Urban Marinade: Roller Coaster Week So Far

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Roller Coaster Week So Far

As most of you already know, this week has been quite the emotional roller coaster. On Monday morning the Lindy Hop world lost our beloved Frankie Manning. He touched all of us dancers more than we could have imagined and so his loss hit pretty hard. So we spent the day mourning and then honored his legacy by dancing the night away. We continued remembering this amazing man last night with a memorial tribute at The Jam Cellar. Ann Mony and Steve "DC" Grimes put together a beautiful video, several dancers told personal stories about their time with Frankie and we all did the Shim Sham.

Between all the reflection and memorials, I had tickets to game 7 of the Capitals Stanley Cup playoff game against the Rangers. On one hand I felt like I needed to mourn longer. But on the other hand, Frankie lived his life with such joy and happiness and would want us to do the same. So last night prior to The Jam Cellar, I attended what I think goes down as the greatest sports event I've ever seen in person.

Last Wednesday night, the Caps lost to the Rangers, 2-1 in game 4. The loss put the Caps down 3 games to 1 in the opening round series. Teams coming back from a 3-1 deficit is about as rare as finding a democrat that lowers taxes. It just doesn't happen very often. So I think the entire DC region shrugged off the loss and figured it was yet another first round exit for this incredibly talented hockey team. I mean, how would the Caps come back from this?

Two games and five days later, the Caps find themselves battling the Rangers in game 7 with the series tied 3-3. The Caps were at home. DC was rockin' the red! Everything was in their favor. We had tickets to the game and you can bet we were going to scream as loud as humanly possible to help bring our franchise a playoff series win. But the Caps didn't show up for the start of the game. Oh, the players were on the ice. But the team was thoroughly dominated in the first two periods. The Rangers scored first and the Caps followed to tie the game, but clearly New York wanted it more.

Then the third period began. You could sense the Caps finding their game. You could see simple possessions were now on the Ranger end of the ice and not stuck behind the Caps net. The Caps had 2 shots on goal in the first period while NY had 8. The Caps had 13 in the 3rd period and held NY to just one. It had to happen. It was going to happen. Caps nation was about to explode as scoring chances mounted. Then with 4:59 left in the game, Russian superstar and NHL veteran Sergei Fedorov beat Ranger goaltender Henrik Lundqvist to give the Caps a 2-1 lead. I've never seen an arena erupt with such celebration and emotion. You just knew the team that scored would win. For the final 5 minutes of the game, the crowd stood chanting C. A. P. S. Caps, Caps, Caps!!! I've never seen anything like it.

The Caps won. DC moves on in the playoffs. And in honor of Frankie Manning, I danced, cheered, and laughed all night long. What a roller coaster ride!

Below are two more small and crappy images I shot with my phone. The one above and just below are from inside the arena and the third is the crowd spilling out into the streets of DC.