The History of the Washington Capitals(Est. 1973)
1973-2002 CAPITAL CENTRE---HOME OF THE CAPITALS
THE CAPS FIRST GAME AT THE CAPITAL CENTRE
On Oct. 15, 1974, the Washington Capitals played the first home game in franchise history against the Los Angeles Kings at the Capital Centre in Landover. The Caps and Kings skated to a 1-1 tie.
After dropping the first two games of their existence on the road against the New York Rangers and Minnesota North Stars, respectively, the Capitals inaugurated their new building against Norris Division foe Los Angeles. A disappointing crowd of just 8,093 was on hand for the first NHL game played in the District.
Ron Low was in net for Washington and he was opposed by Los Angeles veteran Rogatien Vachon. After a scoreless first period, Caps defenseman Yvon Labre scored the first-ever goal at the Capital Centre with help from Dave Kryskow and Bill Lesuk at 4:35 of the second period.
The lead lasted less than three minutes. Kings left wing Dan Maloney scored to even the game and close out the night’s scoring at the 7:54 mark of the middle frame.
The Capitals were outshot 34-20 on the night, and Washington’s penalty killing corps was able to successfully face down six Los Angeles power play chances without surrendering an extra-man tally.
The Capital Centre, later renamed USAir Arena, was located in Landover, Maryland. It opened in late 1973, closed in 1999, and was demolished in 2002. The seating capacity was 18,756 for basketball and 18,130 for hockey.
Capital Centre was the primary home for the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League and the Washington Bullets of the National Basketball Association. The Bullets moved to the Washington area from nearby Baltimore, and the Capitals were an expansion team in the arena's second year.
In 1993, the air carrier USAir purchased the naming rights for the building and the arena became known as USAir Arena. When the airline went through its 1996 rebranding and became US Airways, the name of the arena changed as well.
In 1997, US Airways' naming rights deal came to an end after the now-Wizards and Capitals moved to a new arena, the MCI Center (currently known as the Verizon Center) in downtown Washington, and the arena once again became known as Capital Centre. Most TV and radio crews broadcasting from the venue referred to it by its nickname "Cap Centre". The venue was demolished in December 2002, though its name lives on in a shopping complex located on the former site of the arena as The Boulevard at the Capital Centre.
It was located just outside the Capital Beltway (Interstate 495) at exit 16, less than a mile (1.6 km) southeast of FedExField, the home of the Washington Redskins of the National Football League.
Capital Centre was the home of the Washington Bullets of the NBA from 1973 to 1997, the Washington Capitals of the NHL from 1974 to 1997 and the Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team from 1980 to 1997. The Washington Wizards were known as the Bullets until 1997, and played the first 5 games of the 1997–98 NBA season at the old arena. All three teams departed for the MCI Center (now Verizon Center) just north of The Mall in D.C. when it opened on December 2, 1997.
The Capital Centre hosted its first NBA game exactly 24 years earlier (December 2, 1973) as the Capital Bullets defeated the Seattle SuperSonics, 98–96.[5] During November 1973, the Capital Bullets held their home games at nearby Cole Field House on the campus of the University of Maryland in College Park.
The arena hosted games of the NBA Finals in 1975 when the Bullets played the Golden State Warriors and again in 1978 and 1979, both with Seattle SuperSonics. The Bullets won in 1978, but lost the other two series.
The ACC men's basketball tournament was held there in 1976, 1981, and 1987. The 1980 NBA All-Star Game and 1982 NHL All-Star Game were held there, as was the WWF's Survivor Series 1995. The arena also was home to a few epic NHL playoff games, including the Easter Epic in 1987.
The Washington/Maryland Commandos of the Arena Football League also called the arena home in 1987 and 1989. The Maryland Arrows, Washington Wave and Washington Power lacrosse teams used the arena, as did The Washington Warthogs professional indoor soccer team.
A boxing World Heavyweight Championship bout took place at the venue in 1976 with Jimmy Young challenging the champion Muhammad Ali. The fight on April 30 went the full 15 rounds and was awarded unanimously to Ali.
Footage of past Washington Bullets games held at the Capital Centre was used in the 1979 comedy film The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.
MUHAMMAD ALI DEFENDS TITLE; WINS UNANIMOUS DECISION OVER JIMMY YOUNG
Concert venue
The first concert ever held at the Capital Centre was the Allman Brothers Band on December 4, 1973, two nights after the first Bullets' game. They were backed up by the James Montgomery Blues Band who played from 9 P.M. until midnight. The Allman Brothers played until 3:30 A.M.
The Who played there on two nights later on December 6. It was festival seating at the concert and there were no seats on the floor as the venue was newly opened and not finished. This was part of their debut of their rock opera Quadrophenia.
Elvis Presley performed for two shows there on Sunday June 27, 1976, to a total audience of nearly 38,000. Both shows sold out in one day. Ticket prices were $7.50, 10, and 12.50. His last concert at the Capital Centre was on May 22, 1977, during his second-to-last tour, which included 13 other venues. June 26, 1977 in Indianapolis, would be his final concert performance. His only other concert in the Washington, D.C., area was on September 27 and 28, 1974, at nearby University of Maryland's Cole Field House, also in Prince George's County.
Others who performed at the Capital Centre include Frank Sinatra, KISS, Chicago, Van Halen, The Eagles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Queen, AC/DC, The Bee Gees, The Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead, Paul McCartney, Garth Brooks, Parliament-Funkadelic and Michael Jackson.
Demolition
The Capital Centre arena was imploded on December 15, 2002. It was replaced by The Boulevard at the Capital Centre, a town center-style shopping mall that opened in Landover in 2003.
Legacy
Opened in late 1973, the Capital Centre was the first indoor arena to have a video replay screen on its center-hung scoreboard. The four-sided projection video screen was known as the "Telscreen" (or "Telescreen") and predated the Diamond Vision video screen at Dodger Stadium by seven years. It was also the first indoor arena to be built with luxury boxes and a computerized turnstile system.
The Centre also had one of the NBA's most notorious fans, Robin Ficker, who for 12 seasons sat behind the visiting team's bench and heckled opposing players.
The Centre had the loudest speaker system in an arena at the time. (Wikipedia)
CAPITALS FIRST EVER WIN
By Mike Vogel, Monumental Sports
Just two days after their first home game, the Washington Capitals earned the first victory in franchise history on Oct. 17, 1974. Playing their second game ever at The Capital Centre, the Caps surprised the Chicago Blackhawks by a 4-3 count in front of a crowd of 9,471.
The Blackhawks were the second best team in the league’s West Division the season before, posting a 41-14-23 record to roll up 105 points.
“I wouldn’t go in there right this minute,” warned a cop standing outside the Chicago locker room after the game, according to the Oct. 18, 1974 edition of The Washington Star-News. “They’re not in the best of moods.”
Denis Dupere scored twice, and Ron Anderson and Jack Egers tallied once to support Ron Low’s 33-save efforts in the Washington nets. Egers’ goal – scored at 8:46 of the third period – came with help from defensemen Greg Joly and Yvon Labre and stands as the first game-winning goal in Washington’s franchise history.
Low stopped all 18 Chicago shots he faced in the third period to make Egers’ goal stand up and put Washington (1-2-1 at the time) in the win column for the first time ever.
Chicago landed in Washington in the wee hours of game day after shutting out the Bruins in Boston the night before. Hawks coach Billy Reay started Tony Esposito against the Bruins, saving backup Mike Veisor for the Washington game. The Hawks knocked a couple of pucks in their own net to aid the Capitals’ cause, and Veisor himself was responsible for one of those own goals.
“They checked us pretty good and kept us from getting a good head of steam,” said Chicago’s Stan Mikita, a future Hockey Hall of Famer. “And we weren’t getting many rebounds from Low, either.”
Both of Dupere’s goals went in off members of the Blackhawks. The first, at 12:04 of the first, glance off Veisor’s skates and went in to give Washington a 1-0 lead. Dupere’s second goal came on a Washington power play at 9:47 of the second period. That one banked off the, um, backside of Chicago defenseman Doug Jarrett. “That was no big deal,” said Jarrett after the game. “I have the biggest butt in the league.” Hawks defenseman Bill White, a six-time all-star, lamented his team’s fortunes after the game.
“They have everything to gain and nothing to lose,” said White of the Capitals. “They’ve got a lot of spirit. I thought it was a good game on both sides. We don’t usually score two goals for the other team, you know.”
Low won only 30 of the 145 games he played in as a member of the Capitals, posting a 30-94-9 mark in three seasons with the drastically undermanned Washington team. He didn’t feel the least bit sorry for Veisor and the Hawks.
“I can’t feel too sorry,” said Low after the game, “because if we don’t get those two bounces, we don’t win. Those things happen and they’ll happen to me before the season is over. “In the meantime, I’m celebrating. I think I might drink a couple now. A couple of cases, that is.”
Remembering the Cap Centre
by Ted Starkey Nov 8, 2012, dcsbnation.com
For years, it was be a familiar sight as you drove north along the Beltway in Prince George's County, a large white potato-chip roof on a brown building nestled in a sea of asphalt in Landover.
From 1974 to 1997, the Capital Centre was the team's first home, and although it opened as one of the most modern arenas in the country, the first to feature in-game replays on the large projection screen above center ice and with luxury sky boxes up top in the walls of the facility - it quickly became outdated and only lasted 23 years before the pull for modern downtown arenas finally lured the team into the District of Columbia.
The exterior of the building resembled a saddle, a brown building with a light roof that curved with wires holding the tension along the top. Inside, instead of being in tiers like most of today's arenas, the floor was essentially buried into the ground, with the quality of your seat determined by its color. The reds were the cheap seats above ground level, up the stairs, and away from the action, while the blues were the ones underneath, downstairs and toward the ice.
Nearly everyone who fought Beltway traffic to get to the Cap Centre had to pull into one of the large parking lots - Metro didn't run near the building so those without cars had to hail a cab - walk into one of the four patriotically-named entrances - Capitol, Eagle, Liberty Bell or Stars and Stripes - and mill around the concourse to get to their seats.
"At the Capital Centre, almost everyone came in the same concourse - there were a few sky suites - basically 18,000 people milled around and you'd see them on the concourse milling around between periods," the team's longtime radio voice, Ron Weber, remembered. "At the Verizon Center, as soon as you walk in the door, it's 'Where are your tickets, you either go here or here or here. It's like the old cruise ships ... the riff raff don't associate with the higher ups."
The setup also meant television and radio booths were also in the middle of the stands, as tables were set up at various portals fans used to reach their sections. It meant fans were in on the action, and it spawned some unique traditions - most notably an old Home Team Sports microphone picking up a whooping noise directed at former Caps defenseman Larry Murphy - something that has stuck to various visiting players to this day.
The most striking feature of the Capital Centre itself was its jet black interior, meant to highlight the action on the floor, but also creating a rather strange environment that no amount of light seemingly could brighten.
Ed Frankovic, who worked for the club during its Landover days, noted that today's most popular Capitals marketing slogan would be nearly impossible to pull off at the Cap Centre.
"The biggest problem it was just so dark there," he said. "The Verizon Center, the lighting is much better.
"The Capitals used to do 'white-outs' for the playoffs because it was just so dark, and it helped brighten the building up. The Caps have the great game experience now with 'Rock the Red' - you couldn't do that at the Capital Centre because it's just too dark."
The building had other quirks - notably the decibel meter in two corners that lit up when a threshold was reached - and although there was some effort to modernize it, the age of the suburban arena quickly gave way to urban centers and it went from one of the most modern arenas to an outdated venue very quickly.
For an NHL fan, the Capital Centre offered some memorable events - the 1981 NHL All-Star Game, the Easter Epic loss to the Islanders in 1987, the team's lone Patrick Division playoff title in 1990 - but none still resonate like the 1988 Patrick Division Semi-Final Game 7 against Philadelphia.
"The highlight is the overtime goal by Dale Hunter on the pass by Larry Murphy," Weber recalled. "My words that I just blurted out, 'Washington lives to play again!'"
The highlight, which was made into a "History Will Be Made..." ad by the NHL in 2011, shows the white-clad arena celebrating the end of years of playoff frustration with white shirts and white towels, and pulls back to see the light amongst the darkness of the building.
However, as the 1990s arrived, talk that team owner Abe Pollin would move the Capitals and Bullets downtown got serious, and eventually a deal was struck for the Gallery Place location. In anticipation of the move downtown, the team ditched the red-white-and-blue color scheme in 1995, adopting a blue-bronze-and-white look, and on Nov. 26, 1997, before the final game in Landover, the club honored one of the best players to wear the old colors by raising Rod Langway's No. 5 to the rafters for the final game.
In the arena's final years, it didn't get the permanent repairs it needed - the roof would leak on the press box - and was showing its age by the team's final game there.
Adam Oates, who was traded to the Capitals nine months before the final game in Landover, didn't mince words when asked his memories of the old building.
"It was terrible," he said. "I hated playing in it when I was on the other team, Thank God I only had to play in it for a [few] month[s]. Dark and slow. Let's get out of here!"
But for Weber - and other fans who had grown up watching games in the building - it carried a bit more nostalgia.
"It was a temple to me," Weber said. "Even though Adam spoke disparagingly about it - probably because he was a visitor most of the time - but I watched every game that they played there for 23 years and we're talking over 1,000 games."
Weber recalled getting a flood of memories as the arena was being torn down in 2002, five years after the Bullets and Capitals had left. The arena had hosted assorted concerts and indoor lacrosse in the intervening years before it was eventually razed to make room for a shopping center.
"One of the saddest moments of my life, a couple of years after they moved downtown, I went to a Redskins game, and the guy who invited me to go with him parked across the Beltway and walked over [to FedEx Field], and here we are, and I'm looking at a half-torn down Capital Centre," he said. "They had taken the ends out, but the sides still remained. The seats were gone, but you could see the concrete tiers.
"Speaking of tears, they were coming out of my eyes. His deal is we got there 10 or 10:30, morning for a 1 p.m. game and read the Sunday paper and walk over. So I'm sitting there looking at the building with all these memories. I loved the place even though there were some things wrong for it."
Frankovic initially thought the team moving downtown was a mistake.
"I was bummed that they were moving downtown," he recalled. "At the time it didn't seem like the right move, a total marketing move, but you have to remember the traffic getting into the Capital Centre was bad and it was getting outdated very quickly. ... The ice was bad there - although it's not any better at Verizon Center with the Metro underneath - but the idea was you got the Virginia fans and who could get into the city ... In hindsight, it was the right move."
The Capitals enjoyed some success downtown that they hadn't had in Landover. They reached the Stanley Cup Finals in their first season at then-MCI Center, and of course, now regularly sell out Verizon Center, something that they didn't do quite as often in Landover.
"The best thing that happened is we moved downtown, and the first year with the Caps, we ended up going to the Finals," Oates recalled. "It was George's first year, and Ron Wilson came in, and we had a very successful year and went to the Finals. We played great, a new building, and then Ted took over, a lot of positive things.'
"It is hard to believe, and in some ways, it feels like yesterday," Frankovic said, "Working for David Poile and whatever coach he had and working for the team and Dale Hunter was playing, they just traded for Oates. It's amazing that Olie Kolzig wasn't the starting goalie back then, he played a few games, but he wasn't the guy yet. He was just starting to be the man when they went down to Verizon Center - maybe the better lighting helped Olie."
The move changed the franchise and the fan base. The Capitals moved away from their suburban Maryland core to a more corporate base that enhanced the team's profile in Virginia as well. The game experience also has changed, thanks to the new fan base and the new core of the franchise.
"In other ways, it feels like it's been 30 years ago since it's such a different atmosphere. It's a better building with the lighting and Ovechkin has made it different down there."
Today, a rather unremarkable strip mall now occupies the land the Cap Centre used to stand on across the highway from FedEx Field. But it set down the roots of the franchise and created a unique environment that lives on in memories of longtime Caps fans and in some of the traditions of the new building downtown.