Inside the Press Box: Ed Frankovic

Storming the Crease is conducting a series of interviews with people who cover (or work for) the Caps. You can find the complete log on the right sidebar. Today's tenth installment: WNST blogger/former Caps statistician Ed Frankovic.

1. Please describe what you did for the Caps and your experience working for them.

I've been around this team a long time. When I was in college at the University of Maryland, I was actually doing a weekly for the Prince George's Post-Sentinel at the time and I was covering mostly Maryland and my father was covering the Caps, Bullets and Redskins. So I would fill in when he was out. He started covering the Caps during the 1984-85 season and a couple of a years in, a couple of the stats guys said 'hey we have an opening; we need somebody to help us with stats.' I joined the team doing stats during the 1986-87 season and worked all the way until 1996-97 when the team moved downtown.

2. Please describe your transition from working for the team to your current role as a blogger/reporter.

I've always been a hockey fan and working for the team, the job I did was for the team. The coaches got the stats -- the ice time, the face-offs, the hits. Those types of things weren't published, they weren't common knowledge. In fact, we were told by David Poile, the general manager, and the coaches, 'don't let the players know what their ice times are, do not let anybody know what their ice times are because this is sensitive information; the agents will use it for negotiating contracts.' So I did that for a lot of years and then I was kinda away from the team [except for being a fan].

During the summer of 2007, Nestor Aparicio -- he's the owner of WNST, he covered the Caps for years, met him back in 1984-85 when he first covered the Caps for the Baltimore Sun -- said 'hey Ed, I want you to come out and do a blog for me on a new Web site I just launched.' It’s morphed into a hockey blog. We have a lot of people covering the Ravens on the Web site, and I'll add my two cents here and there, but there are not many hockey guys in our area.

3. What do you think about the Caps' fan base in Baltimore? Do you think there's a big fan base there?

I think there is. The ratings are way up last year, especially for the games. A lot of that is Ovechkin. There are a lot of hockey fans there, especially in the suburbs. They grew up with the Clippers and the Skipjacks and they haven't had a team for a lot of years, but a lot of the big problem there is that they don't have an arena in Baltimore.

But there are hockey fans. You're talking about some of Howard County and Ann Arundel County up in Maryland, there are a lot of hockey fans there. So I think Baltimore likes hockey and they're interested in what Hershey's doing and they're interested in what the Caps are doing.

4. What's your most memorable hockey-related moment?

I know the Caps went to the finals in 1998, but mine still is Dale Hunter, game seven, 1988, beating the Flyers, coming back from a 3-1 deficit because the Caps just couldn't beat the Flyers for years before they got Dale Hunter and that was Dale Hunter's first year.

I just remember winning the game that night and then we went over to Rod Langway's bar and that place was packed. You couldn't move. You had 14 of the 20 guys in there that night and I remember standing in the kitchen and just couldn't stand next to Grant Ledyard and we were like, 'can you believe this?'

And I think that year, that team would have gone to the finals had Pat Verbeek not cut Rod Langway's leg in that next series.

5. What are some of your interests outside of hockey and your job?

I'm a big golfer; hockey and golf go together. I'm a big sports fan but golf is probably my biggest hobby. Any sport, I'll typically watch football or golf or hockey. Year-round, I'm watching one of those. If the Caps aren't playing, I'm watching a hockey game. If it's Sunday and there's not much hockey on TV, I'll be watching a football game; in the summer, golf tournaments.

Obviously, I love to spend time with my family -- and my day job.