Champs

I live in greater Boston. I don’t follow the NBA or the NFL. I do follow the NHL and MLB.

While I don’t really care about the Boston Celtics, I am pleased that my city apparently just won another pro-sports championship. The Celtics just won it. Game five ended a few minutes ago and the Celtics won the game and the series. That’s 18 NBA Championships.

Congrats, Celtics. Now I just have to avoid sports radio for a couple of weeks as they aren’t going to cover anything other than the Celtics.

Oh well. Hey, the Red Sox beat the Blue Jays tonight too. That’s good, right?

Over Confidence

First, to preface the rest of the post, I don’t give the faintest shit about the NBA. I don’t follow basketball at all. Not even a little bit. I was a bit of a Boston Celtics fan when I was a kid. Part of that was because my Uncle worked for the Celtics. If you ask him nicely he’ll show you his NBA Championship rings from 1984 and 1986. I am 100% serious about that. I’ve held them in my hands.

Okay, now that the prelude is over…

The Boston Celtics, prior to last night, had a three games to none lead in the NBA Championship series. I am so uninterested that I don’t even know who they are playing. Dallas? I think? Maybe? (A quick visit to espn.com tells me that it is indeed the Dallas Mavericks)

Game four was on Friday, last night, so the events I am writing about happened on Thursday. I was on Threads.com (which is owned by bookfayce and therefore makes me want to vomit when I think about it) and saw a post from someone I don’t follow… because that’s how the idiotic newsfeed works… talking about how the Celtics had the series wrapped up and Dallas barely even put up a fight. The gist of the post was something about discrediting claims that the Western Conference was the dominate Conference in the NBA. Again, I don’t care.

My lack of interest in the series does not supersede my being from Boston, and while I do not care about the league or the series, I am always down for a pro-sports championship in my city. I responded to the post on threads by cautioning against overconfidence. I wrote something about remembering the Boston Bruins blowing a three games to none lead in 2010 and thinking that maybe the poster should wait until the Celtics actually won the series before boasting about which team was more dominate. You know, be cautious in your optimism. Don’t be cocky like Bruins fans were in 2010… or Red Sox fans were in 1986. Dig?

Why is this of interest? Because last night was game four. The Celtics had a chance to end the series and win the league championship (for the 18th time, thank you very much) with a sweep. How did the game end up? The Celtics got friggin’ trounced and lost by 38 points.

Thirty-eight points.

So… maybe you should wait until the Celtics actually win the series before commenting on the strengths or weaknesses of their opponent. You know… don’t jinx it.

I know the person who posted the comment on threads was not a Bostonian, because those of us who live here effin’ know better (he said while having yet another waking nightmare about a ground ball up the first base line going through Bill Buckner’s legs).

The Domino I Hoped Would Not Fall, Will Fall

The NHL is expected to suspend the regular season today.  The commish has a call with the ownership group at 1:00pm Eastern (they are probably all on the call as I type this).  After the shit show in the NBA last night*, it is expected he will temporarily pull the plug.

I was sincerely hoping this would not happen*.  David Pastrnak is sitting on 48 goals for the season.  I was really hoping the league would keep operating long enough for him to score two more.  When was the last time the Boston Bruins had a 50 goal scorer? According to this article, the last time was when Cam Neely did it in ’93/’94.  I was really hoping Pasta would tick this box before things went bad for the league.  The Bruins have a game tomorrow in Buffalo.  Couldn’t Commissioner Bettman give him one more game to see if he can pot two more goals?

Oh well.  They are telling teams to look into booking games through July.  I just hope Pasta doesn’t cool off during this unfortunate break in the season.

In closing, here is a list of Boston Bruins 50 goal scorers:

  • Phil Esposito
    • Scored 76 goals during the 1970-71 season
    • Scored 66 goals during the 1971-72 season
    • Scored 55 goals during the 1972-73 season
    • Scored 68 goals during the 1973-74 season
    • Scored 61 goals during the 1974-75 season
  • Johnny Bucyk
    • Scored 51 goals during the 1970-71 season
  • Ken Hodge
    • Scored 50 goals during the 1973-74 season
  • Rick Middleton
    • Scored 51 goals during the 1981-82 season
  • Cam Neely
    • Scored 55 goals during the 1989-90 season
    • Scored 51 goals during the 1990-91 season
    • Scored 50 goals during the 1993-94 season

 

*Unlike the NHL, the NBA has confirmed players have COVID-19.  The first, NBA patient zero, if you will, was joking about the virus just a couple of days ago.  During a press conference the rocket scientist made a show of touching all of the microphones, effectively guaranteeing that all of his teammates who were interviewed after him caught the virus that he was already carrying.

*This is sarcasm.  Like, .  Everyone in North America knew this was coming and it’s not a bad thing.