Tag: NHL

Bruins at Gillette?

The rumors around the NHL is that either next season or the season after that, the Bruins will host a Stadium Series game against the Canadiens at Gillette Stadium.  At least one hockey magazine site is confirming the rumor, although they state that the announcement will wait until after the Olympics.

Do I want to go to such a rumored game?  Yes and no.  First off, I always enjoy a hockey game.  Hell, we’re going to see the Providence Bruins play in Manchester this weekend.  Second, I have still never been to Gillette Stadium.  I’ve sort of been waiting for an excuse to present itself.  At one point I thought about going to a Revolution game just to check out the stadium, but the idea of paying to watch soccer… ugh, talk about horror.  I can’t stomach football anymore, and none of my can’t miss bands are big enough to fill a 68,000 seat venue.  (Unless maybe the three surviving members of Pink Floyd decide to get back together.)  So a Bruins game sounds like the excuse I’ve been waiting all these years for.

The downside, of course, is that it’s going to be played in January or February.  Two and a half hours in temps below 20 degrees?  Yeah, not likely.  If they push it out to the end of the season, maybe late March or early April, or if maybe they move it to the beginning of the season.  I don’t think a late October date would be too bad. 

It’s all just speculation, and when it comes down to it I don’t think I would actually want to go anyway.  It’s fun to think about though.

Thank You, Bruins

If the price of the Red Sox winning the World Series is that the Bruins have to suck for a while, then I’ll pay that price. Now that the parade is over though, it’s time for the sucking to end.

While I still have not recovered from the Stanley Cup Finals game six choke, I am ready to start loving hockey again. I’ve been there since the puck dropped in the opening game, but the Sox did distract me.

The Bruins have been crap-tastic for a couple of weeks now. This is the team that went to the Finals last year, and they are sucking up the joint against the Islanders and the Stars? No, enough. That needs to end.

Fortunately, last night was a step in the right direction. I was following the game, but I only managed to listen to the first period. It was scoreless after one, so I was afraid it might end up as more of the same. They were playing Florida whose suck level is so high it is incalculable. Turns out the B’s were just teasing me. They took the lead in the second period and then went for the Panthers’ throat in the third and put it all away.

Thank you, Boston Bruins. Thank you for playing like you meant it last night. Now keep up the good work!

Go Bruins!

Bruins

Did I mention that the Bruins opening game is tonight at 7:00ish?

No lockouts.

Full season.

Jarome Iginla (finally).

Patrice Bergeron will have two lungs this time, unlike game six of the finals last year.

After last season, anything short of a Stanley Cup Championship will be (another) gut wrenching disappointment.

It’s going to be a really fun season, I can feel it.

Go Bruins!

Wild Card Games

Well Robbie, that was a good way to kick of baseball’s post season. I picked the Reds to win the wild card play-in against the Pirates and the Pirates owned the game from the first pitch to the last. I am officially 0-1 in playoff predictions so far.

The American League game is tonight. The Rays and the Indians. I am rooting for the Indians because I think the Red Sox have a better chance at beating them in the Divisional Series than they do the Rays. However, this is a prediction post. I predict that the Rays will win and advance to face my team. Hopefully this time tomorrow I will be 0-2 in my prognosticating.

Oh, and the NHL started last night. No lock outs this year. I flipped the channel from TBS to VS (or whatever the hell it’s called now… NBC Sports or something?) just in time to see the Blackhawks unfold the Stanley Cup banner. Oh the hell with that. I switched back to TBS. The Bruins open against Tampa Bay on Thursday. No Stanley Cup banner raising ceremony for us this year.

The Return of Tim Thomas

Tim Thomas agreed to a try out deal with the Florida Panthers. Let’s start by saying that no one was ever a bigger fan of Tim Thomas the goalie than I was. I watched him in Providence, I watched him come out of nowhere and steal an NHL job through nothing more than hard work, I watched him become a starter, a Vezina winner, and a Conn Smythe winning Stanley Cup champ. I rooted for him all the way. He was the best.

Off the ice he turned out to be a tea party-esque nut job, and while that was totally distracting and annoying, it never changed the fact that he was Tim “The Man” Thomas in net. I don’t care what his politics or personal life are like (although I’d draw the line at rooting for him if he turned out to be chummy with the Hitler or Stalin types, you know?), hell I don’t even care if you’re a complete asshole. If you work hard and do your best by us, the fans, then I’ll tip my hat to you and give you my sincere thanks.

But noooooooooooooo.

Timmy had to break the contract that he agreed to that would pay him a truck load of money in order to spend time with his family. What’s the truth? I would put money on Timmy not liking either his teammates, his management, or the city, but how do I know. What it comes down to is that he screwed us, the fans, last season and for that I say to hell with him. I hope he never plays another game in the NHL. It shows you how insanely desperate the Panthers are to give a deal, even if it’s just a PTO, to a 39 year old with a history of breach of contract. If he wants to go play in Finland again, then good luck to him. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. I don’t ever want to see him playing in an NHL game again.

There is only one thing that Boston sports fans truly want from their professional athletes. We want them to work hard and do their best. That’s it. Really. If any fan base realizes that winning isn’t everything, it’s the fan base that stood behind a Red Sox team that went 86 years without a title. We want you to win, but if you work hard and do your best and come up short then we’re still going to hero worship the shit out of you. Thomas used to be the perfect guy for Boston, and then he screwed us over and went home for a year. To hell with him.

Better… Sort of… Almost

I almost feel a little better today. Sort of. I’m still really congested but it’s not as bad as it was. I can almost (not quite) breath through my nose today. The coughing and sneezing are not entirely gone, but they have been reduced. I have a little more energy today, although not much. I’m still feeling run down. So I’m almost feeling a little better. Kind of.

Want to hear a little crazy talk? It’s been 10 days since I’ve had a sip of coca~cola. Coca~cola is my nemesis. I love it so. Oh, how I love that caramel colored, carbonated, caffeinated goodness. Sweet nectar of life, I love it so. But it is probably the #1 cause of my skyrocketing out of control weight. Every once in a while I try to cut it out of my diet. 10 days is a good start. I have also managed to completely avoid caffeine during that time too. I have not eliminated soda. I’ve been getting a Canada Dry Ginger Ale at lunch on the days I am in the office. There’s one sitting next to me right now. Other than that it has been water, water with flavoring, gatorade, or other fruit type juices. I did not weigh myself before jumping on the wagon, so I don’t know if I’ve lost any weight. I do know that I’ve managed to sleep better in the last couple of nights. I’ll take that as a plus. I have also been trying to avoid the cafeteria at lunch time. I’ve brown bagged it each day that I’ve been in the office, and avoided going out of pigging out like a madman when working at home. The gym has been tougher. I’ve only gone twice in the 10 days. Being sick got in the way a couple of times, but it’s still not a regular thing yet. I might try again tomorrow.

On a totally unrelated note, Flickr is shutting down for maintenance tonight from 4:00-10:00pm Pacific time. That means no uploading anything tonight. Not that I have anything to upload. I will now post one picture as an experiment to see if the site going down includes losing access to everything. You’re fascinated, I can tell.

How about a picture of a Union Jack, taken at Colonial Williamsburg? You know, in honor of the royal baby and all. Yeah, that.
Untitled

What else is there. Oh, hockey. The NHL finally announced next season’s schedule. No word yet on how they plan to force the cancellation of half of it, the way they did last year. The league has been realigned. The Bruins are now in the Atlantic Division. No teams from the old Atlantic are in the new Atlantic. Most of those teams are in the… wait for it… Metropolitan Division.

Oh please, that’s the best you could do? Why not the Teams Sort of Closest to New York Division? Why not the Middle East Division. Cause… these are teams that are in the East, but south of New England and North of Florida, so they are kind of in the Middle of the East, therefore Middle East. Get it? Even that is better than Metropolitan Division.

Well, lunch break is ending. Time to pop some DayQuil and try and figure out some bugs. Happy Wednesday.

Lecavalier Signs with Philly?

Vinny Lecavalier was bought out by the Lightning. He’s one of those guys who was scarily awesome while playing in a market that had about six total hockey fans, all of whom were actually transplanted fans of other teams. Vinny won a cup with Tampa Bay. He also had the honor of getting beaten by the Bruins in seven games in 2011 with the seventh game possibly being the single most intense game I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching.

But, Tampa bought him out. His contract was massive and long and he was too expensive at a time when the salary cap was dropping, so pack your bags Vinny and hit the road.

And he signed with Philly. Umm.. Philly? Most people thought he’d go home to Montreal, but only a true idiot would want to play there. Boston would have been a nice fit, eh? Especially with Nathan Horton taking his post season game winning goals onto the open market. But Philly? Philly had to buy out Danny Briere, but they have enough dough to sign Vinny? I can’t imagine the shift from Tampa Bay, where hockey doesn’t exist despite the presence of an NHL team, to Philly where the fans are psychotic is going to be a healthy one for Mr. Lecavalier. If he has a cold streak they’ll eat him alive!

This does not appear to be a good move on your part, Vincent. You should have gone to another small market team, or done a short term deal with a big market team and lit up the universe, and then signed with a small market team. Either that, or you should have gone to Boston.

I am still not going to talk about that damn game, or that damn series. It’s too soon. It hurts too much. Maybe some day the hurt will lessen, but it will never go away. A man can only witness so many colossal chokes before he loses interest forever. Know what I mean?

Anyway. Danny Briere would be a good guy for the Bruins to sign, but I hate him and I want to continue hating him so please don’t sign him. I don’t want anything to do with anyone who played for Philly in 2010. Ever. And the guy played for Buffalo too, which is even more reason to hate him. Don’t sign Briere. Thanks.

Daniel Alfredsson now… that’s something else entirely. I don’t particularly want to see him in a Bruins uniform either, but I think he would be a good addition in the way Mark Recchi was a good addition, and Jaromir Jagr could have been a good addition. He’s a great player on the down slope of his career who probably has a mountain of knowledge to give to the Bruins youngins. I doubt he’ll leave Ottawa, but never say never. Today there is talk about Jagr being resigned after the team announced that he would not be coming back. I kinda hope they do resign him. He was a bust in the scoring department, but he was fun to watch. He was also the source of many a laugh around these parts. He’d be fun to keep around.

One final thought. Patrice Bergeron needs to be signed to an extension that will make him a Bruin for the next 100 lifetimes. We can never let this guy go away. Zdeno Chara needs to step down as captain so Bergeron can wear the C as he was always meant to. That’s not to be taken as a slight against Chara at all. Chara is a beast and I hope he spends the rest of his NHL days in Boston as well. I’ve just had Bergeron marked as the team captain since his rookie year. You could see it all the way back then, when he was a whopping 18 years old. I saw him on the ice with Joe Thornton and I somehow knew that the number 37 would be hanging in the rafters long before Thornton’s 19. I had no idea Thornton would be gone so soon, or so painfully, but I just knew that Bergeron was the guy. Bergeron was the Bruin. Sign him forever. Sign him, his kids, and his grandkids. Sign him now. Never ever let Patrice Bergeron get away.

Stanley Cup Finals Recap – A Choke for the Ages

With 76 seconds left in game six, the Bruins were leading 2-1. Bob Stanley walked in the tying run. Then with 59 seconds left Mookie Wilson hit a little dribbler that went through Bill Buckner’s legs and the Bruins lost the game, the series, and the Stanley Cup finals.

And I never want to speak of it again.