LOVERRO: Capitals can’t beat this heat

Washington Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau emerged from the locker room before Friday’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, and all I could think of were the words to Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire.”

“I fell into a burning ring of fire.

“I went down, down, down, and the flames went higher,

“And it burns, burns, burns

“The ring of fire, the ring of fire.”

No one brought up Alex Ovechkin’s flaming stick before Friday’s game, not after Boudreau lit everyone up the day before at Capitals practice when reporters - including a television crew from Canada that came down just to address the issue - asked about Ovechkin’s staged celebration. That was the too-hot-to-handle-hockey-stick move when he scored his 50th goal against the Lightning more than a week ago and the fallout since.

“You want to go there?” Boudreau said. “It’s 10 days since it happened. We have talked to Tampa’s coaches. We have said our speech. The people that are bringing the crap up are you guys. Nobody cares about it anymore. You guys want to bring it up because you want to see a riot, then you want to talk about retribution. It’s the dumbest thing in the world. You got to have better stuff to talk about.”

Of course, all that did was fuel the fire, and as the crowd filled Verizon Center on Friday it was ready to raise a little hell.

“Can’t touch this,” read one poster, with a drawing of a flaming hockey stick.

Boudreau had done all he could to defuse what was seen as a volatile situation resulting from Ovechkin’s celebration. It ruffled some feathers, but the Capitals’ coach had met in person with Lightning coach Rick Tocchet to calm the situation.

“I respect that he came by my office face-to-face,” Tocchet told the St. Petersburg Times. “It was a nice gesture.”

Tocchet also said he thought everyone was “blowing it out of proportion.”

“I’m sure you’d like to see our players react, but reacting is playing in Washington and playing abrasive and not playing stupid.”

This is what happens when you have a superstar whose presence is growing beyond hockey arenas. You have TV crews from Canada coming to the District to fan the flames, so to speak. You can’t have it both ways. Everything about Alex Ovechkin will be blown out of proportion because there are no proportions to measure a Russian athlete becoming one of the biggest sports stars in North America. This is unchartered territory, and Boudreau and the Capitals better get used to it.

The heat will always be on.

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