Hunter Leaving The Caps: Washington Capitals’ head coach Dale Hunter hasn’t even been with the team for a full season, but he quit today, to head back to his homeland in the frozen north. “I’m going home,” Hunter said, according to the AP. “I’ve got a good thing going there with the family, so I’ll stay home.” Considering that the Caps lost Game 7 to the Rangers on Saturday night while the junior hockey team Hunter co-owns is killing it right now, we’d say he definitely does have something to look forward to at home. –2

Walk Score Now Handing Out Bike Scores: And D.C. makes the list of 10 most bikeable cities at number seven. At least the middle of the city, west of the Anacostia River and east of Rock Creek Park is bike friendly. We also assume this ranking may change with the seasons: Number one on the list is Minneapolis and 10 is Chicago. +2

Let’s Fly Away: Direct flights from National Airport to far-flung parts of the country have historically been hard to come by; it took an act of Congress to get service from DCA to Seattle on Alaska Air, after all. But the feds just loosened up some other restrictions and announced non-stop flights from the Yellow Line to San Francisco on United and Virgin America, as well as new trips to San Juan, Puerto Rico (which also has no voting representation in Congress), Portland, Ore., Austin, Texas, and other stops. Which means you can put away those 5A bus schedules for now. +2

What’s In A Name?: In our day, all the girls were named Jessica or Ashley, and the guys were named Christopher or Michael (Hmm, can we blame Back To The Future? Anyway.) These days, girls names are a little fancier, with Sophia taking top honors among girls born in 2011, and Jacob being most popular among boys. D.C., it’s worth noting, seems to buck the trends. In 2010, Sophia was only the fifth most popular name in the District—while Madison, Olivia, Charlotte, and Ashley (!) beat it in popularity. +1

Friday’s Needle rating: 53 Today’s score: +3 Today’s Needle rating: 56