Blackhawks Fly the Coop...Caps Beat Chicago

Hockey Mom got a late start this morning (hey, it's the one day of the week I get to sleep in) so I'm sure all of you puckheads out there know the outcome of last night's contest against a young Chicago Blackhawks team with such talents as Rookie of the Year Patrick Kane, youngster Jonathan Toews and gritty defenseman Brian Campbell. We were in the Phone Booth amongst the sea of red and the noise level was just as loud as it was during last year's playoffs.

Jose Theodore once again got off to a wobbly start, which silenced the buzz after the Hawks scored seconds after the opening face off. He made a nice recovery and fab goals by Matt Bradley, Brooks Laich and 2 from the Alex the Great sealed the deal for the Caps. The last goal by Brooks Laich went to Toronto for review but was ruled as good (it was definitely good from my vantage point). So nice job Caps - way to stay the course! Some fans started losing the faith after that first errant Blackhawk goal - apparently
Ted Leonsis started getting nasty grams in his inbox 45 seconds into the game! Of course these are probably the same people that ask him for a free jersey because they were out of mustard at the concession stand - nice. HM is officially adopting his response as my new life mantra "Life is too short to drink bad wine" - cheap beer but not bad wine :P

By the way, I need to give a big shout out to the ticket folks at Verizon after I had a bit of a ticket snafu last night and almost didn't make it in. They were really terrific in researching what happened with my tickets and I know they don't have an easy job, especially on a sell-out night. So thank you again for going above and beyond!

The other big story was the nation's most recognized hockey mom dropping the first puck at last night's opening game between the Flyers and New York Rangers.

She didn't heed my advice about wearing dry clean only apparel for the occasion and actually wore white! She did get a nice welcome from Alaska native and New York Ranger star Scott Gomez but a not-so-nice reception (as expected) by the thugnoxious Flyers faithful. But hey, she let her young daughter walk out the door in a Flyers jersey! Yuck...

Check it out: