It was nearly five hours before the puck dropped in Las Vegas when Jason Conklin of Alexandria entered Capital One Arena on Thursday afternoon in downtown Washington.
Conklin was headed to the Washington Mystics WNBA game and then was going to stay at the arena for the watch party as the Capitals tried to nail down their first NHL title.
“I have to find a good seat,” Conklin, who attends about 15 Caps games a year, said while standing on a closed-off F Street northwest.
The wait for a possible clincher was a lot longer for Ron Weber — more like 44 years.
Weber was the first radio voice of the Capitals and called 1,936 games from 1974 to 1997.
The Wheaton, Maryland, resident watched the Capitals game on television Thursday with his wife at her rehab facility in Olney, Maryland.
“When I am far removed, I am more nervous,” he told The Washington Times on Thursday night after a scoreless first period.
He noticed on TV the crowd outside of the arena. “I am totally amazed at that,” he said.
Weber, a member of the D.C. Sports Hall of Fame, was a special voice added to the regular radio broadcast team on Monday night when the Capitals won at home 6-2.
Carter Myers watched the game on television from his son’s home near Harrisonburg, Virginia. He began working as a statistician for Capitals radio broadcasts in 1987, after meeting Weber in 1978.
He watched with about 10 family members, including a grandson who was born Sunday. He has another grandchild was born at George Washington hospital in 2010 when the child’s mother went into labor while at a Capitals game in Washington.
Myers switched over to aiding television broadcasts after the 1999-2000 season and regularly makes the drive of about 2.5 hours from his home to Capital One Arena. Myers said he has attended more than 900 Capitals games, including those as a fan before he started work as a stat man.
“I thought Vegas came out very hard,” Myers said of the first stanza. “It was probably a win for the Caps that the game was tied after one.”
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