As my butterflies revved up to full power prior to game five in the Washington Capitals vs. Boston Bruins playoff series, I did have a lighthearted, surprise moment.

I met a friend at The Diamondback Tavern in Ellicott City, MD for the game, my first public outing of this series. As I checked in on Foursquare I was rewarded with a simple digital badge from the NHL.

It is part of the new promotional campaign, “Because it’s the Cup.”

Greg Wyshynski, Yahoo! Sports’ “Puck Daddy,” provides more details on the fully integrated campaign in his blog post, ‘Because It’s The Cup’: Will the NHL’s courtship of casual fans make Stanley Cup Playoffs a social success?

I may not be a part of the casual fan target audience, but I do appreciate the approach by the marketing team at the NHL.

Nice job, team.

My first trip to the Tampa Bay Times Forum will be Saturday night at 7:00 pm for the Washington Capitals road game versus Southeast Division foe, the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The name of the newspaper and arena were changed from St. Pete Times Forum to the updated name on January 1, 2012, but many of the names for the home team will be the same ones that helped eliminate the Caps from last season’s Stanley Cup Playoffs on this ice.

While not at the same critical time as the playoff games last year, this contest is no less important for the Caps, coming off a 2-1 comeback victory at the Southeast Division leading Florida Panthers.

From my parents kitchen, I listened to John Walton’s call on the Capitals Radio Network over my computer, including the third period goals by Alex Ovechkin and Alexander Semin.

2 points out of the division lead, I get the opportunity to experience a new arena and take my niece and nephew to their first Capitals game. It doesn’t get much better.

My wife and I bought Caps shirts at Verizon Center that we brought down for each of them. We will also be joined by their father (my brother), my parents (who bought us the tickets as a Christmas present) and a few of their friends.

I’m looking forward to taking pictures and posting them in the coming days as well as giving my recap of the experience that is a Lightning game.

My road white will be on and I hope to document another victory in Florida for Washington after teaching my niece and nephew a familiar pro-Caps chant.

A random five-seconds during the Washington Capitals 4-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning Friday night at Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. was all it took for me to start researching Lightning forward Steven Stamkos’ drinking problem (if you want to learn more about what happened on the ice, game recaps can be found here from Russian Machine Never Breaks and Japer’s Rink).

The beverage of choice is the popular sports performance drink Gatorade, and it isn’t that Stamkos drinks too much of it. Quite to the contrary, a Comcast SportsNet DC camera caught him dribbling it out of his mouth all over his jersey.

Similar to a boxer, I thought maybe he just didn’t want to carry the “water weight” but decided to check into it.

It seems I missed news from NBC Sports Network’s Pro Hockey Talk that BioSteel is quickly becoming NHL players’ drink of choice during games, and Stamkos is actually one of their biggest spokesmen, as can be seen on the BioSteel Website.

Stamkos image on the homepage of the BioSteel.com Website

Players look to get every edge they can and it seems Stamkos, and numerous other name NHL players, are turning to the BioSteel products and training programs of former NHL player Gary Roberts and former NHL trainer, and founder of BioSteel, Matt Nichol.

Gatorade may still be the name, but pay attention as BioSteel makes their way further into the game. Could we have another David vs. Goliath, Nike vs. Under Armour confrontation presenting itself?

With every goal Stamkos scores, including one against Tomas Vokoun in last night’s loss to Washington, that scenario gains legitimacy.

Now I’m curious to know if any Capitals players are on the BioSteel program.