Two Down, One To Go!

No, the BasketCases are not suddenly abandoning women's basketball to blog about other sports. But if you happen to live in our national capital area, it cannot have escaped your attention that in the past two days, two of the three professional sports teams that call the Verizon Center home have secured playoff berths in their respective leagues!

On Friday night, with their 109-95 win over the Miami Heat, the Wizards guaranteed themselves post-season play for the fourth straight season.

And last night, with an exciting 3-1 victory at home over the Florida Panthers, the Caps won the Southeast Division of the NHL, sending the Caps to the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in five years. We must say too that it was quite a thrilling visual scene at the sold-out Verizon Center, as Caps fans staged a "red-out."

Of course the third team that plays in the Verizon Center is, as our readers know, our very own Mystics. So obviously we are looking forward to the Mystics' completing the Phone Booth hat-trick later this summer by advancing to the WNBA playoffs, a trip that eluded them last season and indeed every odd-numbered year of their existence.

But the good news is that 2008 is an even-numbered year (a fact we verifed with our own on-staff accountant), which suggests that the future looks bright! (Hint to Dr. J: We loved Ted's color choice for the Caps' new Unis, and the BasketCases and lots of your other Mystics fans already have an affinity for red basketball attire.)

Congratulations to the Wizards! Congratulations to the Caps! Go Styx!