Today is the day that I, your humble narrator Robert, become a major hypocrite. Hooray.
It all starts at 3:00pm Eastern Time today when the puck drops in three cities. Well, two. One of the 3:00 games is Chicago at L.A. and the Kings will be raising the Stanley Cup banner before the game, so they will probably start late… semantics. Nit picking. Shut up, I’m mad at myself. Chicago/L.A. and Pittsburgh/Philadelphia are going to be shown on NBC. I live in the East coast, so I assume there will be no banner raising ceremony for me, even though I was 100% a Kings fan from the second round on last year. No, I get the first of a shortened season’s worth of national networks washing and polishing Sidney Crosby’s balls. Don’t get me wrong, I am not one of those people who hates Crosby. I feel that before his concussion issues he was the best player in the world, and I hope to see him come back 100% healthy. He can be the best player in the world again, just so long as it does not come at the expense of the Bruins. Okay? Okay. I just get really, really, really, awfully, terribly tired of all the attention the media lavishes on him. Yes, he is a great story. Yes, he is the best there is. Yes, he is good in front of a camera. Yes, his is essentially the face of the NHL. Still, when you watch national coverage, be it NBC or Vs or ESPN (that’s a little joke) it’s always Crosby, Crosby, Crosby, Crosby rode a bike today. Crosby went to the movies today (think that’s a joke? Nope. ESPN ran a story discussing how Sid the not quite Kid enjoys going to the movies. When did they run this? Yesterdady) Crosby had a hang nail today. Crosby tried Shawarma and liked it. Enough already! I can see Pittsburgh’s local networks going off the deep end like that, but national networks? No thanks.
What the hell was I talking about? Oh yes, hypocrisy.
The Bruins play the Rangers tonight at 7:00pm. If I’m not doing anything else I might watch it. Maybe before I go to bed I might listen to the end of the game on the radio. Who knows.
I swore that if the league canceled one game I was off the wagon for good. Today, I am talking about watching a game or maybe even two. Crap. I just suck. My hypocritical compromise is to watch, but not invest. No money shall leave my hands and go to the hands of the NHL or any NHL franchise, including my beloved Boston Bruins. Nope. No money. No part of the NHL is going to make a dime off of me. Fortunately, the NHL Game Center iOS app is free. I installed it on both of my iOS devices today. Hypocrite! Last year I spent $15 or so to upgrade to whatever they call the package is that lets you listen to the radio broadcast of every single game. Not this year. This year I will get my 98.5 the Sports Hub (WBZ FM) stream from the radio.com app. That’s it. I am sticking to the no money thing for as long as I can. If one of the kids starts begging that they want to go to a game, that will be the only way I will break this oath. My step kids are more important than my being pissed off at the NHL. Still, I do not expect much begging and pleading, so I’ll be all right.
So what about the games themselves? What can we expect? I had 98.5 on in the car as I drove to Dunks to get some donuty breakfasty goodness this morning and a caller was breaking down how the Bruins and Rangers match up. I was laughing my ass off (figuratively) the whole time he was talking. About half of the Bruins roster played in Europe during the lock out. They had more players playing this season than any other team in the league. The rest of the guys? They worked out, they skated, they held captains practices, they did their best. Then they had less then a week of camp and then the idiotic shortened season started. In other words, these guys all had an extended summer break and are right about now getting into what would usually be pre-season game readiness. Folks, the hockey today is going to be AWFUL. It’s going to be a terrible, sloppy mess. You can’t look at any rosters and say this team should beat that team because no one is anywhere near ready to play actual games!
My prediction for tonight’s game between the Bruins and the Rangers at TD Garden in Boston is: Bruins 11 – Rangers 10 with new Ranger Rick Nash scoring nine goals, all off of Tuukka Rask, and Bruin Tyler Seguin scoring eight goals for Boston and assisting on the other three. At least one assist on each of the 21 goals scored will be given to a player who is generally considered to be a career minor leaguer, because all such players actually played hockey, in the AHL, over the last four months. Expect results like that to be repeated league wide for at least the first three weeks of the season. Alex Ovetchkin and Sidney Crosby and at least five other players will score 50 goals in 40 or fewer games. Why? Because the first few weeks of the season they will be playing against goalies who are still waddling in pre-season form.
Bring on the sloppy mess.
I am a hypocrite. Deal with it.
Go Bruins
Inside the Red Head's Head 