I know it’s hockey playoff time and my sporting attention is generally directed there… but this weekend marked 2009’s first meeting of the Boston Red Sox and the scumbag New York Yankees. My hatred of the Montreal Canadiens runs deep, but not quite as deep as my hatred of the Yankees.

The Sox swept the three game series. I know it’s only April, but few sporting events can ever make me happier than the Red Sox sweeping a series from the Yankees.

I managed to watch some of each game. Not all of any of them though. Friday they were losing when we went to bed… and then won in extra innings in dramatic fashion. Saturday they were back and forth all game and won it late. Sunday I was asleep before 10:00. Jen and I were in bed with the game quietly on the radio. It was 1-1 when I lost consciousness.

I missed this:

That is the greatest thing ever. EVER! Ellsbury steals home! Brilliant! The only way that could have been awesomer was if it was the winning run. Andy Pettite is world renown for picking runners off of first. That didn’t stop Jacoby from stealing second earlier in the game… and then he stole fricken home!

In hockey news, still no word on who the Bruins will be facing in the second round. Philadelphia is out so if the higher seeds take the pair of game sevens scheduled for tomorrow night then we’ll get Pittsburgh. If the Rangers win their game seven we get them. If they lose and Carolina wins we get Carolina.

The Rangers have blown their 3-1 series lead as the Capitals have decided to show up. The Devils and Hurricanes are slugging it out in classic fashion. I haven’t payed much attention to the Chicago vs Calgary series, but all the pundits predicted Chicago to win easy and Calgary has made it a close series. The Blackhawks can clinch with a game six win tonight, but I am rooting for a game seven. San Jose has decided to put off their inevitable choke for one more night by blowing an early lead but winning in overtime in game five. The Ducks can put them out of their misery by taking game six tonight. I have decided to never put faith in the Sharks again, so I could care less if they force a game seven or not. The hell with them.

The first trip to Kimballs of the season. Sort of like a religious
holiday.

Yesterday I helped do some of the heavy lifting in moving the furniture out of Lisa’s old condo, which is just about to be sold. I am so tired I can’t describe it in words. The closest I can come is to say zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I think the plan is to try and get outside and enjoy some of this summer like weather with the kids. They have a couple of cool bubble producing aparatuses which I believe will be taken for test drives. It should be fun.

At least until I fall asleep.

g’night

Go Bruins!

I helped Lisa and Ken clean out her condo. I am in full body pain. I
still managed to laugh my ass off at the movie Role Models. It was
terrible but I really dug it. Now I am going to sleep for nine days.

I just watched my nephew crawl! Awesome!!

We’ll start with the hockey update today, okay? Okay.

Four games last night. Detroit completed their sweep of Columbus. My predictions for the first round now stand at two correct and one incorrect. (stupid St Louis.) New Jersey beat Carolina to take a three games to two lead. Philly agreed to my request that they win at least one more game before losing to Pittsburgh. I will make the same request again and ask them to push the series to the seventh game before losing. We all know they are going to lose, right? Right? Finally, it is true. The San Jose Sharks just plain hate me. The Presidents trophy winners are now down three games to one against a number eight seed. It’s friggin’ embarrassing. How dare they suck this bad in the playoffs. No, let me rephrase… how dare they suck this bad in the playoffs again. There is only one game tonight and we will see if the Capitals are going to lie down and die and let the New York Rangers upset them. New York’s goalie Heinrick Lundqvist scares me, but I still would much rather see the seventh seeded Rangers than the Hurricanes or the Penguins in the first round.

Go Bruins!

Last night Jen and I went to the mall and checked off another big item from our pre-wedding to-do list. (I love hyphens.) I can’t say what it is, but suffice to say we can now have the rehearsal dinner.

Saturday is going to be a busy day. We have our first t-ball practice of the season in the morning, then we are helping my big sister move all of her stuff out of her condo. She hasn’t been living there since she got married. It’s taken a while and a lot of hard work, but she finally seems to have a buyer for it. The closing date is coming soon so on Saturday we are cleaning everything out of it. Afterwards we are supposed to head to my parent’s house for dinner. I’m not sure how much of each thing we will be able to do. We might be without Jen for the moving as she has to work for a while. If she does help out with the move we might have to skip dinner. Either way I will be helping with the move so there will be at least one huge guy who once was known for being freakishly strong… that was a long time ago… but maybe I can channel my distant past UPS employee self and take care of the heavy stuff.

We found another one last night. Another one of them. Damn bugs. He was a small one and I carried out his sentense with extreme prejudice. Jen was awesome. She kept her cool and guided me to the little bastard so I could squash him to jelly. Gotcha ya little shit!

Go Bruins!

Victory Dance

They did it! Revenge for ’02, ’04, and ’08! The Boston Bruins swept the Montreal Canadiens!

Glorious!

Even better, I actually picked a first round winner! WOOHOO!

I got home last night and the kids were shutting off the television to sit down for dinner. I said, “Are you guys ready to watch some hockey tonight?”

They said, “No!”

Jen said, “I told them they could watch a show after dinner.” (actually, should not have quoted that. I don’t think that’s exactly what she said.)

So I went to my desk in the office and put on the wbz.com audio stream, logged into twitter.com and started listening while waiting for the 2 Power Puff Girls episodes to end.

There were a couple of very important things that happened during those few minutes of radio/tweeting. I am going to redefine geek here by actually copying in some actual tweets. Forgive me my pesky nerdishness.

The Bruins were on a power play. Michael Ryder took a stupid hooking penalty. I posted this:

#73, 2 minutes for hooking. Thanks Mike. Giving Newfie a bad name. (just kidding, I know you’ll score to make up for it) #bruins

I then realized something was wrong. The Bruins were losing one to nothing. It occurred to me that I wasn’t wearing a Bruins jersey! I posted:

This is all my fault. I don’t have my white #bruins jersey on. I’ll go fix the problem now.

I ran upstairs and put my old white Bruins replica jersey on. (I have a newer black home jersey that I got for Christmas last year too) I posted this:

Okay, I have the road #bruins jersey on along with the #redsox hat. They will turn it around now.

The kids came into the office to tell me that the show was over and I could put the game on the television. Just after I sat down Michael Ryder scored to tie the game at one. I called it! I am Mr Hockey Prognosticator!

Didn’t I just tweet that Ryder would score to make up for the penalty? #bruins 2 #habs 1. Bring on the 2nd period!!

It was glorious. Absolutely glorious. (or as glorious as a game in the first round of the playoffs between a 1 seed and an 8 seed can be I guess.)

The Bruins kept it up scoring three more times and the Canadiens players came unglued. Price flipped off the fans when they gave him a mock cheer. Some one shot a puck at Mark Savard after a whistle. Komisarek went after Milan Lucic, not once but twice. The first time he picked a fight and Looch KO’d him with one punch. The second time he cross checked Lucic in the face and drew himself a five minute major and a game misconduct. I guess he just didn’t want to have to play the rest of the game. Given the Canadiens collapse, can you blame him?

Here are some youtube highlights.

The first round sweep is complete. Bring on the second round! It’s looking like it might be the New York Rangers. Boston’s 2nd most hated hockey rival.

Glorious indeed!

Go Bruins!

The Canadiens scored on their first shot.

No problem.

I am over flowing with cautious optimism.

GO BRUINS!

The Bruins lead the series three games to none over Montreal. Tonight is game four. I honestly expected the Canadiens to take one of their two home games, but after the way the Bruins weathered their furious first period attack, and then dominated the third period… I think we may be seeing the brooms come out at the Bell Centre tonight. I’m not being over confident. I am being cautiously optimistic again. It sure would be nice though.

Go Bruins!

I have been so wrapped up in the Bruins series that I haven’t been paying all that much attention to the other teams. I’ve watched Philly and Pittsburgh a couple of times because that seems to be all Versus will let us see. Why doesn’t the NHL television network carry any games? That’s absurd. They should be picking up Canadian broadcasts. I’ve also caught a few minutes of Vancouver/St. Louis here and there, and a little bit of Rangers/Capitals.

Vancouver became the first team to advance last night by completing the sweep over St. Louis. That was my pick for a big upset… I picked wrong. Figures. I should never root against Lock Monster Hero Roberto Luongo.

I think the San Jose Sharks just hate me. It’s nice to see that the best team in the NHL finally won a friggin’ game. They lost the first two at home to Anaheim but took the first game on the road last night. Nice of them, eh? I guess the masters of choke have held off the decicive verdit for another couple of days at least.

Carolina vs. New Jersey looks like the series to watch this round. Two overtime games already, and two wins a piece. It’s funny that the last parent team of the Lowell Lock Monsters is playing the parent team of the team that replaced them, the Lowell Devils. Do I root for Cam Ward and Ryan Bayda or do I root for Dave Clarkson? It’s a connundrum to say the least. I just wish Versus would give us one of the damn games so we could join in the fun.

Like I said, I’ve been able to see a bit of the Philly vs Penguins series and there have been some happy moments of on ice violence. Much like the Bruins/Canadiens series, these two teams just don’t like each other at all and it is showing clearly. I can’t see Philly coming back from being down three games to one, but I am hoping for at least one more Philly win so they can keep bashing the hell out of each other, softening Pittsburgh up for a possible future match up with the Bruins.

I’m also not sure of the New York vs Washington series. Do I want the ferocious offense of Alex Ovetchkin and the Capitals to advance, taking their weak #1 goalie and unproven #2 goalie (who has taken over as the starter)? Or do I want the Rangers and their utter lack of offense to advance, taking their monsterourly unbeatable goalie with them? Decisions, decisions. I just hope the Bruins advance, and I would greatly prefer it happen tonight. My fingers are crossed.

Go Bruins.

Speaking of Washington, we booked a night time trolley tour of the monuments for our DC honeymoon stop. We also requested a tour through the office of Senator Ted Kennedy, and actually booked a tour through the office of Representative Nikki Tsongas. We’re waiting to see what Uncle Teddy gives us before we decided which one to do. Sadly we won’t be entering the White House this time as tours have to be booked at least two months in advance, and they require groups of at least 10 people. That kinda sucks, but given the security issues of today’s society, I sort of almost understand. Still sucks though.

Speaking of security, I have been trying to set up automatic payments for my credit card. I logged into my online account to check something out today and got stopped with a message saying my account might have been comprimised. A new account has been opened for me and the old account will be transfered into it. Yippee. I called and they assured me it was a security break in the database of a company I’ve done business with in the past that caused it. It wasn’t my account specifically, and it wasn’t their database. That’s nice to know. It sucks, but I’m glad they caught it.

Go Bruins!