The Washington Capitals Stanley Cup Victory Is A Bittersweet DC Moment

aka…The Ballad of Braden Holtby, Devante Smith Pelly, and Gentrification

Twenty-five years ago I lifted the Second Session Shohola Cup as a backup defenseman for the Buddha Blue Cheese of the Camp Shohola Second Session Street Hockey League. As a young African-American sports fan growing up in Washington, DC, it was readily apparent to me that when it came to hockey that, while watching the mostly all-white and often European Washington Capitals, that I’d have to be my own best hero. Though not broadcast on worldwide television, and without a $163,000 check in compensation, on a steamy August evening in Greeley, Pennsylvania in 1993, I achieved that goal.

Twenty-five years later, I watched as Devante Smith Pelly, a black left winger for the Washington Capitals, scored the game-tying goal in the super-important and ultimately series, and Stanley Cup winning game of the Stanley Cup Finals. My mother called me on the phone when it happened and said, “‘black man of African descent from Canada’ damn sure ain’t ‘African-American.’ So I don’t know why black folk here are so happy. He’s just a gentrifier, too.”

When I grew up in Washington, DC, the city was solidly 70% African-American. Thus, of all of the Washington area teams, the…