With the Capitals threatening to finish off the Flyers in four games in their Eastern Conference first-round series, Wednesday could mark the last fun that Beninati has announcing a game this season. He and Laughlin will continue to contribute to CSN’s pregame and postgame coverage throughout Washington’s playoff run, but CSN will not broadcast any of the subsequent rounds.

Dressing well isn’t just part of the job for Beninati; it’s a passion that brings him great joy. For some, a trip to the tailor is akin to visiting the dentist. For Beninati, it’s more like going to an amusement park — or an art studio – with some of his closest friends.

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“I wish I was a painter, I wish I could sculpt, I wish I could play a musical instrument, but I don’t, so maybe clothing for me is a way to express my creative side,” Beninati said after a visit to one of his favorite places outside of the broadcast booth – the DePandi men’s clothing store in Chevy Chase – during the final week of the regular season.

The eponymous proprietor and master tailor of the shop, Eduardo DePandi, has known Beninati since he was hired to do play-by-play for Capitals games in 1994. During Beninati’s first visit to DePandi’s Bruno Cipriani store at White Flint Mall, he was struck by how much time DePandi spent with each customer. Bruno Cipriani closed in 2012 after 27 years, but DePandi, who got his start in the business as an apprentice in Naples, Italy, at age 9, opened his store on Wisconsin Avenue shortly thereafter. Among his clients, which have included opera singer Placido Domingo and Redskins kick returner Brian Mitchell, few have been more loyal than Beninati.

“I’ve always wanted to dress the part and he’s been my guide most of the time,” Beninati said. “He’s going to put me into things that are going to look good and ahead of the curve. Religiously, he’s in Italy and rubbing elbows with some of the great designers. I really, really like that part of it. He knows how much I love this stuff and that’s why it’s so much fun.”

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Beninati entered the store with a dress shirt in one hand a bottle of 2011 Sassicaia as a gift in the other. He was there to try on a couple of suits, including one that DePandi had personally re-stitched to replace silver edge stitching that created a sparkly effect on camera, but the visit felt more like a family reunion. Nikki DePandi, Eduardo’s daughter-in-law, greeted Beninati warmly. Eduardo’s wife, Anna, arrived about 20 minutes later and embraced Beninati before they exchanged kisses on the cheek. While flipping through a book of fabric swatches, Beninati asked about the DePandis’ daughter, television star Giuliana Rancic.

“Il modello,” Anna DePandi said later, admiring Beninati in front of the mirror in a suit handcrafted by her husband.

“The master has done it again,” Beninati said.

Fashion roots in Portland, Maine

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DePandi is the person most responsible for shaping Beninati’s look over the years, but his interest in fashion predated his first NHL job with the Capitals.

Beninati’s late father was a New York City firefighter who loved getting dressed up on the rare occasion that he had reason to attend a formal function.

“Between watching him and whoever was on TV – broadcasters or folks in movies or TV shows — dressed up to the nines, there was always part of me that said, ‘Wow, someday, that’s going to be me,’ ” said Beninati, who grew up on Long Island. “I always loved the look of it. I though there was a classiness to it, an elegance to it.”

Beninati attended Bowdoin College, where he played goalie for the school’s hockey and lacrosse teams, majored in biology and planned to become a doctor. While recovering from an injury during his freshman year, he got involved with the campus radio station, which led to gigs doing play-by-play for high school games for a local cable channel. Two years after graduating, Beninati was hired by the American Hockey League’s Maine Mariners as the team’s second-string broadcaster, mostly on radio.

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Beninati didn’t travel with the team during his first season in the AHL, which gave him time to supplement his income with a second, part-time job. Beninati worked two days a week at Joseph’s, a menswear store in Portland founded in 1974 by Joseph Redman, who attended Bowdoin two decades before Beninati. It didn’t take long for Redman to notice that Beninati had an eye for putting combinations of clothes together.

“He’d give me a list of six different looks and I’d spend an hour putting things together,” Beninati said. “He would look at it first and go, ‘Beautiful,’ and then we would show the customer. And I loved it. … That’s the chemistry part, the creative part and where my eye started to be trained.”

Beninati, who worked at Joseph’s for about a year, still remembers the first great garment he bought there with his generous employee discount — an Armani overcoat that he wore for at least 10 years.

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“He was a very fun guy to have in the store,” Redman, 65, who still runs his store, said. “He was very positive. He wanted Armani suits only; he always had Armani suits from us. He was a wonderful broadcaster for the local hockey team, but he was also just a very nice, warm, good guy.”

‘The look never gets in the way.’

Today, Beninati shies away from questions about the number of pieces in his wardrobe, which requires seven closets.

“I have…a lot of ties,” he said. “Conservatively? I have 500-600 ties.”

Shirts?

“I have a lot of shirts,” Beninati said. “I went low on the ties. I have more than 600 ties.”

Beninati estimated, perhaps conservatively, that he buys two or three “big pieces” – suits, sports coats and slacks – a year, almost all of them from DePandi. Beninati won’t repeat suits in the same combination in the same season, nor will he repeat shirts or ties. He also doesn’t want his attire to be the only thing that fans talk about when they see him on TV.

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“I never want to be too over the top, flamboyant and showy, because then it’s ‘Hey, look at me!’” Beninati said. “It’s not about that. Clean looks. You’re always looking for clean looks. Sometimes something that’s subtle can be powerful. Don Cherry is Don Cherry, that can’t be me. With all due respect to him, it’s too showy. There’s class and an elegance to it and Eduardo helps me find that right blend. The look never gets in the way.”

That’s not to say that Beninati’s style goes unnoticed. Capitals fan site Russian Machine Never Breaks has been documenting the “Joe B. Suit of the Night” in its game recaps for five seasons. (Check out Beninati and Laughlin’s red ties for Games 1, 2 and 3.)

“We’ve always been impressed by how much style and fashion he brings to the job,” said Russian Machine’s Ian Oland, whose friend and site co-founder Peter Hassett conceived of the idea. “If you think about it, what he wears every night is his artistic statement. It’s always in front of us but it’s largely ignored for everything else going on.”

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Beninati is also a fixture on the Twitter account @NHLties, which awards three stars for for the NHL broadcasters with the best ties during the regular season. At the suggestion of a friend, Beninati has even allowed fans on Twitter to help him pick his suit for a game.

https://twitter.com/nhlties/status/701988717473366016

“I’m flattered with the Joe B. Suit of the Night stuff and the NHL ties recognition,” Beninati said. “When the fans can have fun with it on the clothing side, giddy up.”

Beninati’s happy place

No one has spent more time with Beninati — or learned more about style from him — over the last 22 years than his broadcast partner.

“Joe is old-school fashion,” said Laughlin, who is colorblind and relies heavily on his wife Linda and daughter Courtney for wardrobe advice. “I think Versace in his glory days. I think Gucci in his glory days. He’s the best dresser around, I always say that. He knows every way to tie a tie and he knows probably 25 ways to fold a pocket square.”

The tying and the folding are the easy part for Beninati; the challenge is picking out which tie and pocket square to pair with his suit on a given night.

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“You don’t want it to be too matchy-matchy, but you want it to complement the suit,” Beninati said. “The tie and pocket square can take me half-an-hour or 45 minutes. It’s crazy, I know, but I care about it. It’s what I love to do most. I just agonize over it and then trust my own instincts.”

Laughlin may not have quite the same instincts, but he does have some of Beninati’s old ties. For several years, Beninati, who donates many of his clothes to charity, would hold a “tie draft” with Laughlin, former Capitals radio voice Steve Kolbe and members of the CSN production crew.

“Because of Joe, I have a drawer full of pocket squares,” said Laughlin, who loves to tease his friend about the number of garments he brings on road trips. “I learn every day from him.”

Beninati’s fashion education, and his retail therapy, takes place at DePandi, which he visits two or three times a year.