Fans weigh in on what it will take to win the Cup next year.

With the Caps collapsing to the Canadians and exiting the playoffs early again this year, armchair GMs are popping up everywhere with suggestions to fix the Capitals woes.

Colin Foster has been a Caps fans his entire 22 years of existence and has been through the numerous playoffs failures and he says the Caps are one defender away from playoff glory.

“We need a good D-man, and no, Mike Green doesn’t count,” said Foster.  “All the great teams have a good shut-down defenseman.”

Other fans, like Adam Sebring say a goalie is all that’s needed.

“Theo and Varly,” said Sebring.  “Those arn’t two names I want in my net when I’m trying to win a Cup.  They need a good goalie and they’d be fine.”

Whatever the Caps need they have all summer to think about it and go out and get it.  Next year everyone starts fresh,  but as Caps fans know, you should always expect to be let down.

Fans React to Increase Ticket Prices After Loss

For the third consecutive year, the Caps have raised ticket prices and with the disappointments continuing to mount, some fans find the increases hard to swallow.

“Yes please, I would love to pay more for a product that can’t win when it counts,” said season ticket holder Lenny Johnson.  “They want more money, but they can’t keep justifying it with good regular seasons, it’s time to start winning when it counts.”

Winning when it counts is a common theme among Caps fans and even fans who attend just a few games a year are upset.  Tim White attends roughly five games  a year and said he will stick to the television next year.

“Watching them on TV will do just fine for me,” said White.  “I’m not going to shell out a ton of money to see a game when I can turn on my TV and see the same thing, it’s just getting ridiculous with the prices they want, especially since they only want to win in the regular season.”

First Year Fans React to Loss

With the Caps stunning first round playoff exit, some bandwagon fans are sure to fall off, but consensus around the campus of Towson University is the Caps are here to stay.

Senior Chad Rock says he has been a Caps fan for two years and will continue to be even after the disappointing end to the season.

“Yea, I’ll keep liking them,” said Rock.  “They’re going to have a good team for a few years, they just need to figure out how to win in the playoffs.  Once I started watching hockey I was hooked, it’s a lot of fun.”

Sophomore Anise Richards sported her Mike Green jersey during the playoffs this year and says she’ll continue to support the team as well.

“I just started liking the team this year,” said Richards.  “I bought a Mike Green jersey and wore it, but I might need to switch jerseys because he played terrible in the playoffs.  Anything to help out.”

However, freshman Phillip Hose said he had fun watching the Caps while it lasted, but won’t be back.

“I’m a football guy,” said Hose.  “All my friends were watching the Caps, so I decided to watch too,  but I can’t see myself sitting through another season.  I wanted to pay attention this season to see if I was interested, but I think I like football more still.”

Caps out of Playoffs, but still playing for something

Alex Ovechkin, Alex Semin, and Semyon Varlamov may be out of the playoffs, but they are still playing hockey for their country at the World Championships.

Representing your country in tournament play is a big deal to the Russians and to understand why I asked Russian Sveltlana Bournikov what hockey means to her country.  Sveltlana and I used to work together and she would always tell me the differences between America and Russia.

“America like football, Russia like hockey,” said Bournikov in her Russian accent.  “It always cold in Russia, we play hockey all the time like you play baseball here.  The players have a real sense of pride in their country, it no surprised they play after the season.”

Pittsburgh Falls From Grace

The defending Stanley Cup champs suffered an early playoff exit from the hands of the same team that knocked the Caps out, the Montreal Canadians.

Not only are the Pens done, but their exit marks the final end for their longtime arena, affectionately known as “the Igloo.”

Longtime Pens fan and Pittsburgh resident Todd Donahue,37, was at the deciding game 7 last night.

“It was the end to a lot last night,” said Donahue.  “The Pens lost, but so did the Mellon Arena.  The Igloo is no more after tonight and I’ve had a lot of memories in that building.  From hockey games to concerts, that building was pretty special to me.”

The Penguins will start the season in a new building across the street next year.

In the words of a Montreal fan

I met a guy from Montreal at my old college who was a huge Canadians fan and had moved to the states because his father took a job in DC.

After the Caps blew another season, I emailed my old friend, Jean DeBouis, and asked him for some thoughts.

“ My thoughts?  What a hell of a series.  Halak played like a man possessed,” said DeBouis.  “My family and I had a party at our house to watch the game and we just couldn’t believe it.  No one gave us a chance and then we come out and do this.  This is the Super Bowl to us.  No one in the states understands what hockey means to people in Canada.  It’s religion.”

While Caps fans sit and wonder what went wrong, Montreal will take on the Penguins in Round 2.

“The Penguins are going to be tough,” said DeBouis.  “I mean, after knocking off the Caps though, who knows what this team can do.”

New Fans Disappointed at Team

Every Capitals fan knows they will have their heart broken every year in some unimaginable way.  This year though, the Caps have outdone themselves.  What is already being called the most difficult defeat in the franchises history is, for some, the first taste of Caps hockey.

Jamie Swinford is a new Caps fan, deciding to start following the team on their history season.  She says the team she watched wasn’t the same team that took the ice in the playoffs.

“I never would have got into them if this was the team they were in the playoffs,” said Swinford.  “They couldn’t score, couldn’t pass, they were just real bad.”

Amazing what two years can do when two years ago Caps fans were happy the Caps even made the playoffs at all and when the team lost in seven games to Philadelphia everyonewas okay with it.

“It was different then,” said Ed Pipken, who started following the team that year.  “This year, anything but a trip to the finals would have been a disappointment.  I’ve followed this team for two years now and it keeps getting worse every year.”

No longer can Caps fans hold out optimism until next season, hoping to build on past failures.

“What else is there,” said Pipken.  “This was the best shot we’re going to have for a long time.”