(William Daski)
The Washington Capitals on Tuesday hosted a Fantasy Camp for media members (and a few beer league goalies), where Coach Todd Reirden, video coach Brett Leonhardt, equipment manager Brock Myles, and other coaches gave the journalists an inside look of how things actually work. Leonhardt talked extensively about the video coaching, including breaking down the tape for each player and sending it to them to review on their iPad. The video coaches watch up to five other games a night and break down the tape for those teams in preparation for the Caps’ upcoming games. They also spoke about how they go about challenging goals, the number of extra camera angles they have, and often know whether a play was offsides even if the whistle didn’t blow.
After the coaches spoke in the the locker room, the media members ran through some drills, with more coaches including Olympic Gold Medal winner Haley Skarupa, Craig Laughlin, Alan May, and Caps defensemen Jonas Siegenthaler and Alexander Alexeyev.
During stick-handling drills, we played a game where everyone had to keep their own puck in the middle circle and try to knock out others. I won the first round. In the second round, I was the last one with Alexeyev. Determined to beat a professional athlete, I attempted to cheat but he still beat me. Courtney Laughlin knocked me out of the third round.
Later, we had a media game. It wasn’t pretty. Here are some photos:
