Paying Homage: There's a Bit of Ficker in Us All

Welcome to yet a new segment on WE this season where once every week we remember and reminisce on things from Bullets/Wizards lore. I went back and forth debating on the inaugural subject of the segment. Should it be the 1978 championship team? Maybe Wes Unseld? Or maybe my childhood favorite Jeff Malone. But thinking back on the Bullards/Wizllets past made me fondly remember the site of so many of my lasting childhood memories.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane that leads us to Landover, Md.  Yep, today WE pay homage to The Cap Centre.

 

For those who were born after 1993 or have been recently transplanted to the DMV you might know it as USAir Arena or US Airways Arena but to us longsuffering Wizllets fans it will always be the Cap Centre. Not the Capital Center or the Capitol Center. It’s just the Cap Centre.  It was the home of Georgetown Basketball during John Thompson’s glory years; the home of Adam Oates, Dale Hunter, and Peter Bondra; AND the home of Les Bullets. You could see everything at the Cap Centre from the Harlem Globetrotters and the Ice Capades to Parliament Funkadelic and Michael Jackson. It was also the site of one of my greatest “sporting” events ever, the 1995 WWF Survivor Series. You know, when Brett the Hitman Hart beat Diesel for the title.

In 1997 the Bullets, Hoyas, and Caps all moved from the Cap Centre to their new state of the art arena in downtown DC, the MCI Center now known as the Verizon Center, and the Cap Centre just sat until 2002 when it was finally demolished.

For me it will always hold fond memories, mostly losses but fond memories none the less. Maybe the greatest memory was having a chance to watch the greatest, yet most obnoxious fan/heckler of all-time, Robin Ficker. Ficker was a Bullets season ticket holder who sat directly behind the opposing bench and made it his job the make the opposing team hate him. He made heckling an art form.

The folks over at Bleacher Report did an amazing segment on Ficker earlier this year and it’s a must see viewing for every Bullards fan who wistfully remembers loving a team that no one loved..oh wait we still do. But that’s ok because even though there is a new name, a new logo, and a new arena there’s a little bit of Ficker in us all. Enjoy..