First post. A bit uneasy about this blogging world, despite thousands, hell millions of words on various message boards over the past 10 years, talking all DC sports.
I am looking forward to this though, and in particular the exciting decade the
Lets start with the good; the Washington Capitals. Alex Ovechkin, Mike Green, Nick Backstrom, Alex Semin, Semyon Varlamov, a core for the next 10 years, seeing they are all stars 25 or younger. After an awful downturn in the middle of the decade, owner Ted Leonsis started over, stripped the team down, got lucky in the 2004 draft by winning the lottery, landed Alex Ovechkin, and DC sports could be witnessing the start of a hockey dynasty.
I’d like to say lets go to the bad, but lets be honest, its been pretty ugly. DC United, the 5 star franchise of MLS since its founding in 1996, has only one MLS Cup title this decade, and that being in 2004. The Freddy Adu experiment was a failure, and 2009 saw United fail to make the playoffs.
The Wizards, 4 straight playoff appearances in the middle of the decade, but as of this writing the team is imploding, Gilbert Arenas is suspended “indefinitely” due to being a jackass with his guns, and the team is on its way to a 2nd straight appearance in the draft lottery.
The Nationals have been a national joke in MLB with back to back 100 loss seasons, former GM Jim Bowden getting tricked by a Dominican, Manny Acta being completely ineffective as a manager, low attendance and just overall cheapness. The tide appears to be turning with the hiring of Mike Rizzo, some smart offseason signings, and the drafting of pitching prodigy Stephen Strasburg
And the Redskins. A decade of high expectations usually ending up in flops. One season of 10 wins, 2 playoff appearances, no division titles and a losing record, with 2009 being one of the worst seasons in 30 years as the team fell to 4-12 and last place. Change is coming out in Ashburn though as Vinny Cerrato resigned, Jim Zorn was fired and it appears Dan Snyder has given full control of the team to new GM Bruce Allen and new head coach Mike Shanahan.
So yea, basically the majority of my 20s was spent watching losing teams, playoff disappointments, losses to hated rivals, witnessing these losses live (stupid game 6 in ‘06 vs Lebron and the Cavs) and just complete failure.
The 2010s have to be better…
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