RMNB

Russian Machine Never Breaks: The Highlights

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.

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Russian Machine Never Breaks: One Year Later

Ian Oland: Fearless Leader (Portrait by Anna Schmidt)

On Saturday, July 31st, Russian Machine Never Breaks will be hosting a party at The Front Page in Arlington to celebrate our first year together.  Now that the season is a half-forgotten memory, development camp has ended, and the hockey world produces practically no news throughout August, we thought this the perfect time to reflect back on the year.

The season had already begun when Ian floated past me the idea of starting a Caps blog.  Ian and I recognized one another as Caps fanatics. He, deeply possessed of ninja-like design skills and the marked success of Matt Wieters Facts, and I, renowned for a writing style one can describe only as masturbatory, thought ourselves a good match.

From the start, we had a goal: document the experience of a Washington Capitals fan.  For us, that meant writing about the team with the same passion and fun the team plays with.  We didn’t have any preconception of how people might react, of even if they would react at all.  Given the absolute absence of expectations for the site, we can say now that year one of RMNB has far surpassed our expectations.

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