Well, look. I’ve been writing these posts mostly since the LA Kings won their first Stanley Cup, and it’s been a golden run for me since then: The Kings won it again, the Blackhawks won it (my mom is from Chicago), and the Penguins won it twice (that’s my husband’s town). I probably missed a year in there where it was someone else, but the point is that I’ve been pretty blessed. Washington sports fans, significantly less so: The football team is a pit of despair, I don’t even know what the Wizards are doing, the Nationals always seem to underperform, and the Capitals are routinely excellent all season before folding like a cheap table to the Penguins in the playoffs. Not so this year. The team finally lived up to its Ovechkin-led potential and took four in a row off the previously formidable Las Vegas Golden Knights to win the Cup — its first in franchise history, and the first championship in any sport for D.C. since the football team won the Super Bowl on the arm of Mark Rypien in 1992. As much as it painted me as a Pittsburgh fan to see it, this has been quite a year for first sports wins — Eagles fans are STILL freaking out, I think — and that is always a little bit thrilling because I know how it feels to be that fan. Congrats, y’all.
And on a side note: Is there any better away city to be in when you win than Vegas? I assume the ways The Cup was illicitly defiled on night one would make Charlie Sheen shudder.