Re-evaluating retired numbers of the Washington Capitals

First, I have a confession to make. And that is, I reacted in post-it-quick fashion to the announcement that Mike Gartner’s #11 will be retired this December 28th. I glibly declared, along with Puck Daddy, that he wasn’t enough of a heart and soul player who “transcend[ed] his contributions on the ice,” though fully acknowledging that I was neither (1) a Capitals fan during the era in which he wore the stars and stripes, nor (2) nearly mature enough at that age to appreciate athletic greatness, and what a star player like him might possibly mean for an organization and a nascent community of DC area hockey fans.

So, upon further review and discussion with esteemed fellow Capitals fans, I think that, along with one of the “Goal Dust Twins,” our current assemblage of retired jersey numbers is certainly unique but also, for this franchise, certainly appropriate. And that includes further addition to Peter Bondra’s #12 and Olaf Kolzig’s #37, when the time is right.

Much of the critical discussion about retiring Capitals numbers surrounds the growing volume of numbers out of circulation when compared to number of summers that Capitals players have enjoyed with the Stanley Cup (i.e., zero, to date).

To illustrate, Gartner’s number will be hoisted aloft before puck drop against the Toronto Maple Leafs, a franchise which has exactly two retired numbers (Bill Barilko’s #5 and Irvine Wallace “Ace” Bailey’s #6) to go with 13 Stanley Cup victories, though also many “honoured numbers.”

Statistically, having one’s number retired by an NHL franchise is the highest honor of all, beyond even Hall of Fame induction. There are 238 inductees in the Hall of Fame in the players category, as of 2007, and 95 retired numbers (plus those 13 “honoured” former Maple Leafs). But though the “number of numbers” retired league-wide is a fraction of the number of Hall of Fame honorees, the two honors themselves signify two quite different sets of accomplishments and circumstances.

The Hall of Fame selection process is much more quantitative, and objective, in approach. The goal is to recognize, above all else, the greatest talents of the game over an extended period of time, encompassing more than that player’s exploits with any one team. Retiring a number (as far as an individual franchise is concerned) is intended to acknowledge the player’s unique value to one team, the city in which it plays, and that team’s fans.

That unique value, of course, may manifest itself in the same qualities that earn that player a commemorative plaque in the Great Hall at 30 Yonge Street in Toronto, such as a multitude of goals scored, or number of times his name is etched in the Cup. But it may also manifest itself in other intangible ways that reflect the team’s special circumstances, and which cannot be compared to the circumstances of other teams, past or present.

Yvon Labre

Over the summer, and again following the announcement of the retirement of Gartner’s #11, more than a few fans called for the “un-retiring” of Yvon Labre’s #7, based upon his paucity of points earned in his career (and GP too) and that his teams weren’t so special either (except especially abysmal). A few suggested, reasonably, that statistically he was the least skilled player ever to have his number retired. I certainly can’t dispute that.

I was far too young to appreciate Labre’s play, but written accounts of that era and his role paint a moving portrait of a relentless athlete who cared deeply about the franchise when few others did. He was the face of the Capitals in the 1970’s, and intimately connected with the team’s community efforts and youth hockey promotion, I think, since day one. Which was crucial for an expansion team in a non-hockey market south of the Mason-Dixon, where many of its residents didn’t realize that NHL hockey was even played in their midst until several years after October 9, 1974.

He also began the Capitals traditions of suiting up solid “defensive” defensemen and seemingly average players who overachieve well beyond outsider expectations.

In any event, the case for retiring Labre’s number #7 is a compelling one, if based completely on factors unrelated to statistical performance and championships.

To use the Hall of Fame parlance, he’s perhaps more of a “builder” number retiree than a “player” retiree.

photo from washingtoncaps.com

At the heart of it, a franchise should be able to retire a player’s number for any good reason. Ultimately, retiring numbers is about congratulating the efforts of a player in a solemn and public manner, and giving the fans something to feel good about.

Maybe we do have too many retired numbers. Maybe those decisions were made more to create history and legend for the franchise than to celebrate it.

We’ve retired the numbers of Labre, Rod Langway, and Dale Hunter principally for their roles in forming an identity for the franchise, and for their love of playing in the DC area, for the Capitals. Caps fans have long walked with a limp resulting from the tremendously large chip on our collective shoulders, resulting from years of national and international media (even to this day!), as well as potential free agent signees, snubbing our team and our “hockey town.” So, when Kolzig spoke about how much he loved the DC area and wanted to be a Capital for life, and Bondra openly wept over the trade to Ottawa, we felt a special reverence for them.

We want to acknowledge that devotion to our team, make them larger than their career numbers indicate.

The merits of Gartner’s number retirement have already been thoughtfully laid out here, here, and here. So I will only add that he seems to fit equally well into both the statistically elite category and the intangible value category. His dynamic play put Washington, DC on the hockey map.

Retired vs. “honored” numbers

Which leads to the retired number versus “honored number” or “ring of honor” debate. In practice, of course, there’s no difference between “honoring” a number and retiring it. In either case, a future player on that team cannot wear that number. But the effect is to create a two-tiered system, one that reserves the highest honor of all for a precious few, and allows for a secondary commemoration of the franchise’s “great” players.

A logical reaction to the Capitals situation might be to accept the numbers already retired, but to place all future Capitals heroes within the same category as Labre et al. into the “honored number” tier of rememberance, reserving retired numbers for the truly elite. Because there’s no greater honor that a franchise can bestow upon one of its own players than to retire his number.

But really, why complicate matters with this multi-tiered system? Would this then lead to more overall “honorees” than is justified? Can you not imagine every retired number versus ring of honor decision being a close one? How would you, as an organization, convey the ultimate choice to the player? How would an honored number ceremony feel to the fan, compared to the supreme gesture of jersey number retirement? Satisfying?

As for retired numbers versus Stanley Cups won, both the LA Kings and St. Louis Blues have five retired numbers, and zero Cup victories. The Sabres have six numbers in the rafters, and no Cups won. If singular appreciation of the accomplishments of great players on one’s favorite team is permitted only in connection with championship victories then, well, that can make for one joyless sports fan. (Like pretty much every New York Yankees fan that I know.)

One last point: to only retire numbers of players who meet some tragic demise is, well, tragic.

What next?

For the future, its fairly clear to me that ownership will do the right and judicious (there’s that “buzzword”) thing when it comes to this highest of player honors. We know now that the standard for retiring a number in Washington will be, essentially: (i) be inducted into the Hall as a Capital, (ii) lead the Capitals to a Stanley Cup (“lead” to be defined), or (iii) another extraordinary reason, to be based on some “objective format” yet to be fully vetted.

If that extraordinary reason is simply that Peter Bondra or Olaf Kolzig did a lot of good things on and off the ice for the Capitals far beyond any other Capital player of that era, and loved playing here, and we loved them back, so be it.

Should Scott Stevens or Larry Murphy (the latter having worn Ovechkin’s number notwithstanding), both Hall inductees, also be retired? Their careers can be distinguished from Gartner’s for the simple fact that Gartner played most of his career in Washington, played his best hockey there, is most identified with, and was inducted as a player of, the Washington Capitals. Stevens went on to play the majority of his career with the Devils, and captained them to three Cup championships. Murphy? He helped earn the Detroit Red Wings back-to-back Cups in 1997 and 1998, the latter achieved by sweeping the Caps in the finals. Enough said.

Will the team anyday soon run out of numbers? No. Will a truly extraordinary Capital whose number is retired in the future (say, one Alex Ovechkin) feel that his honor is cheapened, tarnished, because #12 or #37 was raised before him? I daresay he would not.

Is the era of Capitals hockey anchored by Messrs. Bondra and Kolzig not worth remembering in the same way as the era patrolled by Langway and Hunter?  Did those two 1990’s stalwarts not propel the franchise forward to heights never before reached?

Look up at those banners of #5, #7 and #32 and reflect upon what those men did in their Capitals careers, to more firmly establish our team as an NHL franchise, at a time when it was desperate to legitimize itself, and to ultimately bring us to this point of seeking Stanley in 2008-09. Without the contributions of those three, we may not have the Washington Capitals today.

My friend Russell, a fellow NYC area Capitals fan, opined that one fine day two decades from now when, as we all hope, Ovechkin’s number #8 is raised to the rafters in Washington, the bar will be appropriately set for greatness henceforth.

By then, we’ll be far beyond any need to acknowledge the early struggles of the franchise, or bolster our legitimacy, or grapple with a lack of history in a “new” hockey market. We’ll have wonderful tales of glory far exceeding anything that we have yet known in Caps land.

I’ll close with a final point on Gartner. From On Frozen Blog this week:

Just as important as Gartner’s sweater retiring is the accompanying sense that stability and order are arriving to the totality of the Capitals’ operations . . . HockeyWashington has greatness in its present and rafter-raising heroism in its past. The two are converging magnificently these days.

And despite my initial lack of enthusiasm over the Gartner announcement, when I take in that magical rite of number rafter-raising this December, I’ll most certainly, happily, become connected to that past heroism in a way that I never have before.

PS: And yes, Ted, we’re all dying for hockey season to start.