The Orange line didn’t have countdown clocks back when I rode it every day.
Tag: Boston
The Jagr Era Begins!
Jaromir Jagr made his debut as a Bruin last night. How’d he do? Not bad. He scored the only goal in a 1-0 Bruins win over the Devils. Just a game winning goal in his first game, that’s all. Just 15,000 Boston fans chanting his name as if he were the second coming of Phil Esposito. That’s all.
May it be the first of many.
Go Bruins!
Red Sox Domination
You have to understand Red Sox fans. We are a hyper manic depressive lot. When the Sox win a game, any game, we are on top of the world. When they lose a game, any game, we are lining up to jump off the Tobin Bridge.
When they follow up a last place finish by opening the new season at Yankee Stadium, we as a collective group spent most of March sharpening our razor blades.
But then…
The Red Sox have won the first two games of the season handily against the Evil Empire! There is dancing in the streets in Boston. There are people wandering around in a daze, randomly hugging people and screaming, “Sox rule!”
Two games down, 160 to go, and it’s a great time to be a Red Sox fan!
(Let us have this… We need it after the last two seasons’ fiascos. Just let us have this while we can)
VICTORY!
That’s right kids, your Boston Red Sox are now in first place in the American League East division! Oh Yeah! We are #1, babie! #1 all the way!
(yes, I know it’s only one game and I know there are still 161 more to go, and I know that the Sox/Yankees game that just ended is the only final score the division has had yet. I know all of that. I don’t care. Don’t ruin this for me, you jerks. It has been a long, long time)
Is Iginla Coming to Boston Tonight?
Word on the street is that Calgary has scratched Jarome Iginla tonight, and that the Providence Bruins have also scratched a couple of players.
Is Jarome coming to Boston as soon as tonight?
That would be SO FREAKIN’ AWESOME!
Of course we trail Montreal 2-1 right now.
Jarome Iginla
The NHL trade deadline is coming. It’s time for the annual, “Wouldn’t Jarome Iginla look good in a Bruins uniform?” discussions. Whenever Calgary starts slipping the conversation inevitably begins. He should ask for a trade for the good of the team. The team needs to trade their best player ever for the good of the franchise. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Eventually the topic always turns to how Boston should go out and get him.
A few years ago I was fully in the do-whatever-it-takes-to-get-this-guy camp. Now… he’s getting old. He’s 35, which is very old for most hockey players. He’s not going to come into Boston and light the lamp 50 times in the final month of the season. He’s not going to show up and solve all of our offensive problems. He’s probably not even going to be one of our top scorers. Should we still pay the unquestionably high price to get him?
HELL YES!
When the Bruins traded for Marc Recchi a few years ago, I was insulted. Recchi was ancient by hockey standards, and his best years were so far behind him it was sick. Then he got here and became “The Veteran”. He set himself up as the elder statesman. All of the young players looked up to him. All of them saw him as a role model. All of them saw his Stanley Cup rings and bought in. What happened? Well, just a Stanley Cup a couple of years later. That’s all.
Iginla is better now than Recchi was then. He’s never won a championship, but most of the current roster has, so we don’t need that sort of leadership like we did when Recchi got here. What we do have is a bunch of forwards who go through streaks where they struggle to score goals. Iginla can assume the role of “The Veteran” and smoothe out all of those scary times when Lucic and Horton and Marchant and Seguin all suddenly forget how to score. Look at me, he can say, I’m Jarome Iginla and I have twice hit the 50 goals in a season mark. Learn from me as I demonstrate the wonders of hard work and consistency.
On top of that, throughout his career Iginla has been an A list power forward. He is what Milan Lucic needs to be. Wants to be. Must be. Trading for Iginla would be worth it just so he could teach Looch what he needs to learn.
People are already complaining about the possibility of the Bruins giving up Malcolm Subban. Subban is 19, playing in juniors, and a very late first round pick. In other words, he hasn’t done anything real yet (no offense) and he won’t be ready to contribute at the NHL level for a while. I hear people saying three years but that seems super optimistic to me. I say deal him to Calgary and then work your black and gold asses off to sign Iginla for a few more years.
I ask you, wouldn’t Jarome Iginla look good in a Boston Bruins uniform?
I answer you. Yes, yes he would.
Go get him!
Goal!
Martin Brodeur is the greatest goalie in the history of professional hockey. Last night, he was also a goal scoring machine.
It wasn’t a case of “he shoots he scores”, it was more like “he makes a save during a delayed penalty and some Whaler makes a crappy pass that banks off the boards in the New Jersey end and deflects all the way down to the Whaler’s end and goes right smack into the middle of the net”.
It was the third goal of his career. 100 years from now, some kid walking through the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto is going to see the Martin Brodeur display and it is going to list his career stats:
9 billion wins.
2 billion shutouts.
3 goals.
Note, I have watched this video but I have not listened to it. I do not know if any hockey announcers say anything stupid or not. You’ve been warned.
Staying with the hockey theme, as I posted yesterday, I got home from picking up the kids and put the game on the radio. By radio, I mean the CBS radio iPhone app that streams 98.5 WBZ FM. As soon as the stream reached my ear pods Ottawa scored. I listened for a while feeling completely underwhelmed by the Bruins performance. Before the second period ended I put the game on the TV. With less than two minutes left in the second the Bruins tied the game. Intermission started, I went to say good night to the first step child. I then watched some of the third period and the Bruins were not the snooze inducing hockey boredom machines they had been in the second. They had a little more life. I had to go downstairs and do some laundry business, then say good night to the second step child, then turn out all the lights and lock the doors, then get into bed. I had planned to listen to the end of the game while reading a little, but I was a little late. I checked the score. Bruins win 2-1.
This season’s shortened schedule really is an insult to hockey lovers everywhere. The Bruins have played 29 games and we’re already nearly 75% of the way through the season. That’s garbage. The reason you play a long season is so that everyone can get the crap kicked out of them by life itself, and the really good teams separate themselves from the not so good teams. That’s not going to happen this year. I mean, the Leafs are in sixth in the East. That’s all the proof you need!
Having said that, I don’t really see the Bruins contending for the Cup the way many in the press seem to. They just don’t have the fire yet. They don’t have the killer instinct. They have lost four games in which they had the lead in the third period. When they are good they are outstanding. When they aren’t good they are maddeningly boring and mediocre.
The third period last night was a nice change from the recent snooze. Let’s hope the momentum continues Saturday night in Toronto.
Go Bruins.
Bad Day for Boston Sports
It’s been a crummy day for Boston sports. First, the Bruins blew a 2-0 lead over the Penguins last night, all in the late minutes of the third period, and lost 3-2.
Today, the Patriots lose Wes Welker to the Denver Broncos.
And to top it off, I now learn that Terry Francona, ex Red Sox manager, has made a Harlem Shake video with the Cleveland Indians.
Will the pain never end?
Boston
I just had an epiphany.
I was sitting in the drive through at Dunkin Donuts and it was snowing…
I was also listening to Letters to Cleo…
It occurred to me that I would never have a more “Boston” moment than I had right then. In those few minutes I was more “Boston” than I ever had been, or ever would be again. The only way it could have been more of a Boston moment would have been if the Green Monster were in view.
It honestly was wicked cool.
Drop the Puck
I have such mixed feelings about the end of the NHL lockout. I love hockey so much. I bleed black and gold. I am a Boston Bruins fanatic. I hang on every shift, every play, every pass, every check, every shot, every save, every goal. Damn it, I love this friggin game!
But they hurt me again. The hurt me eight years ago when they cancelled a whole season, yet this time hurts me even more. I guess it’s knowing that I am partly to blame this time. I came back last time and this year I paid for my lack of vision.
I believe in my heart that three lockouts under the current commissioner proves that the league is fundamentally broken and must be allowed to fail. Then a new league, one that cares about its customers and does not take them for granted or use them as bargaining chips, can rise from the ashes of the old.
But damn it if I don’t love my Bruins and damn me for wanting to see them play this year.
