Buckle up, friends; we’re taking a victory lap.
Over the last year (technically more like 9 months), we’ve had some terrific highlights. Yes, the grim shadow of the playoffs still hangs over the year, but we choose to remember the good times. Our finest moments are usually our team’s finest moments as well, and so our recollection includes the high points of both the team and our silly blog.
At latest count, our Facebook page has 1,047 likers (including my mom). The parade of typos we call our Twitter account has 1,493 followers. The website itself is north of 300,000 hits, which is kind of dumbfounding if you think about it too long. Our teammates Neil and Fedor have parlayed their skills into gigs with VOA and Washington Examiner respectively. Even Peter has managed to hustle free pub fries from The Greene Turtle using the blog.
If we had to pick a single highlight for the year, it would have to be Andrew Gordon’s residency during the Calder Cup Finals. When Ian blackmailed convinced Andrew to pitch in, we didn’t know quite what to expect. Once Andrew turned in his first column, we figured out that his writing chops are just as formidable as his hockey skills. Andrew provided an unprecedented look not only behind the scenes, but also into the heart, of professional hockey. We are eternally grateful to Andrew for both his candor and the oodles of traffic he delivered.
We’d also be remiss without mentioning our campaign to get the President to see a Caps game, unfortunately named Barack the Red. We still hold out hope for victory next season! Then there’s #beardpact, our tragically abbreviated effort to document the facial hair growth of Caps nation during the playoffs. Given that Peter had to shave his beard for wedding immediately before the Caps lost three straight games, maybe we shouldn’t have included this one in the list. Oh well.
Most of those items came from the last few months. That’s because readers like you keep showing up in droves despite our best attempts to drive you away. Still, some of you have probably missed some good stuff! There was the bizarre origin of our fascination on Varly’s malingering groin. And that time Ian met Mike Green, sometime before he started blocking us on Twitter.
My personal favorites always seem to be the games themselves. Like when Ovie became captain and John Carlson became Captain America, or when the Caps got smacked down in their last loss for a long while, or the first win of many. There’s the Snowpocalypse game, the history-making win, Nicky Backstrom’s well-timed hat trick, and one particularly soul-crushing defeat.
Our first press credential, given to Ian on the night Hershey lost their first home game in forever.
Ian’s press pass from development camp, where we stole office chairs.
Kyle M. insinuates himself into the Bears Calder Cup celebration. Love the Ripken shirt.
Courtney Moritz’s dog Bailey has a discriminating fashion sense.
Ted Leonsis writes on Ian’s wall. Ian was unbearable for days after this. Also note that Ted signs his FB messages. That’s hilarious.
Validation, Facebook style, from Uncle Ted
…and from Andrew.
Miss Virginia USA wears the RMNB t-shirt.
Mike Knuble picks up the garbage, nabs the Gordie Howe. Ian creates this image, which still makes me laugh.
Peter and Stevie K partook the new Caps tradition of feasting on victory wings.
Russian Machine Never Breaks is not associated with the Washington Capitals; Monumental Sports, the NHL, or its properties. Not even a little bit.
All original content on russianmachineneverbreaks.com is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)– unless otherwise stated or superseded by another license. You are free to share, copy, and remix this content so long as it is attributed, done for noncommercial purposes, and done so under a license similar to this one.
Share On