Listen Up!

According to the Capitals web site, the "founder, chairman, majority owner and chief executive officer of Monumental Sports Ted Leonsis" (is that sufficient identification for "The Man," or what?) will take your questions LIVE* this Thursday.  

* The one catch: Unlike with the team's regular phone call sessions with fans (during which players and team execs face questions LIVE -- without an asterisk), the man who believes in transparency and interactivity and who started the new year looking for new ways to interact is resorting to a rather old fashioned you-submit, I-pick, I-answer-and-spin approach to being The Most Accessible Owner in Sports.  

This is really nothing new.  We know, first hand, when we've sent positive messages to Ted's Take, they got posted; but when we sent criticism and suggestions, well, they never did. (So much for Ted's vaunted internet transparency.)  It's one of the reasons we started Ted's Fake.   Regardless, we'll be listening in Thursday.  And, we sincerely hope for candid, meaningful information -- and no spin.  Because nonsensical spin like this may not get a pass.  

The quote of interest from that link:  “I’d like to focus on building a good team,” the owner said. "I think that the most important thing for us is to be really, really serious about making the team very competitive and having the rebuild work. And I think changing the name, sometimes it’s almost like a grandstanding thing."

So changing colors is "significant" and perhaps even "iconic" while changing a name is, er, uh, "grandstanding"... ?  And somehow changing colors fits within the stated framework of being focused and "really, really serious" about building a good/very competitive team and changing a name does not?

Why not?  Because in Ted's world, if the "founder, chairman, majority owner and chief executive officer of Monumental Sports Ted Leonsis" blogs it or says it, it must be so!