WASHINGTON -- As I began typing this at 4:34 a.m., having eaten a sleeve of Mint Oreos to numb the pain, it dawned on me that although Washington was never a cursed sports town -- because there are no such things (it's really just crummy owners, substandard coaches and underachieving players conspiring over time to essentially tell their fans, "It's not you or me; it's...karma.") -- D.C. at least is a curtains town.
It's almost always curtains for us too early.
Double overtime, regulation, it doesn't matter -- the shade is pulled down on our teams' championship quests exponentially faster than most other American cities with at least two or more major-revenue professional sports' franchises. And even in those rare moments when division titles are won, our NHL, NFL, NBA and Major League teams wait till the postseason to give new meaning to One and Done.
The annual plot line was toyed with last June, of course, when the forever-gut-punched Capitals were suddenly glorious, raising the holiest sporting grail of all -- Lord Stanley's Cup. As Alex Ovechkin held that 35-pound monster of a silver chalice aloft and kissed it like only a father could kiss his first child, it felt like all the painful losses of D.C. sports' past had disintegrated in a rock-the-red confetti of a dream -- on a sheet of frozen water, no less, in the middle of a Las Vegas summer night. What a run. What a team. What a time.
What a cruel tease.
Today? Back to Loserville, baby.
The Cup is no more, leaving the building the moment the Carolina Hurricanes outworked and outplayed the Capitals, coming back twice from a two-goal deficit and winning a sudden-death, double-overtime Game 7 at Capital One Arena, 4-3. Braden Holtby, the Caps' godsend of a goalie, could only stop so many onslaughts from a younger, more determined team with fresher legs and hungrier hearts.
The sun hasn't even risen on the first morning of the Capitals' off-season and who knows when or if the magic happens again. If not for the first championship parade down Constitution Avenue in three decades -- if not for all those videos and photos of Ovie, T.J. Oshie, Niklas Backstrom, Tom Wilson and the boys splashing in the Georgetown fountains with Stanley and the fans, if not for the goosebumps generated by banner-raising night at Cap One -- you're almost tempted to think it was all a mirage, a mind-construct in the desert, formed to ease all the misery of the past, of Dan Snyder ruining a civic treasure, of the Nationals and Wizards being not good enough to contend for a title but just good enough to turn your heart into a burned-out graveyard.
For the first time since 2013, Ted Leonsis' NHL and NBA clubs have left Capital One Arena vacant in May. For the first time since 2004, both the Wizards and Capitals' seasons are done before the NFL draft. That's not just lost money for Monumental Sports; that's more misery for District, Maryland and Virginia fans.
This Capitals season did not have to end with a back-to-back title to satisfy the masses. But to be upset in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs by a team that hadn't won a postseason series since 2009, to not even go as far as the team that lured away their coach, Barry Trotz -- because the Capitals wouldn't pay him his relative worth and the New York Islanders would? Let's just say that soul-crushing end in the second overtime felt all too familiar.
If it only were just the Caps, though.
Instead, you really can't make up the abject awfulness of last fall, winter and now spring -- all the seasons after the Caps won the Cup. To recap D.C.'s Wheel of Misfortune:
-- Alex Smith, the 34-year-old quarterback whom Washington signed last offseason because they didn't want to fork over a mint to Kirk Cousins, lay in agony on the ground against the Houston Texans last November. His ankle bent back grotesquely, his teammates taking a knee and praying for him, Smith found out the the fibula and tibia in his right leg were shattered after a third-quarter sack. He didn't merely undergo a surgery; complications from infection forced him to undergo nearly 10 procedures. Committed to rehabilitation, Smith has not been cleared by doctors to resume his career anytime soon. He may never play again.
Did we mention, his back-up, Colt McCoy, suffered a broken leg a week later, that he still hasn't been cleared to participate in voluntary practices in the offseason? Or that the team that started 5-1, limped home 7-9, hasn't been to the playoffs in three years and hasn't been to an NFC Championship Game since the first year of the Clinton Administration?
-- John Wall, five-time All-Star, the point guard who had the Wizards on the cusp of going to the franchise's first Eastern Conference finals since 1979, is not even going to play basketball for the team again until 2020 at the earliest.
Already done for this season after an operation to remove bone spurs from his heel in December, Wall slipped and fell outside his shower in late January and ruptured his left Achilles tendon. After February surgery, he was not expected to return for a full calendar year -- and that's if rehab goes well. Throw in the firing of team president Ernie Grunfeld before the end of the season and the fact that the team's only current All-Star, Bradley Beal, will become a free agent next summer, and it's getting perilously close to rebuild-all-over-again time for the Wizards, who a currently mired in NBA purgatory -- not worthy of the playoffs, but not bad enough to have a genuine shot at Zion Williamson. The Knicks and Suns are actually more excited about their offseason.
-- The Nationals are still a case study in potential. Meaning, they potentially have the talent to win a World Series. Unfortunately for them, THEY HAVE HAD THIS SAME POTENTIAL FOR A DECADE AND IT HASN'T GOTTEN THEM DIDDLY SQUAT!
That's right, they have not won a single postseason series win in their 14-year Washington existence, despite fielding a future Hall of Famer on the mound (Max Scherzer) for the past three years and in the outfield (Bryce Harper) the past seven years. In March, Harper was sentenced to Philadelphia for 13 years for crimes against humanity. (Okay, he signed a $330 million deal with the Phillies, spurning the paltry sum of $300 million the Lerner family reportedly offered, which included a deferred payment made to the Harper estate after he was dead. All right, all right. He could collect that money at 65. Still, a very frugal way to go when trying to keep a franchise player in house).
Either way, Bryce is gone, no longer beloved but now actually berated.
The Nationals, by the way, are 11-12. They entered the day in fourth place in the N.L. East behind New York, Philadelphia and Atlanta. It's early, I know. It's always early with the Nationals. And then it's late. And they're out of it.
Again.
-- The Washington football team? Beyond the dismal quarterback situation, why bother? Crack-shot reporter/local radio personality Grant Paulsen Tweeted Wednesday that a team source has informed him that Dan Snyder has seized control of all draft-day operations heading into Thursday's annual NFL swap meet. This means that ) AWashington will mortgage future first-round draft picks, every valuable current player it already has and a burgundy and gold Barcalounger for Kyler Murray or some other college deity the owner has become smitten over. Or B) Case Keenum will start.
With the Capitals knocked out, with Bryce leaving his post and defecting behind enemy lines, the Wizards starting over and Dan being Dan again, this is shaping up to be the worst D.C. sports calendar year in, like, two years.
Just like old times, no?
It's not karma. It's not the Curse of the Cup. It's them -- the owners, the coaches, the players. We keep staying in these abusive relationships with our teams in this town, waiting for that one season, that one year of awakening, that they change and make us happy and fulfilled. And then they fall off the wagon again, plunging into the abyss of a double-overtime Game 7 loss, sending us back to our own addictions.
To the cupboard at 5:37 a.m., for another sleeve of Mint Oreos.
