Tag: NHL

The Boston Penguins? The Pittsburgh Red Sox?

I’m a little conflicted about this one even though it makes zero difference to the universe from my perspective, and also because it’s not actually close to happening. But…

The Fenway Sports Group, the company that owns the Boston Red Sox, is in talks to purchase the Pittsburgh Penguins.
(https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/32646194/fenway-sports-group-advanced-talks-purchase-pittsburgh-penguins-source-says)*

Does this matter? No, no it doesn’t. I have no problem rooting for this company’s baseball team while rooting against their hockey team. None at all. The only things I would ask are that they change the name of the Penguins arena back to The Igloo because, let’s face it, that name pretty much rules. Second, once the seven year grace period mentioned in the article is over, MOVE THEIR ASSES TO BOSTON. If not Boston then maybe Hartford. I hate the Penguins with a passion. I don’t hate them as much as I hate the Canadiens or the Rangers, but I hate them. Still, if New York can have two teams, the Rangers and the Islanders (three if you count the Devils next door in New Jersey. I hate the Islanders too, and I also hate the Devils. I hear Jesus hates the Devils** too) then why the hell can’t Boston support two teams? Granted, New York is about 10031503135 times bigger than Boston, but anything those creeps can do, we can do better. Blah! Suck it, New York! Burn!

If you can’t move the Penguins to Boston, then move them to Hartford. For a couple of reasons. One, brass bonanza. Two, it would be fun to watch the Civic Center roof collapse on the Penguins. Three, as much as I hate them, I do sort of missing having The Whale right next door.

According to the article, there is a deal on the table but the Fenway Sports Group needs to approve it, and then the NHL also needs to approve it. I would guess that those two steps mean that any potential sale is still a long way off, and again it won’t effect us at all. Still… maybe it would be weird to actively root against the folks who own the Red Sox. That’s not going to stop me from happily doing it though. Go Bruins. Bite me, Penguins.

*Wordpress.com’s post editor keeps saying that I am successfully adding a link to that line of text, but every time I click publish and then click the link it opens to a blank page.

**Back in the days when my brother and sister and I were buying 10 game partial season ticket packages for the Boston Bruins we went to a game against the New Jersey Devils. There was a guy sitting up in the balcony near us who was chanting, at the top of this voice, “Jesus hates the Devils” and that guy, whoever and where ever he may be, gets an A+ in life.

Sunday Night Stuff

I’m watching the Bruins play the Canadiens right now. We are down 1-0, six minutes into the second period. This needs to change immediately. The Canadiens, despite their playoff success last year, or maybe because of it, are awful right now. The Bruins haven’t exactly been stellar, but they are good enough that they should murderize Montreal. Gentlemen, let’s pick it up, shall we?

So I put together the mini-shed thing, and played some guitar, and wrote some music. I have not made Bellana’s bed, after washing her sheets yesterday. I still need to do that, but she won’t be here until Friday, so I have time.

I watched more Futurama. Lots of it. Not as much as yesterday, but still lots of it. Take it as given that it is one of the best shows ever. Is it better than The Simpsons? I think it might be. I don’t know.

I also started watching Foundation. When we were kids, Mike the Bass Player used to push me to read two books. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Foundation. I was in my 30’s before I finally got to Hitchhiker’s Guide and holy crap was Mike right. I still haven’t read Foundation. One review of the TV show that I heard was that if you read the book you’ll hate the show, but if you haven’t read the book you’ll love it. Okay, that works in my favor. Another review, from someone who loved the books, was that if you pretend the name of the show is something other than Foundation it is okay. I’ll take that.

Sticking with the TV theme, it’s Sunday and that means it’s Walking Dead spin off night. World Beyond is still kinda bland but mostly okay. There are only four episodes left (I think) and then the series comes to an end. It certainly doesn’t feel like a show that’s four episodes away from ending. (The Bruins just tied the game, 1-1 with 11 minutes or so left in the second) As for Fear the Walking Dead… the hate watch will continue. It has to be the worst show on television. I can’t imagine anything worse than this getting the green light to air. It’s atrocious and last week’s episode was so bad it was actually insulting. Two people having a conversation 10 feet away from a leaking, unexploded nuclear warhead without suffering any radiation issues. They are both twins. Sort of. One of them admits that she’s not really a twin. She and her brother were born on the same day but she’s adopted (hey show runners, I saw This is Us too!). The other guy hears this story but then tells her that because she’s a twin she has super powers and can tell when her twin is in trouble… but she LITERALLY just told the guy she’s not actually a twin. I mean… I usually don’t really proof read my blog posts, but I would still expect someone to proof read the scripts for a major television show, right? Plot holes and continuity errors (and leaking, unexploded nuclear warheads) are things to be avoided, right?

Changing the subject. I still have 17 minutes of exercise left to do. I don’t think I’ll finish before Fear starts, but I think I’ll stand up and pick off a few minutes right now. A perfect week is at stake!

Artificial Disk Replacement Surgery

Jack Eichel was traded from the Buffalo Sabers to the Vegas Golden Knights today. The reason for the trade had nothing to do with hockey and everything to do with healthcare.

Eichel needs surgery. He has a herniated disk. He wanted to undergo a procedure that had never been performed on an NHL player. The team wanted him to have a more common procedure. I have to imagine that conflicts like this are probably common. The team doctors want to do X and the player’s personal doctor wants to do Y. In this case the two sides refused to budge and it lead to a stalemate where Eichel didn’t get either procedure and the team traded him to get rid of him.

It all seems dumb to me, but what really surprises me is that based on the collective bargaining agreement, the team is 100% in the right. Now I understand that the team has millions of dollars invested in the player and all of that, but try to look at this from your own healthcare perspective. Imagine you have a condition that requires surgery. You and your doctor come up with a plan of action, and your employer says no and tells you that you have to do something different. Now imagine that you signed a contract that gives the employer that right.

Wow. I mean… wow. Do the other pro sports leagues have this right too? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.

What’s Up for Sunday?

Jen has to get up early for work tomorrow so I should get up early too and do some car music. What do you think? Then when I get home I should put leads on anything I manage to finish during the car music. Sound good? We have something going on in the afternoon that’s going to pull me away from things for an hour or so. That’s cool with you, isn’t it?

After that… Halloween. Covid-19 Halloween. Covid-19 Halloween The Second Coming. Shit. Last year the city canceled it all. This year it’s going off as usual. We won’t be playing along. We’ll be hiding in the back of the house. I’ll probably be mixing something. I think you’ll be okay with it. I hope you will, at least.

So should I install Parallels on my MacBook Pro so that I can play Windows games? I had been playing Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic a little. I can’t play that on my Mac. If I get Parallels I should be able to play it. I wonder how much the software costs. Would you think less of me if I got it?

The Bruins are playing The Panthers tonight. They kicked our ass the other night but it was overshadowed by something to do with the sexual abuse scandal that came out of Chicago recently. I don’t know the details, I just know that a lot of people got the sack. I really need to learn the details of this story but I am still really furious over the fact that the catholic church overlooked the sexual abuse of children for decades and any time I come across a similar story I just want to fucking vomit all over the people responsible and I do not want to vomit today. You know what I mean, don’t you?

Now I am pissed off. I didn’t want to be pissed off.

To make matters worse, it’s pouring rain out. Shit. I am so sick of rain.

Clawing Back to Life

Just another one of those days where the brain doesn’t want to function and something that feels like what the rumors say is the blues tries to take over. I have three things that are helping me claw my way back to life.

First, Jen. As always. As far as my mental state goes, I really don’t know what I would do without her.

Second, nowhere near as important as item number one, the Bruins are kicking the shit out of the Sharks right now. It’s 4-1 about halfway through the third period. Thanks, Bruins. I appreciate it.

Third, probably more important than number two, but still nowhere near as important as number one, I spent the last hour+ playing guitar. I put leads on the three songs that got vocals this morning, and then put rhythm guitars onto two more from the current batch of songs to re-record for the 2015 re-recording yadda yadda blah. My playing wasn’t great, but it was okay.

Now I have to get some exercise in. Ugh.

Obligatory guitar pics:

Remember That Thing?

Hey, remember when I used to post about writing shitty songs all the time? The Red Sox have totally distracted me from all of that.

I need to write at least one song this month and tonight in my baseball induced misery I wrote the melody and the lyrics for a new song. Aren’t you proud of me? Aren’t you sad that I’m posting about shitty music again? Yeah, sorry about that.

Car music in the morning?

When I sat down to write this literary masterpiece of a blog post I put the Bruins game on the radio. They were losing to Philly, 4-3 in the third. Almost immediately after I started listening, Philly scored to pad the lead to 5-3.

Sports wise, this is just not my night.

Not Fun

I stopped listening to the game in the sixth or seventh inning. I just couldn’t deal. I was so psyched yesterday morning and just crushed, sports fan-ily speaking, tonight. I still have a gamecast up on my computer even though I am not listening or watching anymore. Houston just scored twice in the top of the ninth to pad the lead to 9-1.

Oh, and the Bruins are down 2-1 after one period. Oh fer crying out loud.

One out in the bottom of the ninth.

The Bruins are now down 3-1.

Two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

Three outs in the bottom of the ninth.

Game over.

The Astros are up three games to two with game six in Houston on Friday.

Shit.

Red Sox Win Game Two

The Red Sox beat the Astros in game two, 9-5. They were up 9-0 early and kept letting Houston creep back, but they ran out of time. Game three is Monday night in Boston.

Now that the game is over we’ve moved on to the Bruins game. The opening game of the season is tied at one after two periods.

Just for completeness sake, UMass Lowell’s men’s ice hockey opening weekend was postponed because the other team had a Covid-19 outbreak.

And in closing, check out my cat.

NHL Stanley Cup Playoff Predictions – Wrap Up

Well folks, we’ve come to the end of another NHL Stanley Cup Playoff run and while we are all sad that the Boston Bruins did not win, we are all happy that the Montreal Canadiens didn’t win either.

The only question left is how did I do with my predictions, and did I do better than random chance? No. No I did not.

I tried to predict the outcome of every playoff series. I predicted the Lightning would win the Final and I was right. That gives me a painfully mediocre, but still on the winning side, record of eight correct and seven incorrect predictions. 8-7. My winning percentage is 53.3%. I’ll take it.

I also tested random selection by flipping a coin for some of the series. I excluded the three matchups that only had teams in the Bruins’ division. Two from the first round and one from the second. The coin flip also picked Tampa Bay in the Final so it ended the tournament with a record of eight correct and four incorrect. 8-4. The coin’s winning percentage was a staggering 66.7% It was right on two out of every three. So much for randomness, huh? What a jerk!

So now what? Barring any more Covid-19 shenanigans we should have an expansion draft and an entry draft and a free agency period this summer, followed by training camps in the fall and a new season in October. You know, the way things used to go prior to Covid-19’s colossal screwing. My hope for the summer is that the Bruins draft the best rookies and snag the best free agents and sometime next June they win another Stanley Cup. I don’t think that’s asking for too much, do you?