Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader mentioned, a few days ago, that he’d been at a fancy dinner in DC recently. The guests of honor at the dinner were Cal Ripken, Jr. and Alex Ovechkin. The event was hosted by Lindsay Czarniak of DC’s own NBC 4 news. Your Maximum Leader sadly doesn’t have an impromptu photo with Alex Ovechkin that turned out okay. (Most were slightly out of focus.) But he does have a few others for your viewing pleasure.

Here is your Maximum Leader and Washington Capitals Coach (and hockey lifer) Bruce Boudreau. (Clicken to embiggen.)

Here is your Maximum Leader and Cal Ripken Jr. (Clicken to embiggen.)

And here is your Maximum Leader with Lindsay Czarniak. (Again, clicken…)

Your Maximum Leader hopes that the official photographer was able to capture your Maximum Leader and Alex Ovechkin. And once again for the record… Lindsay Czarniak is both charming and attractive. She also shows a tremendous amount of patience with middle aged men who want to be photographed with her.

In the sports musing department…

Your Maximum Leader has been watching a fair amount of hockey of late. His beloved Washington Capitals are something of a puzzle. They are getting and taking shots. But they aren’t scoring. Coach Boudreau is mixing up the lines to good effect, yet the big superstars of Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Semin are not scoring. The team is surviving on good play from the second and third lines.

The Caps have been playing a more defensive style of game, rather than last year’s (very exciting) wide open game. The defensive habits they are practising now should help the Caps if they make it to the playoffs. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t want to jinx the team, but right now they are in a tight race for the lead in the Southeast Division. The Caps can’t afford to assume that they will win the division and make the playoffs. After crushing the other teams in the division for so long those other teams have been able to build in the draft and are now showing significant signs of improvement.

Anyhoo… Your Maximum Leader is generally pleased with what he sees from his Capitals. They are on the right path and he is hopeful that they will continue to travel on this path for a long while.

In other sports news…

Your Maximum Leader is darn near estatic over how the football playoffs have been going. His much loved Green Bay Packers have found a running game to compliment Aaron Rodger’s great control of the passing game. Your Maximum Leader is giddy with anticipation over the NFC Championship game this weekend. The Packers and the Bears. The oldest and most storied rivalry in the NFL. The only way the game could be better would be if it were held at Lambeau and not Soldier Field. But Soldier Field in January is pretty good… Your Maximum Leader thinks the Packers can pull off the upset. But he will be watching very closely.

Lastly… Is it too early to be thinking baseball? Your Maximum Leader’s beloved Washington Nationals have been pretty active this off-season. They have been overpaying players to fill out the roster. Of course, when you suck for a few years and don’t show an inclination to win you have to spend some big bucks to attract good players to come to town and turn around the team. Your Maximum Leader thinks it is too early to judge if the moves have been good, but his early gut feeling is that the Nats should have kept Dunn. The offence Dunn produced for the team generally offset his defensive shortcomings. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure that LaRoche and Werth are going to fully make up those runs (but they will save runs on defense). Your Maximum Leader should probably engage in some advanced statistical analysis to figure out how the runs would change, but he doubts he’ll do that…

With that… Your Maximum Leader will cheer on his Caps and Packers and hope for the best for them.

Carry on.