O-P Field Trip: Verizon Center

As you may have noticed, I've been MIA the past week. A combination of a busy week at work and an inadequate Verizon DSL connection have conspired to keep you from experiencing my unique brand of humor. Or, at the very least, it's kept me from posting anything. To make up for it, I bring you this Very Special Entry: An officially sanctioned Opossum-Palooza Field Trip. (To find out how you can get your field trip sanctioned by the O-P, email opossum-palooza@hotmail.com.) This time around, the field trippers were myself and sometimes contributor DefDude. The occasion was Alex Ovechkin Calder Trophy (pictured) Tribute Night.

I could now go ahead and bore you with stories about the tribute ceremony (pointless photo-op followed by a pretty good video montage of Ovechkin's first season highlights) or stories of the game itself (a frustrating 4-3 overtime loss to the Atlanta Thrashers, for details go here), but I won't. Instead I will spend some time discussing the man in the Alex Ovechkin sweater sitting at the end of the row in front of us. We were lucky enough to be sitting in a section (430) with some most excellent Capitals fans who were knowledgable, funny and overall entertaining to be around. This man, however, was not any of those things. We knew we were in for some trouble when he was screaming at the people in front of him for moving to their seats while play was going on (fair point, but there are nicer ways of saying it than "Jesus, I paid good money for these seats! Sit the fuck down!"). He then proceeded to scream every single uninformed, ignorant thing you would expect to hear from someone who has almost no knowledge of the game. Whether it was trying to convince Alex Semin to shoot the puck (right before Semin made a gorgeous pass to Jamie Heward for a tap-in goal), or screaming at the Caps for not hitting more, the man could not have been any more obnoxious if he tried. The best part, however, was when, while play was still going, he pulled out his cell phone and started yammering away. The cell phone, of course, was decorated with a Number 8. No, not that number eight. That number eight. In an unfortunate turn of events, he also had a young boy of about eight or nine (whom I can only assume was his son) with him. They both left at the end of regulation, rather than stay and watch overtime.

But enough whining about the bad fans, let's get on with the pictures:

The view from our seats.

The commemorative coin. In very nice packaging.

DefDude, DefDude's unfortunate facial hair, and Alex Ovechkin's Calder Trophy.

What can I say? I was in a "take pictures of trophies" kind of mood.

Sadly, the poor digital zoom on my camera phone didn't allow me to get good pictures of "Fatty McGee" (DefDude's nickname of the jerk at the end of the row) or the clever gentleman with the number 69 jersey sitting a few rows in front of us. So this will have to be enough for you. I leave you with this, possibly the worst picture of me ever taken: