D2
S
THE SIDELINE
by Tarik El-Bashir
Washington Capitals winger Brooks Laich, who has missed the past three games after taking a puck to the face last week, said he plans to take the morning skate Tuesday before deciding whether he’s able to suit up against the Ottawa Senators. “I hate missing hockey games,”
Laich said Monday at Kettler Capitals Iceplex. “I can’t stand it. I love to play hockey and I love to play for the Capitals. I don’t ever want to watch from up top.” Coach Bruce Boudreau, though,
wasn’t ready to say when the gritty winger would be back in the lineup, telling reporters there is “a
good chance he’ll play by the weekend.” “He’s a quick healer and very
determined young man,” Boudreau added. “If there’s a chance for him to play, then he’ll play.” “When I got hit, my whole side
of my face just went numb,” Laich said of getting struck on the left side of his face by rookie John Carlson’s deflected shot in practice. “Obviously my head was ringing a little bit. But I’ve had a lot worse pain. But I’ve never had anything where I couldn’t feel it. So that was a little bit scary.” The winger said this is actually the second face injury he’s had. In fact, the last time (prior to this stretch) in which he was sidelined
Quick Fix
6From the blogs at washingtonpost.com/sports
WIZARDS INSIDER
Grunfeld: ‘Nobody came to us’ about writing for Arenas
The sentencing memo
Gilbert Arenas’s defense team submitted last week contained 32 letters from people vouching for his character and charitable deeds. But there weren’t any from team President Ernie Grunfeld, Coach Flip Saunders or any of Arenas’s current or former teammates or coaches. I asked Grunfeld why there
wasn’t a letter from him or anyone else from basketball management on Saturday and his answer was pretty simple. “I don’t think anybody asked us to write a letter. Nobody came to us and asked us to write anything,” Grunfeld said. Arenas not asking for letters from the Wizards probably says more about what he felt about the organization at that time than anything else.
— Michael Lee
CHAT REWIND
“All stories in women’s basketball now involve . . . U-Conn.”
Michael Wilbon, in his online Q&A Monday, on whether he’d like to see Baylor’s Brittney Griner go up against the 36-0 Huskies and Maya Moore, right.
SOCCER INSIDER
United’s Simms out 4-6 weeks with a strained hamstring
Clyde Simms, who missed much of the preseason after undergoing knee surgery, suffered a Grade 2 hamstring strain Saturday and will be sidelined four to six weeks, a significant setback for a D.C. United club that lost by four goals in its MLS season opener. The extent of the injury was revealed in an MRI exam Monday morning. Simms is a defensive
midfielder but was installed at right back because of several defensive absences: Bryan Namoff is recuperating from a concussion; Marc Burch is out after foot surgery; Devon McTavish recently hurt a hamstring; Juan Manuel Peña wasn’t available after completing final paperwork to join the club; and Julius James was sick much of the week.
— Steven Goff
due to injury came during the 2003-04 American Hockey League playoffs, he said, when he was struck by a slap shot. When Laich returns, he’ll do so with a full cage attached to his helmet. But he plans to eventually resume playing without eye protection. “My eye doesn’t really look that
pretty, but there’s no problem with my eyesight,” he said. “As soon as I can get the cage off, I’ll get it off. It sounds dumb, but I wish I would wear a visor and protect the eyes. Maybe if I had a visor, this wouldn’t have happened. But I don’t know. I don’t see myself wearing a visor. They get in the way a little bit.” Laich also said he doesn’t think
KLMNO
WASHINGTONPOST.COM/SPORTS
First Things First: Tracee Hamilton begins each weekday morning with a Q&A discussing the hot topics in the world of sports.
TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 2010
WASHINGTON POST LIVE WITH IVAN CARTER
5 p.m. on Comcast SportsNet
The Washington Mystics’ big offseason acquisition, Katie Smith, is Tuesday’s featured guest.
After taking a puck to the face, Capitals’ Laich is eager for return
the injury will affect his go-to-the-net style of play. “If I want to keep getting paid, I know where I have to go,” he said. “It’s not going to change my game or make me gun-shy. I’m sure the first shift I get back out there, I’m going to go racing toward the net. Imiss playing hockey.” Seeing his consecutive game streak snapped at 257, Laich cracked, hurt almost as much his face.
“If I hadn’t been healthy
scratched by Glen [Hanlon] three years ago, I would have been somewhere around 400 games,” he said. “It’s almost a pride thing to play every single day, whether you’re bumped and you’re bruised, to play through it.”
Winter Classic update
There has been no announcement from the NHL to support Sunday’s report about the Capitals and Penguins squaring off in the Winter Classic at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, but that didn’t stop reporters from asking about it.
Alex Ovechkin, for one, said
he’s all for it. “It’s going to be pretty fun,” the Capitals’ captain said. “It’s going to be something new for me [and] for the guys who have never played the Winter Classic. Especially because we’re playing Pittsburgh, there’s going to be lots of attention [and] unbelievable atmosphere.”
Ovechkin, however, didn’t know that the game was rumored to be at the Steelers’ home field until a reporter filled him in. “Why not Washington?” he
asked. “The Redskins have the biggest stadium. “The whole country is going to
watch that kind of game,” Ovechkin added. “It’s always nice when you get more attention than usual.”
Owner Ted Leonsis, meantime, said on his blog that the opponents and location have not been determined. “The NHL will decide if we are playing in the next Winter Classic,” Leonsis wrote. “They have NOTmade any decisions.”
elbashirt@washpost.com
Hot Topic Nationals Journal
Blog excerpt from washingtonpost.com/nationalsjournal
JEFF ROBERSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Obama, here throwing the first pitch during last year’s All-Star Game in St. Louis, will do so on opening day in Washington.
Nats are bringing in the lefty
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HOCKEY
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President Obama set to throw first pitch on opening day
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2:30 p.m.
President Obama will throw out the ceremonial first pitch on opening day Monday at Nationals Park, continuing a tradition that began 100 years ago and making him the second sitting president to throw the pitch since baseball returned to Washington in 2005. “It’s one of the things that makes baseball
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in Washington so unique and makes it so special,” Nationals President Stan Kasten said. “It reminds us of the game’s roots, but it’s also very contemporary. That’s what makes it so great that we’re going to have the leader of the free world here at our ballpark.”
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Kasten and the Nationals had given the president a long-standing, open invitation to throw out the first pitch on opening day. This year, it came together, “just the way these things do,” Kasten said. President Bush threw out the first pitch twice, in 2005 when baseball first returned
to Washington and in 2008, when Nationals Park opened. Last season, his first in office, President Obama threw out the first pitch at the All-Star Game in St. Louis. “I am proud that President Obama will continue the long presidential tradition of throwing out the first pitch of opening day in Washington, D.C.,” said Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig, who also will be in attendance at Nationals Park. Catcher Iván Rodríguez, entering his
20th major league season, will catch President Obama’s toss. Rodríguez twice caught opening day ceremonial pitches from President Bush, the former owner of the Texas Rangers, during his time as a Rangers catcher. “He used to be my boss, a long time ago” Rodríguez said, laughing. Rodríguez has never met President Obama. “I’ve been telling Mike [Rizzo] that I want to meet [President Obama],” Rodríguez said. “It’s going to be an honor for me. It’s going to be a special deal for me.”
Starting pitcher Jason Marquis met him last season, when Marquis made the National League all-star team and President Obama toured the clubhouse
inside Busch Stadium. Marquis received an autographed baseball and chatted briefly. “It’s nice to have a president who’s up on
current times and enjoys sports,” Marquis said. “It’s great for fans, great for the city of Washington.” Utility player Willie Harris played for the White Sox in 2005, when Obama, then a senator from Illinois, threw out the first pitch for a White Sox playoff game. The White Sox, with Harris contributing, eventually won the World Series that season.
“I know he’s supposed to slide in, come through the clubhouse and be right out of there. But I’m going to see if that World Series ring can stall him for a little while, maybe have a few conversations with him,” Harris said.
Because of enhanced security, the
Nationals encourage fans to arrive at Nationals Park an hour or two earlier than typical. Gates will open at 10 a.m. The Nationals are sold out for opening day, but they will make available 400 $5 seats in sections 401 and 402 at 10 a.m. on the day of the game.
—Adam Kilgore
DIGEST
COLLEGE BASKETBALL
Three locals selected to all-American teams
Three area players were select- ed to the Associated Press all- American teams. Villanova sen-
ior guard Scottie Reynolds
(Herndon) is a first-team pick. Maryland senior point guard
Greivis Vasquez and George-
town sophomore center Greg Monroe were selected to the sec- ond and third team, respectively. They are three of the 15 players nationally who made the three squads. Vasquez was named the Atlan- tic Coast Conference player of the year and led the Terrapins to a 24-9 overall record and to the NCAA tournament’s second round. He is the first Maryland player to earn AP all-American status since Juan Dixon was a first-team pick in 2002. Monroe, a first-team all-Big East selection, led the Hoyas to a 23-11 overall record and to an
NCAA tournament berth. He is the third Georgetown player in the past four years to be honored by the AP. None of the first-team players
— Kentucky’s John Wall and De- Marcus Cousins, Ohio State’s Ev- an Turner, Syracuse’s Wes John-
son and Reynolds — is still play- ing in the NCAA tournament. . . . Joey Rodriguez scored 14 con-
secutive points during a decisive second-half surge to lead Virginia Commonwealth past Saint Louis, 68-56, in the first game of the championship series of the Col- lege Basketball Invitational. The teams will play Game 2 of the best-of-three series in St. Louis on Wednesday. . . . West Virginia point guard Dar-
ryl “Truck” Bryant, who broke his right foot a week ago, has been fitted with a specially designed shoe. Bryant is optimistic about
the shoe, which would shift weight away from his fractured fifth metatarsal, going as far as to predict he could play “like noth- ing happened.” Coach Bob Hug- gins said he would wait and see how Bryant practices. . . .
Kansas’s Cole Aldrich and
Michigan’s Manny Harris an-
nounced that they will skip their senior years and head for the NBA. ... Central Florida hired former
Marshall coach Donnie Jones as its new head coach, while Louisi- ana-Lafayette hired former Sam Houston State coach Bob Marlin as its new head coach. . . . Anne Donovan is leaving the
New York Liberty after the up- coming WNBA season to become the women’s basketball coach at Seton Hall.
BASEBALL
Baltimore Orioles reliever Koji
Uehara expects to start the sea- son on the disabled list because
of a strained left hamstring. Ueh- ara hasn’t pitched since March 18, when he left a game against Toronto with hamstring tight- ness. . . . Matt Cain and the San Francis- co Giants have agreed to a three- year, $27.25 million contract, while closer Brian Wilson has been given a two-year, $15 mil- lion extension through 2011.
Left-hander Jeremy Affeldt
has received a one-year extension through 2011 that adds $5.5 mil- lion in new money. In all, the team added $43.25 million in new commitments in the three deals.
PRO BASKETBALL
New York Knicks center Eddy
Curry will likely miss the rest of the season because of a right calf injury. The Knicks announced that Curry has a torn myofascial band in the calf and is not expec- ted to play in the final 10 games. Curry has played in just seven
games this season and has ap- peared in only 10 over the last two seasons. He injured his calf in training camp and later had left knee surgery. . . .
San Antonio Spurs guard
Manu Ginobili missed Monday’s
game against the New Jersey Nets because of lower back spasms. . . . The Sacramento Kings say
swingman Dominic McGuire will
miss the rest of the season with an injured right foot. McGuire, who was acquired from the Washington Wizards on Feb. 18, has a torn right plantar fascia.
MISC.
Ernie Els won the Arnold
Palmer Invitational for his sec- ond straight victory on the PGA Tour. Els made two big par putts in a Monday finish at Bay Hill in Orlando. His eight-foot par putt on the final hole left him at 1- under-par 71.
Edoardo Molinari and Kevin
Na finished two back. . . . A redshirt freshman football
player at Tarleton State died after he suffered a head injury during spring practice. Tarleton spokeswoman Liza
Benedict says 18-year-old Zach
Shaver died at a Fort Worth hos- pital Monday, two days after he was injured at the Division II school in Stephenville, Tex. A cause of death hasn’t been deter- mined. . . . Denny Hamlin surged to the
front after a blunder and won the rain-delayed NASCAR race at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway in a wild finish. . . .
A Florida woman is suing Pitts- burgh Steelers wide receiver San- tonio Holmes, saying the one- time Super Bowl MVP hit her in the face with a glass at an Orlan- do nightclub and then offered to pay her so she wouldn’t press charges.
— From News Services and Staff Reports
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