Is Alexander Ovechkin the most popular athlete of the four sports teams in Washington D.C.? That’s the question I kept asking myself after Capitals owner Ted Leonsis said it in the opening minutes of the episode. The Nationals’ most popular player is Bryce Harper, the Redskins’ is Robert Griffin III and the Wizards’ is John Wall. Ovechkin and the other three all have their own individual question marks because Ovechkin hasn’t won the Cup, Harper hasn’t been Mike Trout, RGIII is on the verge of playing himself out of D.C. and the Wizards haven’t been good so no one has paid attention to them. (At least that’s how I see each situation from an outsider’s perspective.)

But when I think about the question on a larger scale, I always come back to the Sidney Crosby-Alexander Ovechkin debate, which began when the two entered the NHL in 2005-06 after the lockout, and will never go away for as long as they play or live. It doesn’t always happen that a great player is linked to another great player for the duration of a career or lifetime and in turn a rivalry (whether real or fake) is created, but when they happen, they are what makes sports great. Crosby-Ovechkin is one of those instances.

I have always been a Crosby guy. He is the best player in the NHL and has been for a decade and likely will be for the next decade. Here’s what I said about the two in the recap of the first 24/7 episode back on Dec. 16, 2010.

These two players will be linked and connected throughout their entire careers, and if you’re a hockey fan, you’re either a Crosby guy or an Ovechkin guy. You can’t be both. You have to pick one. I’m a Crosby guy and have been from Day One, though I am pretty much alone on this among my friends.

When Evgeni Malkin is watching the game against Toronto on TV and laughs while saying, “Sid … Look,” as Crosby joins a scrum in front of the net after a whistle, I couldn’t help, but think of all the cheap shots and slew foots the Penguins committed against the Rangers in the 2006-07 Eastern Conference semifinals. But being able to play that way and get away with it is part of the game and a big part of the Penguins’ game, and it’s what makes them good. And it’s what makes me like them and like watching them play.

Is Crosby chippy and even dirty? Yes. Does he excessively whine to refs and dive? Yes. Does he get into scrums in front of the net after whistles because he knows that he won’t get a penalty and that no one will touch him then? Yes. Is he the best player in the world? Yes.

Capitals assistant coach Dean Evason made it a point to call Ovechkin “the greatest player in the world” during his locker room rant when the Rangers scored more goals against the Capitals than the Jets did points against the Dolphins last Sunday (7-6).

“Our best player is fighting! The greatest player in the world!”

I understand that Evason was trying to make the point that the Capitals were embarrassing themselves and there’s no need for Ovechkin to be fighting when the team is getting shutout, but was it necessary to call Ovechkin “the greatest player in the world?” Sure, that’s Evason’s opinion and he spends every day around Ovechkin, so I would expect his opinion to be skewed, and I’m probably making too big of a deal about nothing, but do you think the Pittsburgh coaching staff is telling Crosby he is the best player in the world? No, because he knows he is.

After watching Ovechkin attend the Wizards game and seeing him act like a normal person and not a four-time 50-plus goal scorer and one-time 65-goal scorer, I actually kind of liked Ovechkin, which is something I never thought I would say. I’m a Crosby guy and always will be, but for the first time, I wasn’t so anti-Ovechkin even after he spent Tuesday night taking shots at every Ranger. I’m sure I will be back to being anti-Ovechkin in March when the Rangers-Capitals play again.

***

Here are the thoughts from the second episode:

– I spend every Capitals scene hoping it ends quickly, so there is more time to focus on the Blackhawks. But I will say, this episode was probably the best Capitals coverage we have gotten after four 24/7 episodes in 2010 and one EPIX episode last week.

– Corey Crawford is either a dick or EPIX picked the wrong time to start to involve the goalie on their show when he freaks out on the media for really no reason. “Oh fuck … What do you want to ask me?” Crawford asks in a snippy and irritated way when reporters try to find out his status and his potential return from injury. Relax, Crawford and just be grateful anyway cares how you are feeling or when you are returning to play hockey.

– The Blackhawks should offer a service where you can pay to watch their games on a different channel where there is a camera and mic on Joel Quenneville the entire time. I already pay for HBO and right now there isn’t a show worth watching on the network and every movie they play either sucks or I have already seen it. This is likely the case for many HBO subscribers and for all the HBO subscribers who are also hockey fans, why wouldn’t they subscribe to this channel? I’m sure the Blackhaws have a “2” or “Plus” channel the way MSG does, so they could just use one of those and then all you need is one camera and one mic. Make it happen.

– After seeing Tom Wilson and Michael Laatta’s apartment in the first episode, I can certainly see how the roommates live the way they do after watching them eat at Ted’s Montana Grill. Unless other players don’t want the cameras involved in their personal lives, there has to be better options to cover on the Capitals. We are now halfway done with the season and we have seen enough of Wilson and Laatta to know that if they are featured any more, it’s likely not going to be entertaining unless they decide to show scenes from their social life.

– The audio of the broadcaster saying, “Metropolitan Division rivals collide tonight,” in reference to the Capitals-Blue Jackets game took me by surprise. The Capitals and Blue Jackets are rivals? Solely because they play in the same division? Are the Rangers and Hurricanes rivals?

– It seems like every team now has a postgame award to give out to that game’s best player following a win and even though I might think the Rangers’ Broadway hat is No. 1, it’s hard to not respect the Abraham Lincoln hat and beard the Capitals use for their player of the game award. Not only does it fit the team’s city, but there’s no one who is going to wear the combination that is going to look anything other than ridiculous while giving a locker room speech.

– Daniel Carcillo didn’t look like Daniel Carcillo at the Blackhawks’ family skate. If EPIX didn’t put up a graphic with his name, I don’t know that I would have known it was him as he looked more like Billy Corgan from his early Smashing Pumpkins days than he looked like the guy that helped the Rangers reach the Stanley Cup Final last season.

– I was rooting for Scott Darling to stay on the team over Antti Raanta even though I already knew that Darling had been sent down to Rockford before the episode. It’s hard not to root for someone who played on 13 minor league teams, including playing in the Southern Pro league four years ago, to have a job in the NHL. Even if Darling never makes it back to the league, his journey was an improbable one and it’s unlikely that when he was playing for the Louisiana IceGators in 2010 he could have thought he would one day be playing for the Blackhawks. For a former sixth-round pick, that’s impressive.

– There’s not much to say about Ovechkin’s amazing goal against the Devils other than that if this was 20 years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to see the goal on this show or on YouTube, which is how I originally saw it. Instead I would have to wait for the following year for the latest Don Cherry Rock’em Sock’em video to come out on VHS. I’m obviously happy with the state of technology and being able to watch games on my phone anywhere, but I am nostalgic for that process and growing up watching Cherry commentate on Stephane Richer’s end-to-end goals, which is what Ovechkin’s reminded me of.

– Navy Pier in Chicago is a pretty cool place. The only time I have been there was last January when I was in Chicago for Rangers-Blackhawks and needed to kill time one day, so we spent the day at Navy Pier at the tail end of the Winter WonderFest riding carnival rides. The Blackhawks’ season ticket party definitely looked like a better time at the Pier.

– The final thought of the second episode once again is related to Joel Quenneville: Only one “peanut butter” from Q? Come on, EPIX.

I was devastated when I found out that the NHL’s version of 24/7 wouldn’t be returning for this season. Sure, the series was coming off its weakest season with the Red Wings and Maple Leafs featured for a month without Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg involved for a majority of the time. But for the previous two seasons of the show in 2011 and 2010 (thanks to Gary Bettman for the 2012 lockout), it had become can’t-miss TV and quickly became a December tradition like going to Rockefeller Center to see the tree or watching Tom Coughlin’s Giants collapse down the stretch.

Thankfully, EPIX stepped up and stepped in to replace HBO and keep the series running this season, so we could watch life with the Chicago Blackhawks for the first time and, unfortunately, with the Washington Capitals for a second time. As I did back in 2011 for the Rangers and Flyers and in 2010 for the Penguins and Capitals, I decided it made sense to dust off the series recaps and start them up for this year’s four episodes. And I’m happy I did because of Joel Quenneville.

There used to be talks that the Winter Classic should always feature one consistent team, like the Lions or Cowboys on Thanksgiving, or make the game always be between the two same teams. Fortunately, for the sake of the series, that has never happened.

I always thought MTV’s biggest mistake with The Jersey Shore was that it didn’t change the cast after the first successful season and then just kept changing the cast for each following summer. Because of the original’s cast immediate rise to fame, each subsequent cast would have gone over the top to make sure they wilder parties, sleazier at the bars and clubs and more creative when it came to nicknames. If Mike Sorrentino was able to set the bar as high as he did in the first season of the show, who knows what his successors would have or could have been capable of to try and become that season’s version of “The Situation”. Luckily, when it comes to the Road to the NHL Winter Classic, we get a new cast every year. And when Bruce Boudreau burst onto the scene as an F-bombing leader with BBQ sauce or ketchup all over his face, I wasn’t sure if he could be topped until John Tortorella displayed just how much of an a-hole he can be by ripping his players, the media and the HBO production team all while passing Boudreau’s F-bomb record like Mark McGwire passing Roger Maris. But now both coaches have been surpassed and by a much more likable leader.

Joel Quenneville, a former Whaler, has the demeanor of the type of dad you hope your girlfriend’s dad is not. But aside from seeing his press conferences in the past and hearing him speak in official settings, I never really got a sense for who Coach Q truly is. After the opening 15 minutes of the first episode, I was worried that might carry over into the series and maybe EPIX wasn’t about to let the show go completely uncensored the way HBO had. And then we got our first glimpse of Quenneville behind the bench and what had been a tame introduction suddenly turned into hockey’s version of the Urban Dictionary from the mustached-man.

Quenneville’s overall vocabulary broke into the series’ all-time moments, which previously included the Penguins’ practical jokes, Alexander Ovechkin’s tramp stamp, Marian Gaborik drinking the night before a game and carrying his massive Christmas tree home and Ilya Bryzgalov’s philosophy lessons. Quenneville has a chance to be the best character the series has ever had and right now he’s on pace where it’s his title to lose. And he’s the reason why watching new teams every December is what makes this series. Now let’s just stop having the Capitals in the Winter Classic.

***

Here are the thoughts from the first episode:

– Kevin Dineen going over the practice plan with the Blackhawks an assistant coach for the team made me both nostolagic and sad for the days of the Hartford Whalers when Dineen was their captain.

– When was the last time Joel Quenneville taped his stick? 2012? 2010? Such a head coach/old-man move by Quenneville to leave his knob taped like it hasn’t been changed since 1993 and has just been collecting dust and losing its grip in a basement or garage.

– When talking about the Kings’ Western Conference finals game-winning goal in Game 7, Corey Crawford says, “I think I ran through that last goal maybe 100 times in my head.” 100 times? That’s it? Does Crawford think that’s a lot of times? I have run through the Kings’ three overtime goals in the Stanley Cup Final against the Rangers about 1,000 times each in my head and I wasn’t playing in the game let alone the goalie who the puck got past to end the series. (If Crawford doesn’t let goal in, then maybe the Blackhawks end up winning the West and the Rangers beat the Blackhawks and win the Cup. There’s no way of knowing this would or wouldn’t have happened, so I’m going to pretend like it would have.)

– Quenneville talks about winning the two Cups and getting back to being a championship team while mentioning how hard it is to win a championship. When you look at any Cup-winning team, there are so many things that had to happen and countless bounces that had to go their way just in the playoffs to make the champions. It seems like Quenneville realizes how fortunate he has been to be the head coach of two winning teams in a three-year span. It’s also this realization that makes me depressed knowing how close the Rangers were last year and how hard it is to even get back to the Finals, knowing it could easily be another two decades until they are back there.

– Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews are so soft spoken when the camera is on only them that it’s interesting to see how vocal and different they are during the games, and for Kane, how crazy he gets when he’s out on the town.

– I’m sure Bauer wasn’t thrilled with Toews pulling their sticks off the rack and saying, “These sticks are garbage” and holding them responsible for his scoring drought.

– I wasn’t sure if we would see Ovechkin’s tramp stamp the way we did four years ago, but sure enough, there it was in the first episode. It’s really not exciting to watch or write about the Capitals and it’s gotten even worse over the last four years.

– Barry Trotz reminds me of Bruce Boudreau. He also reminds me of someone who would play a police chief if he were an actor.

– Last season, I went to Chicago to the Rangers play. It was my first time in Chicago, my first time at a Blackhawks home game and my first time witnessing Jim Cornelison sing the Anthem in person and it’s incredible. The people of Chicago are doing it right. Everyone should be cheering and clapping during the anthem at every event.

– Any time I see Michal Roszival score a goal, it hurts. And it hurts even more knowing he has his name on the Stanley Cup.

– I miss Daniel Carcillo. Come back “Car Bomb”. You can take Tanner Glass, Chicago. I will drive him to you.

– I was a so-so Brandon Prust fan when he was on the Rangers. He was fan favorite because he was a third- and fourth-line grinder who did the things every blue-collar fan enjoys. He got overpaid on the open market and went to Montreal and turned into a scum. Maybe he was always scum when he was on Calgary and then here in New York and I just didn’t realize it. But putting on that Canadiens jersey has changed Prust for the worst and now he’s even diving as he did against Kane. And when he’s not diving, he giving out flying elbows in the Eastern Conference finals.

– Bryan Bickell looks like a mess in the Blackhawks’ trainers room and should have been an easy target for a joke from Andrew Shaw, but Shaw totally botched whatever he was going for and set up Bickell almost too perfectly to rip him about his Lloyd Christmas-esque haircut. (After Quenneville’s mouth, this was my favorite scene of the episode.)

– Scott Darling rips through the teams he has been with and they are as follows: Louisiana IceGators, Reading Royals, Florida Everblades, Mississippi RiverKings, Las Vegas Wranglers, Wheeling Nailers, Wichita Thunder, Cincinnati Cyclones, Charlotte Checkers, Hamilton Bulldogs, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, Milwaukee Admirals, Rockford IceHogs and Chicago Blackhawks. According to Darling’s HockeyDB page, he didn’t even play in a game with all of those teams, which makes his path to the NHL that much more remarkable. But the craziest part of it all is that four years ago he was playing in the Southern Pro league and now he is on the Blackhawks.

– Capitals goalie coach Mitch Korn, who is supposedly called one of hockey’s Top 10 geniuses, lives in a hotel for the entire season, yet he checks out and moves everything out of his room and into his car before every road trip. Louis CK was right when he said “genius” and other adjectives are used too loosely nowadays.

– Brad Richards was a good Ranger. He wasn’t great and wasn’t what everyone thought he would be when he signed a nine-year, $60 million deal after the 2010-11 season, but there is a short list of players in the league that could have lived up to that deal and he wasn’t one of them. Now he gets to be on the Blackhawks and not have to worry about being a star or carrying a team or running a power play and bettered his chances at winning his second Cup. Good for Brad Richards.

– After I graduated from college, I lived in Hoboken, making little to no money and my apartment looked and was furnished like and my fridge was stocked exactly the way Tom Wilson and Michael Laatta’s apartment is, all the way down to the bed on the floor without a frame and the team blanket folded over the couch with XBox controllers also on the couch. The problem here is that I had no money. Like zero dollars. Tom Wilson is making $925,000 this year and Michael Laatta is making $575,000. Step it up a little.

– The final thought of the first episode goes to Joel Quenneville: “Kaner, what a f-cking shot. Peanut Butter. Holy f-ck.”