[SmootSmack]

I like Leonsis and think he's a solid owner, but I doubt he'd have gotten even half these votes when the Caps were in the cellar of arguably the worst division in hockey and raising ticket prices anyway. Plus, I'm pretty sure that McPhee was around before Leonsis though I'm sure you just meant handed over control to McPhee instead of playing Fantasy NHL with his team. McPhee had no more of a proven record as a hockey executive going into his job with the Caps than Cerrato did before joining the Redskins. In many ways, Snyder/Cerrato and Leonsis/McPhee are similar but the results aren't there yet for the Redskins and due to their different personalities most people would never dare given any benefit of the doubt to the Snyder/Cerrato team.

But the biggest advantage Leonsis has is that probably 4 out of every 5 people in the DC area couldn't have cared less about the Capitals (other than 1998 when they went to the Stanley Cup) so they could afford to suck and spend a year not even playing because of the lockout because no one was even watching, let alone attending the games. Props to Leonsis for being willing to be awful, it would probably benefit the Redskins if Snyder did the same. But that just wouldn't fly with the fans.