Legislators As Landlords: Congress used to content itself with passing laws to dictate what the District government could or couldn't spend its locally raised money on. Now, apparently, that's not enough. Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley says D.C. officials need to do something about the fact that the only licensed gun dealer in the city has lost his lease—meaning it's impossible to get new handguns here. We suggest Grassley let the dealer, Charles Sykes, operate out of his suite in the Hart Senate Office Building if he feels so strongly about it. -2

Trumped: What better way to show how cool and edgy your newspaper is than to invite a rich buffoon whose attacks on President Barack Obama's citizenship and academic credentials verge ever closer every day to unreconstructed racism? Such is the strategy apparently guiding The Washington Post, which will proudly bring Donald Trump to the White House Correspondents Dinner tomorrow night—making Dana Milbank, of all people, look like the sanest person on the paper's staff. -2

Royal Wedding Tie-Ins: The big wedding-related news of the day occurred bright and early and in London, where the newly minted Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, married the newly minted duchess, Kate Middleton. (We thought one of his other new titles, Baron Carrickfergus, sounded significantly cooler.) That didn't stop marketers in D.C. from getting in on the action. Filene's Basement held another installment of its "Running of the Brides" at its Mazza Gallerie location, drawing crowds from the presumably small Venn diagram intersection of "people who are a little obsessed with weddings" and "people who weren't watching the royal wedding at 8 a.m." +1

Rock the Red: There's something anti-climactic about defeating the New York Rangers and moving on to face the Tampa Bay Lightning. For one, no one's ever moved from D.C. to Tampa and announced that the city in Florida was hipper. For another, why do they even play hockey in Florida? Yet the Washington Capitals begin their best-of-seven series with their Southeast Division rivals tonight at the Verizon Center. So the hated rivals, at least until we send them packing, will have to be Tampa. And watch out, St. Petersburg—we're looking at you, too. +2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 62 Today's score: -1 Friday bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 63

Jason Chimera photo via PuckBuddys

My friend and hero Craig Brownstein tried to save horse racing, but horse racing didn't listen. He, with friends, tried to get justice for Robert Wone, but the system let everybody but the guilty down.

Now he's out to serve hockey. Brownstein and partner Doug Johnson have just unleashed PuckBuddys, a special kind of hockey blog: "For boys who like boys who like hockey," is its motto.

More of the same from the PuckBuddys' FAQ:

You ask, we tell.

We like everything about hockey.  The speed, the flash, the unpredictability of a bouncing puck. We like the coaches, the fights, the crowds. But mostly we like the players – their amazing athleticism and physical abilities.  And let’s face it: an extraordinary number of hockey players are simply hot – and that includes every single Cap."

All of 'em? Even when they're not wearing teeth?

500 Block F Street, NW. © 2010 Matt Dunn

Today's Washington Post has a multi-media package about the street hockey community that has hung out on Pennsylvania Avenue NW since the strip in front of the White House was closed in 1995.

The piece comes out just as President Obama's getting verbally cross-checked by Capitals fans for talking up Alex Ovechkin in Russia despite never having gone several blocks east to the Verizon Center to see him play.

The article makes no mention of the evil-doer responsible for shutting down that pristine patch of asphalt: Tim McVeigh, who also happens to be the biggest mass murderer America has ever convicted.

Were it not for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the players wouldn't have that downtown rink to play on. Fear of domestic McVeigh copycats, not Islamist foreigners, is what got this town to start walling off its most cherished sites.

Allegedly, the penalty was dealt because the Dallas winger slandered his celeb ex-girlfriend, actress Elisha Cuthbert, and her latest flame, Calgary defenseman Dion Phaneuf, by telling interviewers that "it's become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my sloppy seconds."

But any other player in the league could get away with saying much worse without having to sit out even two minutes. The stiff sentence is really a result of years of Avery giving off-color quotes to reporters, plus payback for all the publicity he attracted during last season's Stanley Cup playoffs by coming up with a gimmick to frazzle goalies.

If there was a Nobel Prize for poor sportsmanship, Avery earned it in Game 3 of the New York Rangers' series with the New Jersey Devils. Avery, then with the Rangers, stood in front of New Jersey goaltender Martin Brodeur and waved his stick and arms like a madman, while not even caring about the action taking place elsewhere.

Try not to giggle or appreciate Avery's genius as one commentator after another says, "I've never seen anything like that!"

And then he scores. (I've watched these clips a hundred times, and I'm still in awe.)

Avery's tactics were obviously tacky and wrong, but just as the spitball was once legal in baseball, his routine was also so novel that the referees couldn't come up with anything in the rulebook to penalize Avery at the time.

Yesterday, that penalty was finally handed down.