Chase keeping District on ice

Yesterday was either the final practice of the season for the Washington Capitals or a fine-tuning session for a playoff run and puckmania.

Either way, several hundred people showed up at Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Arlington for a close-up look at Washington’s hottest attraction, all hoping that the show would not close, just as it is getting started.

The Capitals play their final regular-season game tonight against Florida at Verizon Center, and if they win that would give them a streak of 11 in 12 — and merely making overtime would give them a division title, thanks to Carolina’s loss last night to Florida. Earlier yesterday, the Caps needed help and fans were more on edge.

“I wish it were a little more clear — that if we win, we are in,” said Mike Busch, 33, from Germantown. “We have to watch and hope all these teams that we traditionally hate now win for us to get in. But it has been an incredible run.”

Yes, it has been an incredible run. But will it be just a short sprint or a marathon?

Right now the Capitals are the hot act on the sports stage here, and hockey fans like Busch and Chul Lee, 30, of Bethesda enjoy the newfound passion that has filled Verizon Center in this final regular-season homestand.

“I like the attention,” Lee said. “At the beginning of the season, you could walk up and get a ticket to a game at 6 p.m, and there would be plenty of seats left. And then not long ago, we showed up at 9:30 a.m. to buy tickets to a game, a Friday night game against Atlanta, and there was a long line already there waiting to buy tickets. It was great. I was blown away. We wound up not getting tickets.”

Said Busch: “A lot of times people give you grief for being a hockey fan, and now is it becoming the cool alternative in this town. I think this team, with the run they are on and they keep building on it, they can get the support of this town.”

We have seen this before, though, like during the 1998 Stanley Cup Finals run, when all of a sudden Washington wakes up to learn they have an NHL hockey team. That turned out to be a fad, as the franchise couldn’t build on that playoff momentum and squandered an opportunity to change the sports landscape in this town a little bit.

This time around, it could be different.

This time the Caps have the best player in the game — and possibly the NHL’s MVP — in Alex Ovechkin. He is only 22, and along with the young nucleus of Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Alexander Semin and Mike Green, whatever seeds are planted to increase hockey’s presence in this town now should continue to grow.

What you are seeing now — the 36-17-7 record and not what you saw in the team’s 6-14-1 start — is what you should see next year and years to come.

Simply put, that is what plays in Washington if your team is not named the Redskins — winning.

“Winning like we have been, it shows how good we can be, if we play the way we can,” Backstrom said. “We had a tough start this season. The coach shift [firing Glen Hanlon and hiring Bruce Boudreau] helped us a lot. We changed the system a little, and everyone is helping each other. We are playing together, and we are playing hockey out there. I think what people have seen in the second half of the season in what this team is.”

But now is when people want to see more. No one wants to have to wait another year to stoke the flames again, when the Capitals are on fire right now. Boudreau hasn’t been in Washington that long — he was hired as the Capitals coach on Thanksgiving — but he senses that momentum for hockey in Washington is there for the taking.

“I don’t know the town well enough, but I am hoping that we are building a foundation not just for hockey to be a passing sport here but something that people really want to see,” he said. “I don’t think it hurts to have that excitement and passion in the building to do that — especially if we are fortunate enough to get in and do some damage in the playoffs. I think it would go a long way for hockey here.”

It would be disappointing, though, if the Caps had to say goodbye just when so many people are ready to say hello.