One of the bright spots in the Caps pre-season camp has been the play of left wing Chris Bourque. It's clear he's been impressing the coaching staff, and while it's more than likely he'll start the season with the team's minor league affiliate in Hershey, Bourque is doing all he can to leave a lasting impression. Here's Dave Fay from the Washington Times:
As an ugly scene got even uglier for the Washington Capitals in the third period of an exhibition game against Buffalo on Wednesday night, Chris Bourque's edgy disposition advanced to an outright nasty stage. Suddenly, it no longer mattered to Bourque, all of 5-foot-7 and supposedly 170 pounds, that he was a shrub skating among redwoods. His stick got up a little, his whacks across ankles had a little more zing and his passes had more velocity. And his language, well, it wasn't exactly fit for an altar boy.
Now that my friends, is great sports writing. And if Fay's estimation of the kid is in the ballpark, Bourque has the potential to be as popular as Dale Hunter was during his stretch in Washington.
Once you're finished with Fay's piece, take a look at Tarik el-Bashir's story in the Washington Post. Though the subject is the same, the tone and description of Bourque's demeanor is subtly different, but different nonetheless.
In any case, Bourque is probably going to present an interesting choice for the Caps: Do you fill a spot with a veteran who's unlikely to be with the team in a year or two, or do you let a rookie mature and make mistakes in the hope that he'll scale to the task that much quicker? Stay tuned.
POSTSCRIPT: BTW -- el-Bashir is a pro too, and I've been reading him since he was covering hockey over at the New York Times. Back then, I always got the impression that he drew the short straw in the newsroom because all those Manhattanites dreaded taking a trip to the suburbs to cover a sparsely attended Islanders home date. In those days, who could blame them?
