The Washington Capitals are a professional ice hockey team based in Washington, D. C, they compete in the National Hockey League as a member of the Metropolitan Division of the Eastern Conference. The Capitals are owned by Monumental Entertainment, headed by Ted Leonsis. From 1974 to 1997 the Capitals played their home games in Landover, Maryland. In 1997 the team moved to the arena now called Capital One Arena, their present home arena in Washington, D. C; the Capitals were founded in 1974 alongside the Kansas City Scouts. Since purchasing the team in 1999, Leonsis revitalized the franchise by drafting star players such as Alexander Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, John Carlson and Braden Holtby; the 2009–10 Capitals won the franchise's first Presidents' Trophy for being the team with the most points at the end of the regular season. They won it a second time in 2015–16, did so for a third time the following season in 2016–17. In addition to twelve division titles and three Presidents' Trophies, the Capitals have reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 1998 and 2018, winning in the latter.

The Capitals have retired the use of four numbers in honor of four players. In addition, the team holds an association with a number of individuals inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame; the Capitals are presently affiliated with two minor league teams, the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League, the South Carolina Stingrays of the ECHL. Along with the Kansas City Scouts, the Capitals joined the NHL as an expansion team for the 1974–75 season; the team was owned by Abe Pollin. Pollin had built the Capital Centre in suburban Landover, Maryland to house both the Bullets and the Capitals, his first act as owner was to hire Hall of Famer Milt Schmidt as general manager. With a combined 30 teams between the NHL and the World Hockey Association, the available talent was stretched thin; the Capitals had few players with professional experience and were at a disadvantage against the long-standing teams that were stocked with veteran players. Like the other three teams who joined the league during the WHA era—the Scouts, Atlanta Flames, New York Islanders—the Capitals did not factor the survival of the rival league into their plans.

The Capitals' inaugural season was dreadful by expansion standards. They finished with far and away the worst record in the league at 8–67–5; the eight wins are the fewest for an NHL team playing at least 70 games, the.131 winning percentage is still the worst in NHL history. They set records for most road losses, most consecutive road losses, most consecutive losses. Head coach Jim Anderson said, "I'd rather find out my wife was cheating on me than keep losing like this. At least I could tell my wife to cut it out." Schmidt himself had to take over the coaching reins late in the season. In 1975–76, Washington went 25 straight games without a win and allowed 394 goals en route to another horrendous record: 11–59–10. In the middle of the season, Schmidt was replaced as general manager by Max McNab and as head coach by Tom McVie. For the rest of the 1970s and early 1980s, the Capitals alternated between dreadful seasons and finishing only a few points out of the Stanley Cup playoffs; the one bright spot during these years of futility was that many of McNab's draft picks would impact the team for years to come, either as important members of the roster or as crucial pieces in major trades.

Pollin stuck it out through the Capitals' first decade though they were barely competitive. This stood in contrast to the Scouts. By the summer of 1982, there was serious talk of the team moving out of the U. S. capital, a "Save the Caps" campaign was underway. Two significant events took place to revive the franchise. First, the team hired David Poile as general manager. Second, as his first move, Poile pulled off one of the largest trades in franchise history on September 9, 1982, when he dealt longtime regulars Ryan Walter and Rick Green to the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for Rod Langway, Brian Engblom, Doug Jarvis and Craig Laughlin; this move turned the franchise around, as Langway's solid defense helped the team to reduce its goals-against, the explosive goal-scoring of Dennis Maruk, Mike Gartner and Bobby Carpenter fueled the offensive attack. Another significant move was the drafting of defenseman Scott Stevens during the 1982 NHL Entry Draft; the result was a 29-point jump, a third-place finish in the powerful Patrick Division, the team's first playoff appearance in 1983.

Although they were eliminated by the three-time-defending Stanley Cup champion New York Islanders, the Caps' dramatic turnaround ended any talk of the club leaving Washington. The Capitals would make the playoffs for each of the next 14 years in a row, becoming known for starting slow before cat

In the state of Maine, the Maine Department of Transportation has a system of numbered highways, defined as the "connected main highways throughout the state which serve arterial or through traffic." As of 2006, 22,236 miles of roadway are included in the highway system, including Interstate highways, U. S. Routes, state highways, other urban and rural local roads. Maine has one primary Interstate highway, I-95, within its borders, as well as four related routes: I-195, I-295, I-395, the unsigned I-495. All Interstate highways in Maine are part of the National Highway System and, as such, receive some degree of federal funding. All of these highways are built under set standards for roadway design. Maine contains two primary U. S. numbered highways: U. S. Route 1 and U. S. Route 2. US 1 has a bypass and business route as well as several alternate alignments designated US 1A. US 1 has a "child" route - the intrastate U. S. Route 201, a spur route north to the Canada–US border which has its own alternate, designated US 201A.

US 2 has two alternate alignments designated US 2A as well as two child routes - US 202, a southwestern spur stretching to Delaware, US 302, a western loop connecting US 1 in Portland to US 2 in Montpelier, Vermont. These routes are maintained and funded in the same manner as state routes, with these responsibilities falling to the MaineDOT. State routes are numbered and signed by the state, by extension are generally maintained and funded by the state, except in areas designated as "urban compact areas," defined by MaineDOT as "those in which the population according to the last United States census exceeds 7,500 inhabitants. Urban compact municipalities are those in which the population according to the last United States census is less than 7,500 inhabitants but more than 2,499 inhabitants, in which the ratio of people whose place of employment is in a given municipality to employed people residing in that same municipality according to the last United States census is 1.0 or greater."

In this case, the section of road is the responsibility of the municipality. State-aid highways are roads chosen by the local municipality which serve as links between other state routes. Winter snow removal is the responsibility of the municipality, while other maintenance and funding is handled by the state, with the exception of urban compact areas. Townways in Maine are classified as all highways that do not fall into one of the preceding categories; these roads are chosen and maintained by the towns, or the county in unorganized areas. The vast majority of highways in the state fall under this category; these represent the closest thing to county roads in the state, as Maine does not have signed county roads as other states such as New York do. Maine's route marker is a simple black-on-white design, nearly identical to route markers used in Massachusetts. One- and two-digit numbered routes use 24-by-24-inch or 36-by-36-inch signs while three-digit numbered routes use 30-by-24-inch or 45-by-36-inch signs.

Maine has three business state routes, indicated with a "Business" banner accompanying the route shield. Maine uses standard shields for U. S. Routes, a white six-point shield on a black border. Square signs are used one - and two-digit rectangular for three-digit routes. Maine has two business U. S. Routes, indicated by banners complementing the corresponding route shields. Maine has a U. S. Route 1 Bypass, indicated in the same way, with a bypass shield. Maine uses standard-size Interstate shields on its Interstate Highways. Many of Maine's Interstate shields contain the state name, others do not. I-95 shields on the Maine Turnpike are accompanied by Maine Turnpike shields; the Falmouth Spur, designated I-495 in 2004, is unsigned. Maine Turnpike RoadsAroundME

The Salt of Life is the second film from writer/director/actor Gianni Di Gregorio, who began his directorial career with 2010's Mid-August Lunch. Gianni might as well be invisible. Smothered by his mother, ignored by his wife, befriended by his daughter's layabout boyfriend, he finds retirement to be not quite what he'd hoped for, he sets out to find himself a love life, to charming effect. The film has received widespread critical acclaim; the Guardian wrote: The Salt of Life "is packed with subtly observed details of behaviour and gesture of a kind we associate with Ealing comedy at its zenith, an elaborate Chekhovian story is being told before we realise it". Los Angeles Times wrote: "rueful and wise...a comedy not of errors but of the tiniest of missteps. A warm yet melancholy film of quiet yet inescapable charm, it has a feeling for character and personality that couldn't be more delicious". Roger Ebert wrote that the film "tells his story in an affectionate, low-key way, not as a smutty sex com but as a gentle look at a harmless man who realizes he has become invisible, except to people who need something from him".

The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "The same, broad festival and arthouse audiences that gushed over by Mid-August Lunch will eat up The Salt of Life, which resembles the first in tone but doesn't just cash in on a lucky formula. The added spice – more secondary characters, more melancholic chords – shows Di Gregorio's maturation as a filmmaker and despite the casual, vérité atmosphere, there's nothing arbitrary in this wistful ode to women by a man who's becoming invisible to them." List of Italian films of 2011 Official website The Salt of Life on IMDb The Salt of Life at Rotten Tomatoes Interview with Gianni The Salt of Life