We vividly recall the fiasco when Jason Gregor decided to try and expand our minds and talk about a different local team: the Edmonton Rush. We also remember the hilarious backlash he suffered and how we ourselves chimed in saying we know little about local sports and can’t think of a reason to start caring.

And so here is our article about a local sporting squadron. For you see last night, against our better judgment, we went to an Edmonton Capitals game. For those of you in the Nation who aren’t fortunate enough to hail from Edmonton or surrounding area, the Edmonton Capitals are the minor, minor, minor league independent baseball team with no affiliate to any major league squadron and is independent in it’s non-affiliation status. Translation: this ain’t the Major Leagues kids.

They play here at Telus Field, which is the northernmost ball park in professional baseball:

Now ordinarily we would rather spend a quiet afternoon with Amy Winehouse than attend a local sporting event not involving the Oilers. Call us jaded, ignorant or emotionally cold, that is just how we roll.

That is, until last night when the OilersNinja rolled into Wanye Manor™  and announced that today was the day that we were going to attend a Capitals game. We recently decided to live fraternity house style with the OilersNinja, MSG and a player to be named later. And the new house – a bit of a fixer upper (read: crack shack) – is basically in the infield of Telus Field. And the OilersNinja rightfully pointed out that “while not technically hockey, supporting the Capitals will eventually reduce the tax loss suffered by your hero Kay-Z. Plus we can figure out why they fire off so many fireworks.” Not having a BlackBerry to keep us entertained, we agreed to go.

We kid you not – it seems that at the end of every game, inning and at bat these Capitals are firing off fireworks in jubilant celebration. If it isn’t the fireworks, it’s a movie, projected in the infield, that goes till 3 AM. If it’s not fireworks or a movie it’s a concert of some variety.

But rather than letting all the noise draw us inside the building, we have suspiciously eyed Telus Field in passing for close to three months now and spoken in hushed tones, lest the ever present parking staff intercept our conversation.

We should mention that have a special hatred for Telus Field. The last time we attended a game we were in Grade One on a class trip. We ate a hot dog and suffered some of the worst food poisoning known to 6 year old man. Think we were in a big hurry to take our life in our hands again? Hells n-o.

Ok the Capitals lost 7-2 or something. We have to admit that we were wrong and we actually had a reasonably fun time. This could be because they have the cheapest beers for sale at any sporting event in town. 4 dollar beers? Get outta here! We can have all sorts of fun with 4 dollar beers being served. Plus players were hitting foul balls every other pitch and we were secretly hoping one would mildly injure one of the ladies in attendance and we could rush in to perform CPR.

We don’t know enough to pass judgment on the quality of baseball the Capitals play, but it seemed big league enough to us. The pitch-o-meter on the scoreboard kept showing pitches over 90 mph. Our days playing MLB on Playstation tells us that this is decent enough heat.

He is an absolute giant. We went to the Capitals website to take a look at how big this Walter Young is and we were slapped in the face by an absence of statistics:

In any event, we promised the OilersNinja that if we had a good time we would write about it on this here non pornographic website. And yes, there might be some people who rightfully say “this isn’t about Dany Heatley, nor a Dany Heatley trade.” Others too will say “where am I Wanye – capitalsnation.com??”

But there isn’t a Capitals Nation and 24 hours ago we would have said “good.” But we went down to the game and had 28 dollars worth of beer, sat outside and discussed dismembering Dany Heatley. And good times were had by all. To be truthful, we still don’t care all that much about local sports and probably never will. But from now on when we are half asleep on a work night and we hear fireworks being shot off into the air we will briefly smile before cursing and go back to sleep.

And odds are, we will attend another game this season. Until of course the Oilers hold a development camp at Millenium Place or something equally awesome.

Then we are back to business.