The Kid In Our "FIRE DAN SNYDER" Shirt At The Caps Game Is All Of Us (Shirts Back On Sale NOW)
Wash Post - “I was born February 28, 1992,” David Duber said late Saturday night, just moments after the Caps stayed alive with a pulsating 4-2 win over the Penguins. That was just a few weeks after the Redskins beat the Bills in Minneapolis, “the last championship this town has ever seen,” as Duber put it.
That makes Duber part of Washington’s Loss Generation, the young folks who either were born after D.C.’s last major title or are too young to remember it. That 1992 title they don’t remember is a seminal moment for them, since their experience as local sports fans has mostly involved sadness. Those are the people I quote obsessively in all my woe-is-Washington fan stories, and they come by the pain honestly. They’ve seen a lot of wait-til-next-years. They’ve seen a lot of thought-we-had-its. They want it pretty badly.
Duber, as you’ve guessed, is the fan who went viral Saturday evening, when Nicklas Backstrom celebrated his game-tying and season-saving goal right in front of him. Because Duber, as you know, was wearing not a Caps jersey, but a T-shirt reading “Fire Dan Snyder.”
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Dan Steinberg did an entire blog about the kid wearing our shirt. As Steinberg calls it, he is part of the “Loss Generation”, aka the current generation of sports fans who are too young to remember the last time a DC sports team won anything, minus the Maryland basketball championship in 2002. So last night after Backstrom scored and the “Fire Dan Snyder” shirt popped up on TV, it resonated with an entire generation of DC sports fans. The kid, David Duber, is all of us. Showing off our immense hatred of Dan Snyder, while cheering for a Caps team 1 game from elimination in the playoffs. That picture was a perfect microcosm of what DC sports fandom is. It’s not for the weak, and you can feel his pain, while still putting his strong foot forward and never giving up hope.
And I think that’s really the message here. We are bruised and battered, but we never give up hope. David Duber will be at every Redskins home game next season, and I got a Tweet saying he goes to every Wizards game too. Wouldn’t have it any other way. We believe in our teams, year in and year out, because one day something good will happen.
But for now, fuck Dan Snyder.