today. Spingarn faces Dunbar, and Eastern, which didn't even field a football team last year, will get grounded and pounded by charter school powerhouse Friendship Collegiate.

But, Eastern has only eight games listed on its schedule this year, and Spingarn nine. So neither has the chance for Historical Badness that Anacostia does.

Cheap Seats Daily will keep an eye on Anacostia as it makes its way along the historic Road to 11 Losses!

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Speaking of historic losers: Nats lose! Nats lose!

The 7-6 loss to the Dodgers at home gives the their 100th defeat of 2K9.

The Road to 100 Losses is the The Road Traveled for this bunch — three years in a row they've got triple digit defeats. So now the franchise has the same number of 100 loss seasons in Washington as it had in all its years in Montreal! (Anybody who says DC isn't a cursed baseball town hasn't seen "Damn Yankees"!)

One of Riggleman's postgame quotes, meant to praise his boys for not getting blown out like they got blown out on Tuesday, is an unintentional thigh-slapper: "That team's going to be popping champagne any day," Riggleman said, "and we're right there with 'em."

Well, if by "right there with 'em" Riggleman means his Nats, running away with worst-team-in-the-majors honors, are within just 39 1/2 games of the Dodgers, who've won a major-league best 92 games this year, then...OK, Coach, you ARE right there with 'em!

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