Which isn't to say that Leonsis, a tech mogul turned sports tycoon, doesn't have the skills to make it in his city's main game. Last night, I watched the owner of the 1-12 Wizards (at least, before last night's game) field questions for an hour or so from what might have been a hostile audience: Season ticket holders, folks who'd forked over hundreds of dollars to watch Leonsis' squad stink it up.

In lesser hands, it might have been ugly. But Leonsis had a three-point strategy that a communications consultant couldn't have improved.

1. Feel their pain. Leonsis began his remarks—and many of his responses to questions—with empathy. "It's not easy for me, either," he announces, unprompted, about of the spectacle of watching his hapless squad.

2. Remind people that you've been there before. Leonsis repeatedly segued into recollections of the "unwatchable" Capitals in his early years as owner. Like when one questioner wondered why a free agent would ever come work for the hapless franchise: "This is what I heard in the NHL: D.C. is not a hockey market. You have the best young player in hockey and as soon as he can, he's going to go to Detroit or Montreal, a city that can win championships. The opposite happened. [Alex Ovechkin] signed a 13-year extension with us because he believed in us."

3. Declare that you have a plan. One way or another, Leonsis worked his way back to a reminder of how he's loaded up on young players, something he says is intentional and will pay off. "I'm convinced that we have to work hard and keep at it and stay with the strategy. I don't see a herky-jerky, emotional response to losing."

The owner's low-key, cerebral answers had the bizarre effect of lowering the emotional temperature almost immediately—quite a task, particularly when you consider that players from the Oklahoma City Thunder were busily working out on the court behind him, and appeared to be taking their exercise routines far more seriously than the Wizards personnel who ambled out about halfway through Leonsis' spiel.

And then—what do you know?—the worst team in the league went out and beat the best.

Photo by Keith Allison via Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0

This post originally misspelled the name of Alex Ovechkin

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

Nah. Not this year...

"Have yourself a great summer, everyone!" —Washington Capitals radio play-by-play man Steve Kolbe, signing off on WFED-AM last night after the team's season-ending Game 4 loss to Tampa Bay.

Wales, D.C.: The royal wedding was more or less swept out of the news by Seal Team Six Sunday night. Which may explain the relative lack of fanfare with which His Royal Highness Prince Charles, heir to the British throne (also duke of Cornwall and Rothesay, among other titles) and father of the recently celebrated groom, arrived in LeDroit Park today. The presumptive monarch-to-be is interested in sustainable farming practices; Common Good City Farm produces plenty of vegetables through just that sort of thing for neighborhood residents. (Right now, they're harvesting lettuce, broccoli, kale, and spinach.) We just hope someone explains to him that the license plates he'll see around town aren't actually talking about his ancestor. +2

Zoology Meets Paleontology: The little park between 16th Street NW, Harvard Street, and Argonne Place is well known as an animal sanctuary—for rats. This morning, apparently, it turned into a sanctuary for dinosaurs. A truck carrying a refurbished triceratops statue back to the National Zoo was spotted heading past the park. Fortunately, the dinosaur was tied down on a flatbed truck. Even more fortunately, no one spotted Richard Attenborough in the vicinity. +1

Got Milk?: True, the federal government no longer has to worry about finding Osama bin Laden. But the list of what it does have to worry about it still sufficiently long that you'd think "some farmer in Pennsylvania is selling unpasteurized milk to people in D.C." would be somewhere near the bottom. Apparently not; the Justice Department recently went after the Rainbow Acres Farm in Kinzers, Pa., for just that, prompting the local customers to pledge to come to the farm's assistance. We're glad to see everything else has actually been taken care of. -1

Back Up Against the Wall: Since 1942, teams have lost the first two games of a best-of-seven National Hockey League playoff series 291 times. They've only come back to win 37 of those times—or 12.7 percent. That's exactly where the Washington Capitals find themselves tonight as they head to Tampa needing to win at least one game on the road to stay alive (and preferably two). Don't despair yet, though: The Caps already managed to pull off one of those 37 comebacks, two years ago against the Rangers. -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 65 Today's score: +1 Today's Needle rating: 66

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

Ted Leonsis, a fabulous sports owner turned blogger, went after sportstalk station WTEM-AM in a recent blog post after Thom Loverro, a fabulous newspaper columnist turned blogger (and WTEM host), called the Leonsis-owned Washington Wizards an "invisible franchise."

Leonsis flamed Loverro's medium as much as he did his message.

"I find it ironic that an AM radio station – which I can’t hear at night because of static – calls a fast growing NBA team 'invisible,'" Leonsis wrote. "That is funny."

Well, I listened to the playoff game between the New York Rangers and the Washington Capitals on the flagship station of Leonsis hockey team: WFED, 1500-AM.

That's when the humor of Leonsis' crack hit me: The flagship station of the Caps, a team the whole region and my household has pinned their sports hopes and dreams to, is an AM signal, too.

I couldn't find the biggest game in town anywhere on the FM dial.

Invisible? Nah. But you could say Caps are inaudible.

That is funny.

(Turns out Ted's having some blog problems today, too.)

Try Your Hand: It's official: The D.C. Lottery is now legally able to administer "games of skill and games of chance." Conceivably, this will generate some revenue for the city, and it's pretty cool that the District is the first American jurisdiction where Internet gambling is kosher. But it doesn't seem like anyone has a clear concept of what, exactly, kosher Internet gaming looks like. Online poker? Gaming machines? If only there were somewhere we could place bets on the eventual outcome. +2

Peaked: Increased fees for riding Metrorail have done very, very little to alter commuting patterns. Though riders are apparently unhappy with the extra 20 cent charge during "peak of the peak" times, they aren't changing their schedules to avoid it. So, the system is just as congested during rush hour as ever—you're just paying more to ride it. -2

This Suburban Life: The very rich are different from you and me; for one, they seem to live in Virginia. Or so found Forbes, which listed Falls Church as the richest county in America (technically, it's a city, but we won't quibble), followed by Loudon and Fairfax. Howard County, Md., also made the list of "America's 10 Richest Counties." Maybe one of them will drop some bags of money accidentally next time they come into the District! +1

Hockey Town, U.S.A.: For the last few years, as the Capitals have won more and more games, longtime fans have taken to bashing new arrivals on the bandwagon; people who don't usually follow hockey at all suddenly tune in for the playoffs, and it's hard to tell the people who "rock the red" because it's cool from the people who remember when Bobby Carpenter was traded away for Kelly Miller and Mike Ridley. That annual time to tune in arrives tonight, as the Caps play the Rangers in game 1 of the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Which means we should all put aside any question of old loyalties vs. glory hunters and focus on what matters: Showing New York up. +2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 60 Today's score: +3 Today's Needle rating: 63

courtesy PuckBuddys

I'm more awed by the minute at how swimmingly things have gone for PuckBuddys pretty much ever since the first blog dedicated to gay Washington Capitals fans  dove into the mainstream around New Year's Day.

Ted Leonsis was among the first to embrace the place. From the get-go and with no fanfare, the Caps owner directed readers of his own blog to the new site, whose slogan is "For boys who like boys who like hockey."

Then the idolmaking Deadspin and Puck Daddy started teasing posts from Puckbuddys, too.

And all of a sudden gay and hockey are being paired like Tai Babalonia and Randy Gardner.

The Hockey Luvin' Homo showed up behind the glass at a pivotal Vancouver/Los Angeles game last week.

And, as reported by PuckBuddys, NHL heavyweight and Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke is out speaking about the need for his beloved sport to get over the anti-gay bias that's ruled the roost in hockey since the first puck was dropped, and pretty much all other sports ever since sweaty and awesomely fit young men wrestled and gymnasticked nakedly (ok ok ok... probably nakedly) in the ancient Olympics.

“My goal is to throw the weight of an NHL front office at the issue,” Burke told the newspaper at Bowdoin College, where he was appearing as part of a series called "Anything But Straight in Athletics." “This bias needs to disappear, and I think pro leagues and teams can add useful muscle to this issue.” (Burke's gay and openly hockey-luvin' son, Brendan Burke, was killed last year in an auto accident.)

Anybody wanting to jump on the gay hockey bandwagon while there's still room can show up  tonight and Saturday, as PuckBuddys hosts its last two Caps viewing parties of the regular season.

Coming soon from a distinguished legislator from (I'm guessing) Virginia: The Defense of Hockey Act.

And I might have to support it! If PuckBuddys and the like keep at it, gay sports might become (gasp!) mundane! Then what the hell am I gonna type about?

(Full disclosure: PuckBuddys founders Craig Brownstein and Doug Johnson are geniuses. Oh, and they're also friends of mine.)

Just a couple weeks after doom and gloom consumed the Washington fan base, the team is now in second place in the Eastern Conference and have the third-most points in the entire NHL.

Some day, Capsologists* will surely look back at the 2010-2011 season and recall that the turning point came when fans at the Verizon Center booed the home team in the March 1 game vs. the Islanders, even though Washington was only down by one goal.

The Caps had the whole arena on their side that night after Alex Ovechkin's OT goal won it, 2-1.

The team hasn't lost since.

And, heading into Title Town for tonight's matchup with perennial Cup contenders and the Western Conference's current second-place squad, the Detroit Red Wings, there's an air of invincibility around the Caps not seen around here since, well, just before the Canadiens booted 'em out of last year's Stanley Cup playoffs.

*Capsologists, who like hack typists like to hedge their bets, might give the trade-deadline-day deal that brought Jason Arnott from New Jersey some credit for the local team's turnaround, too.

Illustration by Brooke Hatfield

Today, alongside halfsies offers for "three LipoLaser treatments" at Help for Health in Springfield and a "scrub" at Alexandria's Frizzles Salon and Spa, Groupon is offering fire-sale prices on Washington Wizards tickets.

From the Groupon pitch:

Choose from the following seating options:

* $150 for One Box VIP Ticket (a $225 value, including all you can eat and drink of beer, wine, and soda at the Courtside Club)

* $37 for One Club level Ticket (an $80 value)

* $18 for One Upper Level Ticket (a $35 value)

These options are available for the following games:

* Saturday, February 5 vs. the Atlanta Hawks at 7:00 p.m.

* Tuesday, February 22 vs. the Indiana Pacers at 7:00 p.m.

* Monday, February 28 vs. the Chicago Bulls at 7:00 p.m.

* Wednesday, March 2 vs. the Golden State Warriors at 7:00 p.m.

* Saturday, March 5 vs. the Minnesota Timberwolves at 7:00 p.m.

* Saturday, March 12 vs. the Los Angeles Clippers at 7:00 p.m

This is at least the second time this season that Leonsis has cast his basketball team's tickets into the bargain bin.

Meanwhile, I'm not aware of the Washington Capitals' tickets keeping company with scrubs and "LipoLaser treatments" on Groupon's daily deals even once this year.

Groupon does seem a fine fit for this year's Wizards, who've proven to be competitive in only half their games.

But, Blake Griffin at a deep discount?

Now THAT's a bargain!

Rest easy people: It's alive!

The Wizards fell to the Knicks last night at Madison Square Garden. So I can still claim to have as many welterweight title belts, Nobel Peace Prizes and winning Powerball tickets as the 2010-11 Wizards do road wins.

That's the team's 21st straight road loss this season. Every single away game has gone in the L column.

I thought The Streak was going to end last night. The Knicks were barely above .500 at home (10-9) heading into the game and our boys were coming off the biggest win of the year, a two-pointer over Boston on Saturday. (The Wiz, horrible as they surely are, are 13-9 at the Verizon Center.)

I even tried to get a small bet in on the Wizards before tipoff with an e-mail to somebody who happened to be in Vegas, but he couldn't play courier in time.

I've never bet on or even tried to bet on the Wizards in my life. Credit goes to The Streak. Defeat by defeat, it's getting interestinger and interestinger. Eight more games like last night's, and the Wizards tie the NBA record for consecutive road losses.

Seventeen more, and they break the local mark for consecutive road losses by a pro team (the 1974-1975 Washington Capitals).

So it's a good thing the wager wasn't placed. That means I still have my money AND my interest in the Wizards' season. I doubt that interest will survive a win.  Sports rooting doesen't get much more macabre than watching a losing streak. Around here, we haven't had this many folks checking the sports pages to see if something's alive since Barbaro broke down.

The Wiz are back home to host the Denver Nuggets tonight at Verizon Center. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Wake me when they're on the road again. I just can't wait...

No other NBA team has lost every road game this year.

There's no reason to pay attention to the Wizards from here on out as compelling as their road losing streak.

If this continues for much longer, it'll be like DiMaggio (circa 1941) in OppositeLand around here: All of Washington will wake up in the morning anxious to check the newspapers to see if the Wizards lost another away game. (That's how Washington gets its news, right?)

But as horrendous as the Wiz surely are away from Fun Street, so far they're only half as bad as the horrendousest road squad in local sports history.

That title will forever belong to the 1974-1975 Washington Capitals.

The Caps, in the franchise's first year, went their first 37 road games without a win.

Even more stupendously, this skein came in the era where the NHL had ties — a whole lot of ties — but the expansion Caps couldn't even manage a draw away from Capital Centre in the town then known as Largo.

The Caps were 0-37-0 on March 28, 1975, when they went to Oakland and beat the California Golden Seals, 5-3, to end the streak, which still stands as the worst in NHL history.

The Caps players treated the win as the historic moment it was. Here's some recollections of what happened after the final horn on that big night from former Caps center Ron LaLonde:

"We came into the dressing room and there was a big green garbage can, and we pretended that was our Stanley Cup. We signed it all and skated back out on the ice, all the fans had left for the night but we went out, [Caps leading scorer] Tommy Williams led the charge, and that garbage can with our signatures on it was there for two or three years afterward until they moved the franchise."

Great story. And, come to think of it, that trash can remains the only sort of trophy the Washington Caps have ever skated around with.

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?

Actually, I cannot even name any Jan. 1 football matchup.

I heard the Rose Bowl won't have a PAC 10 representative.  And the Cotton Bowl won't even be played on New Year's Day.

The only athletic contest scheduled for that day that I'm at all versed on, in fact, will be a hockey game. Yeah, Washington Capitals vs. Pittsburgh Penguins. The Winter Classic.

How the hell did that happen? How could the NCAA surrender New Year's Day...to hockey? And so fast!

In just three years, the NHL has filled some portion of the Jan. 1 hole left behind when the NCAA started saving all the good games for later — as much as 10 days into the new year.

The Winter Classic is already more of a big deal than the NHL All-Star Game ever was. The NHL is treating it like it means something, with the teams wearing special uniforms and a whole line of attire up for sale.

And it's working. Did HBO ever devote an entire reality series to the lead-up to an NHL All-Star Game?

No. But, Caps/Penguins, one of 82 regular season games each team will play, gets one. Episode two of "24/7" airs tonight.

And, based on sportsradio chatter, people are looking forward to the show! Again, it's a program previewing one of 82 regular season games!

Talking completely out of my bum and well aware that I'm in one of the featured markets, I would bet the TV ratings for this year's Winter Classic will top even Stanley Cup contests.

Bottom line: They, whoever they are, have made me care about hockey on New Year's Day.

More than this year's Cotton or Rose or Orange or Sugar Bowls.

That makes me feel Un-American. Hockey's not our game. Football is! And the Classic's always played outside, like kids in Canada play hockey.

Like kids in America used to play football!

The 2011 BCS Championship between Auburn and Oregon, meanwhile, will be played in a building with a roof on it.

Geez...

Mike Wise

I figured it was just a bit. But then Ted Leonsis, at yesterday's press conference to officially announce his takeover of the Washington Wizards, recognized Wise in front of all gathered as a guy about to be married.

Wise has gone public with the personal stuff before. His column about his own serial sexual improprieties after Tiger Woods' bangage spree came out ("I am Tiger Woods!" Wise declared again and again in print) could be filed under Too Much TMI™.

Some heartless souls mocked the columnist for his confessional.

Yet now, just a few months after telling the world he's medically incapable of fidelity, he's pledging to stay the course, through sickness and health and business trips to Vegas? Because he lost a bet with others at the station about who would lose the most weight?

Yup.

"It's real. He's getting married this weekend," says Chris Kinard, WJFK's program director.

Geez Louise.

Wise didn't return an email for comment. Guess he's busy. Kinard says he'll be back at work on Monday.