As Caps finally proved, D.C. can be a championship town

I really didn't have much of an opinion of Washington as a sports town before I moved here in 2001.

I knew the Redskins had won three Super Bowls and were the biggest deal in this city. I knew the Capitals made the playoffs most years and had been swept by the Red Wings in the 1998 Stanley Cup Final. To be honest, I didn't know much about the Bullets/Wizards. And I knew that with no baseball team in the District, a lot of people were fans of the Orioles, a model franchise for decades that was then in the midst of a significant down cycle.

Here's what I did learn pretty quickly once I arrived, and what has only been reinforced in the 17 years since: This town desperately wanted a championship team to embrace.

The drought wasn't as long back in the early 2000s, and there was a celebration in 2002 when the Maryland men's basketball team won the national championship, but it did always feel like this city just wanted to experience what other cities known more for sporting success had experienced.

As the years passed and no local team so much as reached its league's semifinals, let alone won a title, it was easy to dismiss Washington as an inferior sports town. Yes, people got excited for big events - Redskins games, Caps playoff games, the inaugural ballgames at RFK Stadium and Nationals Park - but it was hard to claim the passion was there day-in and day-out like we perceive it is elsewhere.

That reputation stuck, and it left fans and sportswriters from other cities looking down at D.C. as "not a good sports town."

Here's what struck me along the way, though: Any time one of our teams took a significant step forward and offered legitimate reason for hope, the town couldn't wait to dive right in. When Alex Ovechkin and the Caps made the playoffs for the first time in 2008, the then-Verizon Center became the place to be. (And it has remained that way for a decade.) When Robert Griffin III burst onto the scene in 2012, this city went bananas for its football team and dreamed of a fourth Lombardi Trophy alongside the three from the Joe Gibbs Era. OK, Wizards fever has never quite taken off like the others, but there's no debating the fact the franchise is in the middle of its best sustained run since it won its lone title 40 years ago.

And then there are the Nationals. For three decades, plenty of outsiders insisted Washington couldn't support another baseball club, not after losing two versions of the Senators. Until 2.7 million fans made old RFK bounce and sway during the inaugural 2005 season. And even though support dropped some during those poorly orchestrated 100-loss seasons, ever since they became contenders in 2012 the Nats have averaged nearly 32,000 fans per game on South Capitol Street.

Postseason games at Nationals Park? There have been only 11 of them, but the energy in the stadium has left no doubt: Washington can indeed be a baseball town.

Alas, too many of those games have ended in heartbreak, and the Nats have yet to extend a season into late-October. We don't know yet what the place would be like for a National League Championship Series or a World Series.

But the last month has given us a taste of what could be. The scene both inside and especially outside Capital One Arena has been nothing short of remarkable. Name a city that has proven it can make a bigger deal out of playoff hockey than this. Maybe a comparable deal. But not a bigger deal.

And Thursday night set the new standard, by leaps and bounds. A full house inside the arena to watch a game being played 2,000 miles away. Tens of thousands of others gathered outside the arena to be part of a celebration the likes of which this city has not enjoyed in 26 years.

It was awesome. And it's only the beginning of what could be a new era in Washington.

The curse has been lifted, and it's fitting that it was the Capitals who did it. The local football, basketball and baseball teams all owned at least one title, even if those titles came decades (or, in baseball's case, nearly a century) ago. The local hockey team, though, had been an institution around here for 44 years without getting an opportunity to hoist Lord Stanley's cup. It has gone through many different permutations in its history, but the Ovechkin-era version had more than earned its opportunity at last to stand alone at the end.

The Caps have always enjoyed a loyal fan base, but what the last month proved is that casual fans from around the area couldn't wait to jump on the bandwagon and experience the thrill of a championship run. Call them novices, call them frontrunners, call them whatever you want. But know this: They're now fans for life. They will never forget this moment, and this town will never be the same because of it.

Which brings us back to the local baseball team. The Nationals haven't endured as much heartache in the last six years as the Capitals had in the last 35 years, but they've built a pretty strong resume in a short period of time.

That perhaps has left some fans fearing the inevitable repeat of history come this fall or future falls. And maybe that will happen again. Maybe this franchise is going to have to suffer as long as the Caps did, or as long as baseball franchises in places like Philadelphia and Boston and Chicago and Houston and Cleveland and others have had to suffer.

But maybe that won't be the case. Maybe, just maybe, the Nationals' time is coming. Maybe, just maybe, the Caps' ability to finally get over the hump will help make it a little easier for the Nats to do the same.

Make no mistake, Nationals players have taken notice of what has taken place in recent weeks on F Street. Not just how the hockey team played, but how the city embraced it and helped lift it to a place it had never been before.

There's going to be a parade in D.C. in a few days. There might even be a Stanley Cup appearance at Nationals Park sometime this weekend.

We've entered a new era in Washington sports history. No longer does anyone here need to feel inferior. This city has won a championship. It's capable of winning more. And no matter what, it has proven how much people here care about it all.

Seventeen years ago, I had no real opinion of Washington as a sports town. Someone else who moves here this year, though, will have an opinion: Washington is a championship sports town.