Photo Credit: Patrick McDermott
On the morning of Wednesday, May 13, my Twitter feed was full of skittish anticipation. The Capitals were about to faceoff against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. The winner would face the Tampa Bay Lightning with a trip to the Stanley Cup Final on the line. The loser’s season would end under that famous flat roof.
However, game seven wasn’t the only reason the Internet was abuzz: thanks to Eric Fehr, RMNB had just revealed the secret nicknames of the Capitals’ locker room. This came on the heels of my interrogation of Jay Beagle over the demise of his flip phone two days earlier.
As a refresher, here are the players whose nicknames were revealed to the unwashed masses for the first time: Tom Wilson (Whip), Michael Latta (Steamboat), Dmitry Orlov (Snarls), Mike Green (Murph), John Carlson (Jumbo), Brooks Orpik (B&O Railways), and Fehr (Frank)
With the season over, I caught up with Latta for his take on the biggest change of the Barry Trotz era.
“It just kinda stuck,” Latta said of his current nickname, which is often shortened to Steam. “I don’t even know where it came from. I’ve had a million nicknames. I’m serious, I get a new one every week.”
“We’ve got a lot of good ones this year, kinda outside the box,” he continued. “I like ’em. We did a really good job. Points to us for that.”