The Washington Capitals NHL franchise was founded in 1974 and has a history of success in the regular season but no Stanley Cup titles. They made the Eastern Conference Finals in 1998. The demographics of Capitals fans show they tend to be wealthier, more educated, and older than fans of other DC sports teams. Popular nicknames for players include "Ovi" and slogans like "SCOAR MOAR GOALS" show part of the team's fan jargon. Capitals fans create blogs, art, comics and use social media like Twitter and Reddit to share content and discuss the team as part of an engaged online community.

1. Washington Capitals
The Fandom

2. History
• Founded in the 1974-1975 season
– 8-67-5
– Abe Pollin
– Capitals Center
• Moved to Verizon Center (formerly MCI center) in
1997
• No Stanley Cup, but made it to Eastern
Conference Finals in 1998.
• Bought by former AOL executive Ted Leonsis in
1998.

3. Demographics of the Fandom
• 77% white
– Region-wide average is 70% white
– Highest of all D.C. sports teams
• 34% less than 35 years old
• 67% male
– Second only to D.C. United
• 65% married
– Highest of all D.C. sports teams
• 50% college grads or some secondary work
– Highest of all D.C. sports teams
• 59% had 100,000 household incomes
– Highest of all D.C. sports teams
• (Scarborough Sports Marketing, 2009, cited by Steinberg, 2010)

4. Jargon
• Nicknames
– Ovi
– Ice Cheetah
– F16
• Other sayings
– SCOAR MOAR GOALS
– Bailamos
– Rock the Red
– The Phone Booth

5. Fan Created Media – Blogs
• Russian Machine Never Breaks
– 4,076 since 2009
– “Make hockey as fun to read about as it is to watch
• Japers’ Rink
– 7,502 since 2005
• Puck Buddys
– “For boys who like boys who like hockey”

6. Fan-Created Media: Blogs
• Sports bloggers are “both sports fans…and
media consumers who gather information
from the source they emulate” (McCarthy, B.)
• In other words, they are “prosumers.” They
both produce and consume media (Ritzer &
Jurgenson, 2010).

7. Fan-Created Media: Art and Other
Mediums
• Art: Rachel L. Cohen, RMNB
• Shirts: Rachel L. Cohen, RMNB
• Comics: Chris Bradford
– Japers’ Rink

8. Community Interaction
• Twitter – #caps
– 1,190 tweets on 12/4/14 (Topsy)
• r/Caps
– 5,346 subscribers
• Sports viewing has become a multi-screened
experience. Fans create digital “memories”
(Rowe, 2014).
• Bugsy’s

9. Sources
• Steinberg, D. (2010, March 11). The demographics of D.C. sports fans. The Washington Post.
Retrieved from
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2010/03/the_demographics_of_dc_sports.html
• www.japersrink.com
• McCarthy, B. (2013). Consuming sports media, producing sports media: An analysis of two fan
sports blogospheres. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 48(4), p. 421-434. Retrieved
from http://0-web.a.ebscohost.com.read.cnu.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=13&sid=6c6f6a2b-473a-
4569-a096-
19cb7fd61817%40sessionmgr4003&hid=4109&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9
h&AN=89598269
• Ritzer, G. & Jurgenson, N. (2010). Production, Consumption, Prosumption. Journal of Consumer
Culture, 10(1), p. 13-36. Retrieved from http://0-
web.a.ebscohost.com.read.cnu.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=20&sid=6c6f6a2b-473a-4569-a096-
19cb7fd61817%40sessionmgr4003&hid=4109&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9
h&AN=48683655
• www.puckbuddys.com
• www.reddit.com/r/caps
• Rowe, D. (2014). New Screen Action and Its Memories: The “Live” Performance of Mediated Sports
Fandom. Television and New Media, 15(8), 752-759. Retrieved from
http://tvn.sagepub.com/content/15/8/752.full.pdf
• http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com
• http://topsy.com/s?q=%23caps&window=d