PHOTO: Yes, The Washington Capitals Have 'Eastern Conference Regular Season Champs' Banners

Despite having not won a single thing of significance in the Alex Ovechkin Era, the Washington Capitals have decided to hang new championship banners from the rafters at Verizon Center in advance of Tuesday's game against the New York Islanders.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2009-10/2010-11 Eastern Conference Regular Season Champions!

Via John Walton, radio voice of the Caps:

And I suppose this is part of the explanation, via Mike Vogel of the Capitals' website:

I can't think of any other teams that have similar banners of the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure he's accurate there. So while I won't say with certainty that no team in the league has similar banners, let's just quickly look at every other Eastern Conference Regular Season Champion from the last 10 years.

New Jersey? No. Boston? No. Ottawa? No. Tampa Bay? No visual evidence, but don't think so. Buffalo? No. Montreal? Hell no. And for the record, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh aren't on the list of stupid, either. At best, the Caps are in the same company as the Tampa Bay Lightning. Such a rich and storied franchise there (although they do happen to have one more Stanley Cup than Washington...)

EDIT: @boonta20 on Twitter points out that the Detroit Red Wings have similar banners. The Detroit Red Wings are similarly silly, too.

Considering these are the same people who just took down Washington Mystics WNBA Attendance Champions banners less than two years ago, you'd think they would have learned their lesson. After all, here's Mystics and Caps owner Ted Leonsis on his blog back in May 2010 when they made that decision:

The only banners we should display revolve around winning a division or conference or league championship.

Hmmm, yeah. Not sure a meaningless regular season title was what he meant by that. New blog post from the owner coming in 3, 2, 1...