Making the playoffs is a two-edged sword

Every team wants to make the playoffs for the championship.

But the problem is, making the playoffs makes one think that the team you support has a chance to win the championship.

Washington area professional sports teams are establishing an unfortunate tradition that makes fans happy that the team made the playoffs then become also a bit apprehensive about the fact that their team made the playoffs.


Even though some Washington-area sports teams are awful (the Redsk*ns right now, the Wizards for a long time), many others have just been tantalizingly good. Now, I want to raise up DC United, which before the current rise of soccer in this country (which is a trend that is definitely going to continue) they won some MLS championships. But soccer has yet to become the fifth major sport in this country. I think in a decade it will be; I think injuries, both orthopedic and brain (concussions) are going to cause football to go into a slow decline. Not everywhere, but I think in some areas of the country soccer will rise as football falls.

But this season, D.C. United made the MLS playoffs -- and lost. Just like they did last year.

However, the result was a good thing for a team that hasn't had a lot of playoff success, even though the city has done pretty well.

New York Red Bulls - DC United in the MLS Cup Playoffs

"New York also, at long last, came through on home turf. The club was an inexplicable 7-9-2 in home playoff games all-time and just 2-5-0 at Red Bull Arena, which opened in 2010. It advanced at home just once in club history, when it beat Sporting Kansas City in last year’s knockout round, and had never clinched a multi-game series in New Jersey. Three years to the day of D.C. midfielder Nick DeLeon’s heartbreaking 88th-minute winner, which sent New York tumbling out of the conference semis, the Red Bulls gave a sell-out crowd reason to celebrate."

Let's review:

The Nationals had a somewhat inexplicable bad year and missed the postseason, but the past two years they made the playoffs -- and lost."

Over the last two years, the improving Wizards have made the playoffs -- and lost.

The history of the Washington Capitals is rife with playoff disappointments, and when they returned to the playoffs this year, they did what they do -- they lost, in heartbreaking second round, seventh game, OT, losing a 3-1 lead in games, fashion.

The women's pro soccer team, the Washington Spirit, made the playoffs for a second straight year, and for a second straight year, they lost in the playoffs.

Are you sensing a trend here? Now, it's uncommon for any team anywhere to win a championship, but it sure would be a change of pace if a team from the Washington area would actually get a chance to PLAY FOR ONE.

(To the north, the Ravens have won a couple of Super Bowls in recent memory. But there isn't a lot of shared love between the Baltimore sports fans and the Washington sports fans, except I understand there's a decent contingent of Capitals fans in Baltimore because of their success - except in the playoffs -- and the fact that there isn't pro hockey in Baltimore. I'm not sure how much of a Wizards following there is in the 'Charm City'.)

So I wrote all this because DC United lost in the playoffs. But hope always seems to recur; as I write this, the Capitals are off to one of the best starts in franchise history. What if... but it isn't good to think that far into the future.

P.S. The Capitals played Detroit tonight, a team that has won a couple of Stanley Cups.  The Caps (the team without the Cups) lost a very tight game, 1-0.

The beat goes on.