Benjamin Sumner's Website

As if I don’t have enough websites to write for, I recently added another. For Fansided’s main NHL blog, Too Many Men on the Site, I’ll be writing a column called ‘Hitting the Post’ on Mondays.

Why would I do this? It’ll give me an outlet to write about hockey that isn’t Caps-specific meant for Capitals Outsider, and isn’t goofy like for Gunaxin.

The name, “Hitting the Post,” actually has several meanings. Most obvious is when the puck hits the side of the goal. But it’s also the DJ term for talking through the intro of a song and stopping less than a second before the lyrics start (an homage to my DJ days in college). Lastly, it means I’m hitting the Washington Post for continuing to not pay much attention to hockey in terms of columnists. Sure, they send a writer to a game every now and then, but it’s hardly enough.

Anyway, this week, I’m politely asking everyone to stop calling it the Gordie Howe Hat Trick and to rename it the Brendan Shanahan Hat Trick. Why? Just read.

I’m sure if I did the math to find out how much of my life is consumed by the Washington Capitals, it would be a relatively high number in proportion to just about everything else I do, including sleeping.

In the past week, I’ve seen all four Capitals games while attending two of them. In the past two days I read the book The Ovechkin Project, which the publisher sent me for review. Then I spent much of today, including the time during the Caps game, to write the review (I didn’t attend – my press partner Phil was there).

I got some great coverage the other night at the game, including a photo of Yi Jianlian of the Washington Wizards attending his first Caps game, and a quick article on Eric Fehr getting the player of the game but virtually being ignored by reporters after the game (though the Post made up for it with an article about him a day later). These and a couple of other quick articles got 2,000 page views on Wednesday, thanks to links by The Post, Japers’ Rink, a few basketball sites and others.

By the way, I was told that Capitals Outsider was the No. 1 hockey blog on the Fansided network for page views last month. That was flattering, but what’s scary is that it only took about 10 days for us to surpass last month’s total, so who knows what we’ll end up with. Even better, the compliments have been rolling in.

Whenever I plan on asking an offbeat question at a press conference after the Capitals game, I have to be really careful, especially with the timing and tone.

This time, I asked permission, and was told to wait toward the end of the press conference.

After the Caps’ 5-3 preseason win, the coach had a big smile on his face when I saw him downstairs. The press conference was a breeze, no hard questions, and Bruce was in a good mood.

When there was a break in the questions, I made my move.

“Coach, there’s been a lot of new commercials lately,” I began.

“Oh, shit,” he said, and the journalists started laughing (this isn’t the first time I’ve asked a question that led to an interruption of laughter).

I asked whose commercials were funnier and he sheepishly said Ovechkin is better at everything than him.

“But he hasn’t done bird calls,” Jill Sorenson of CSN said (I think it was her).

I thought it was hilarious, and I did get what I needed for my article. The photo is a screengrab from the video at the exact moment I mentioned ‘commercial.’

Sorry, Bruce, but if you’re going to make bird calls for Mercedes and dance on stage in sweats with Ryan Zimmerman, I’m going to ask you about it.

So long as you’re in a good mood.