Bruins are in a good spot, right now!

And so the Ides of March have begun for the Boston Bruins and after three games in four nights, the Bruins are…….just fine. And call it what you like, they have been as solid as you would want them.  Their 14-3-2 is their best start in the lifetime of anyone that’s reading this, and has them second in their division and fourth overall in Eastern Conference and the reason for that is the Montreal Canadiens have more points however the Bruins have played three less games. Boston has played the least games of anyone in the league, but that will change by the end of March as the team will have just one two day rest period this month.

The Bruins have been a consistent lot since the beginning of the year and seem to only have breakdowns in the third period of games against the Buffalo Sabres which account for their only two regulation losses. They have not been able to blow a team out yet despite the solid wins in most of them. They have 8 games decided by one goal and a couple more that have been ENG so they have been able to sustain the pressure of close games and come out with the victory.

A big reasons is the stellar play of Goaltender Tuukka Rask.  Rask has been everything Coach Claude Julien wanted in his number one puck stopper! Sure there are a few goals that he probably should have stopped, but Rask has given the Bruins the opportunity to win every game. Anton Khudobin played his fourth game of the season Saturday and after spotting the Tampa Bay Lightning a 2-0 first period lead, played shutout hockey and allowed the Bruins to come from behind for a 3-2 two win.

Then there was just your average run of the mill regular season game against the Montreal Canadiens Sunday night. Yeah right! The furor is still going from all the so-called “embellishment”, did he or did he not cross-check, jealousy of not being in first place after 19 games?  Lets face it, cliche as it is, and I really do hate cliches, the Bruins hate the Canadiens, the Canadiens hate the Bruins, the fans hate each other and see nothing but Black & Gold or Bleu, Blanc, et Rouge. That is never gonna change and I would rather it not!

In all my years of watching hockey, I’ve never liked the Canadiens. I’m not supposed to. I was born in Boston and remember when “Jesus Saves but Espo Scores on the Rebound.” I remember the first half of my life when the Bruins couldn’t beat the Habs in the playoffs no matter what. So the sniping will continue. It’s an ongoing saga that will continue for the next 75 years when most of will no longer be here.

What will be interesting is to see if the Bruins stand pat with the cast of characters that currently make up their roster! Teamwise the consistency has been there, however, production from key components has been lacking!  The likes of David Krejci, Nathan Horton, along with the third & fourth lines have not been contributing leaving it up to Patrice Bergeron, Tyler Seguin and Boston’s leading goal scorer, Brad Marchand.

The trading deadline in four weeks away and with some players in contract years and not playing like they are, (Andrew Ference, Horton) it would suprise to see some of the 17 players that remain on the roster from the Cup winning year to be jettisoned somewhere else as this shortened season nears its halfway mark on the 12th of March.

By the time All Fools Day arrives, we should know a lot more about what kind of team the Boston Bruins will be heading into the home stretch and preparing for the playoffs. In the meantime, let the sniping continue between the B’s, Habs & the fans, because the other 44 games they’ll play this year, its the four that they see each other that matter.  TD Garden March 26, Bell Centre April 6 can’t come fast enough and we wouldn’t want it any other way!

~Diehard

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And all is right in the Hockey World!

It sorta felt like it never left. Or maybe me and all of us there were just so darn glad it is back.  The Bruins opened their 2013 season last night at the TD Garden with a solid 3-1 win over the New York Rangers and for the most part, it was a pretty darn entertaining game.  The Bruins broke out with a 2-goal lead on a goal by Milan Lucic. David Krejci with a blast from the top of the right circle. Henrik Lundqvist, who always plays well against the Bruins kicked the rebound out to the slot where Lucic promptly wristed it into the open net. Boston’s second goal game off a Ranger turnover in front of the Boston net.  Daniel Paille picked up the puck, curled and carried the puck to center, sending a pass to Gregory Campbell on the right wing. Campbell’s wrist shot was deftly tipped by Paille pass Lunqvist and the 17,565 faithful were a happy bunch.  Bruins outworked and outshot the Rangers in the first period peppering the Rangers netminder 15 times, many of them with gusto. They also survived a short five on three Ranger Power play in which most of it consisted of Brad Richards shooting from the left point and those shots were either blocked in front or went wide and careened out of the zone.

New York cut the deficit in the second on a Richards long shot through a screen that beat Tuukka Rask high stick side top corner that was in and out of the net so fast, most fans didn’t think it was a goal.

As custom with most Bruins-Rangers games, they are hard fought and yes there are fights. Two battles back to back as Shawn Thornton took on Mike Rupp and took the decision as Rupp was a bit bloodied.  On the ensuing puck drop, Gregory Campbell got more than he bargained for by tangling with Stu Bickel. But the Bruins headed into the third period with a one-goal  lead.

The Bruins thought they had a goal in the third when Krecji one-timed a shot but Lunqvist made a spectacular save come from right to left to grab it with the trapper, although replays seem to suggest the glove with puck in it went over the goal line. It was ruled no goal.  However, after making that tremendous save, he let a floating wrister from Johnny Boychuk elude him with the help of a wonderful Patrice Bergeron screen and Boston had their two-goal lead back and never were headed again.

All in all, for their first outing, the Bruins put in a pretty decent effort and won their opener for the first time since the 2007-2008 season when they beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 on October 18, 2007. Rask was solid in net and played his usual stellar game against the Rangers. Rookie Dougie Hamilton did not embarrass himself in his NHL debut. He looked like a rookie but along side Dennis Seidenberg, didn’t have any problems on defense. There is still plenty of work to be done and work they will get in this condensed season as they will play a matinee with the Winnipeg Jets on Monday and face the Rangers again on Wednesday down in the Big Apple. But Bruins hockey is back and for Opening Night, all is right in the Hockey World!

~Diehard

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Game On Saturday!

It’s getting near that time of year.  Ya know, when the leaves start turning color. Summer  has left us and we have jackets, hats, gloves, and, perish the thought, snow shovels at the ready. The Patriots have just begun their season and the Bruins training camp is in full swing with the season opener just days away.

Huh,  wha….??  We’ve already had our first snow?  Christmas and New Years have been celebrated?? That can’t be right.  My Boston Bruins schedule says the first game is Saturday night against the New York Rangers!  Have I been in some kind of time warp?

What the heck has happened since Joel Ward scored in overtime of Game 7 in the opening round of the playoffs sending the Bruins home for the summer.

Slap!

Oh yeah, I put myself into a self-imposed blackout of all things hockey when the morons that supposedly run our sport decided that playing hockey was not all that important, but their greed was.
So since more than a week has passed and the NHL has less than a week to try to get into midseason form, it’s time for the media and fans to get into shape as well. And it appears that has happened.  The Bruins offered free tickets to a Black & Gold Scrimmage for Tuesday night and those ducats were gone faster than a Tyler Seguin breakaway. In their quest to say they’re sorry to the fans, the Bruins & the NHL have discounted merchandise and concessions for the month of January.  The NHL Center Ice television package & Game Center price has been reduced by 40 percent for the entire “season” to try and appease all for their transgressions of the past three months plus.

It’s drop the puck time and sprint to the finish line in 48 games which will end April 27. And you know what, we puckheads really don’t care.  We care about the fact that owners and players used us as pawns, while knowing all along that they would resolve this when the League wouldn’t lose money. We care about the fact that on Saturday nights when all was quiet with the family, whether it be the Bruins or Hockey Night in Canada on the NHL Network, we had no hockey to watch.

So, Saturday night, 7pm at the TD Garden, our long International nightmare is over. We forgive and forget that punch in gut that Gary Bettman et al, gave us the last quarter of 2012. We grab our foam Bear Claws, our ’72 Esposito Jersey, last years Black Friday T-shirts and go back to cheering on the Boston Bruins because NHL Hockey is simply the greatest sport on the planet and really, I can’t wait!

~Diehard

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The National Hockey League Welcomes You Back!

It’s been a while since I’ve had the energy to write about my favorite sport.  A long while.  And now that it seems this ridiculous standoff is about to be ended, the only thing I feel is contempt. Contempt for the owners, contempt for the players and in some ways, contempt the fans who lay down their good money and simply forgive the heathens that kept us in the dark, all for the right to watch our beloved hockey.

I almost wish the season had been canceled because for me, no matter what excitement comes from dropping the puck, good goaltending, great shots, the fact that the National Hockey League and the Players Association have brought this kind of pain to its fans, makes me think that THEY need to suffer like we have.  I don’t know how that gets done since we hockey fans are like no other sport fans.

Hockey fans are smaller in numbers that any other sport but as has been said many times, we are the most loyal. And that’s where the League and Association have us by the short ones. They’ve known all along that we’d be back. Just like the Pied Piper had the mice follow him out of Hamlin, we, of course will follow the league back into the rinks. And as the playoffs approach, the fact that no hockey was played since the Los Angeles Kings won the Stanley Cup June 11, of last year, will not be in the minds of the fans whatsoever.

So, can we expect the obligatory “Thank you Fans” on the ice again when it should really be Expletive Deleted You Fans because that’s exactly what we got for the past five months! A good kick in the gut!

But it’s the game that draws us back. We’ve missed it so much despite the powers that be not caring what we think. Those are the two things that make me wanna scream. I love the game so much yet I hate what this Commissioner and his Owners have done to us thrice in the last 20 years.

Bitter, yeah I guess I am a bit but I’ll get over it and will be there when “Training Camp” begins and whenever the puck drops to open the “year”.  After all, It is NHL Hockey and nothing is quite like it!

Game On!

~Diehard

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The End of the Tim Thomas Era with the Bruins!

It was June 15, 2011 and like every hockey fan in Boston/New England, Nothing else mattered as The Bruins captured the Stanley Cup after 39 years of failure. Tim Thomas won The Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP and we all thought nothing could take that great feeling of pride and glory away from what this Bruins TEAM had accomplished!

Fast forward to January 23, 2012 and the annual invite of a sports franchises invite to the visit The White House and EVERY Bruin player made the trip to Washington except the MVP goaltender and all were wondering why a supposed TEAM player would not accompany his mates to what was to be a mostly obligatory, but honored tradition.

Thomas posted on his Facebook page back then,  (who knew he had one before this) “I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People.…”  I said back then that his excuse was lame and it was all about him and his politics when it should not have been.

Well after several more posts, media questioning him about it and his “Peace out” see ya later attitude, and a first round exit from the playoffs, there is no question it is all about him and to hell with the TEAM.  Thomas has decided to put a noose around his teams neck again, via Facebook with his decision to sit out next season. He sites that its time “to reconnect with the three F’s. Friends, Family, and Faith.”

On the surface, that statement says it all and is to be commended, after all, as my good friend Gil Santos always says, sports is the toy department of life. But since sports is also big business now, does he think that he does not owe something, to the people that pay his salary? The Bruins? The fans that supported him and still support him no matter! At least a reasonable explanation!

“Sitting out” the season is not retiring. Does he plan on playing in the 2013-2014 season? Should the Bruins put all their forward thinking into waiting for him to make a definitive decision?  The bottom line is no matter what we as fans think, what we have known since January, and really not before, is that Tim Thomas is an individual and doesn’t play by anyone elses rules but his own, and that’s fine!

I really don’t care what athletes do in their private lives. I’ve never been starstruck like that. I marvel at their talents and what they provide for the teams I root for.

For two months at the end of the 2010-2011 regular season, Tim Thomas took us on a spectacular roller coaster ride through the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It was all about the TEAM that had so many key moments by key players – Michael Ryder’s save in game three and subsequent OT goal of the Habs series, Chara’s skate block in the same series, Nathan Horton’s OT goals, Patrice Bergeron & Brad Marchand, in the Final. But it was the sliding across pad save in OT against Brian Gionta. The reach back stick save on Steve Downey “that would not go”, and the shutout on that day of The Final that I will never forget. All provided by Boston Bruin Goaltender Tim Thomas.

I wish this had all come to a better end instead of some fans thinking you are a lunatic and others applaud what you are doing right now! I do hope someday that you will return to the TD Garden when the Bruins will make it YOUR night in which it will be all about you as your accomplishments will be acknowledge.  You will forever live in the hearts of many fans for what you accomplished in your professional life which affected us fans. I  can’t speak for your life personally as no one but you and your family know about that and that is fine with me!

Just know that for me, as a lifetime Bruins fan, I will never forget Wednesday night June 15, 2011.

~Diehard

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R.I.P. Carl Beane!

It was October 1986 and I had just got my first accreditation to the Boston Bruins. Tom Cuddy Sports Reports had acquired for me as I had just began to work for him. Tom told me when I get into the Garden, go upstairs and ask for the Bruins PR man, the Great Nate Greenberg. He will tell you, as a rookie, what you need to to do. But he also said, ask for Carl Beane. Carl also did work for Tom and he would help me down in the locker room after the game because it can be intimidating the first time.

Carl took me up to the ridiculously small press box and we watched the game together. Not only was I happy about being in press row watching the team that I had worshiped since 1970, but I got to laugh. If you knew anything about “Beanie”, which is what I called him, he could make anyone laugh and he loved to make me laugh because I was an easy target for him.

Whenever I would see Carl, he would always greet me with that loud booming voice with “REE-CARDO” (my name is Ricardo) and I would light up.  Back in the late 80′s when the Red Sox were sorta good and the Toronto Blue Jays, were also pretty good, I had the pleasure/chore of covering those games for CBC Radio. Of course I would sit next to Beanie up in the third row of the press box and of course he would do things to make me laugh and if you know me, I laugh out loud – even before the acronym LOL was even thought of. The “unmade beds” as he called the knights of the keyboards down front would turn around and look at us as if we were crazy. We were but we didn’t care. It was a baseball game not a church service. Have a little fun he always said.

When Carl won the  job as the Voice of Fenway Park, he and everyone that knew him,  knew he would be perfect. He was at the ballpark every day covering the team, now he could be a part of the Red Sox. He loved it.  It would never pay the bills but he loved it. After the World Series victory in 2004, it not only paid off for the team, but it paid off for Carl. He would do speaking engagements with the World Series Trophy and get to tell all about the team and the job that he was proud to represent.

One thing that Carl and I always had a rift about was that he was a tried and true Montreal Canadiens fan and he knew how much I hated them and we always had fun with each other when the two teams played each other.

I last saw Beanie was Mar 10, up on the 9th floor and he was the same ole jovial dirty old man he always was and I loved it.  Beanie was an unforgettable character who I will miss.

Goodbye my friend. Sleep well!

~REE-CARDO

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NHL Playoffs continue sans Bs!

By this time Thursday morning, we could possibly know the Final Four of the Stanley Cup  Playoffs. Sunday afternoon, riding on the flexible athletic legs of Jonathan Quick, the Los Angeles Kings could sweep away the second seed in the west, he St. Louis Blues. The number one seed Vancouver Canucks were the first victim of the number eight seed Kings, losing in five games.

Los Angeles struggled just to make the playoff because just about no one could put the puck in the net during the last month of the season. But Quick literally put them on his back and since the playoffs began, the Kings have scored with proficiency and has still gotten the goaltending that most Conn Smythe trophy winners provide. See Tim Thomas 2012.

In the meantime, what happened to Blues? They’ve had major defensive lapses, they are now the ones that can’t ruffle the twine and with Jaroslav Halak hurt and out for the series, Brian Elliott has NOT provided the quality goaltending that both gave the Blues during the regular year.

No question the Kings should finish off the Blues Sunday afternoon or Tuesday night back in LA. Change nothing is the key and with the leaders being leaders, i.e. Mike Richards and Dustin Penner, Darryl Sutter’s group should have some time off after earning a bid in the Western Conference Finals.

A somewhat stunning development in the other series out west. After winning the first two games in Phoenix, the Coyotes went to Nashville and snagged one from the Predators sending them reeling back to the desert in what could be their swan song. Timing and goaltending has been the key to this series. Timely goaltending and timely scoring by the Coyotes. Mike Smith has been sensational when he stays in his net and not go for afternoon stroll. Pekka Rinne also has been good, but not good enough. A little shaky in the first two games, Rinne has been outstanding but still suffered a 1-0 loss in game four on a goal deflected in by his own player.

After dismissing Detroit in pretty convincing fashion, this is not what the Predators or their fans expected. Look for Barry Trotz to re-insert his malcontents Alex Radulov and Andrei Kostitsyn for game five and hope for the best which may not be enough as Phoenix looks to advance to the third round for the first time in their history.

Happy Birthday Martin Brodeur. 40 trips around the Sun and you still know how stop the puck in the biggest games of the year on the biggest stage. You just may take your team past that space-shot who plays the same position 200 feet away. The Devils can take a stranglehold on the series with the Philadelphia Flyers should they come away with a win Sunday night in New Jersey. The enigma/space-shot Ilya Bryzgalov has been  inconsistent  in the Flyers net, making a great save, then giving up an easy goal. That won’t win you a playoff series, let alone a Championship. Especially when Brodeur turns back the clock and thinks he is playing in 1995, 2000 or 2003. Philly had better hope they get the good Bryzgalov and not the bad Bryz-GOAL-ov to tie this series before heading back to the City of Brotherly Love. They may not be so loving should they go down 3-1.

Wrapping this up and continuing on selfishly with the netminding theme, we come to the New York Ranger and the Washington Capitals. We know about the King, Vezina nominee  Henrik Lundqvist and how solid he has been throughout the season and now in the playoffs, but who knew 22-year-old Braden Holtby would continue the sensational  play in the second round that he exhibited in dispatching the Boston Bruins in a tightly fought seven game series in the first round.

Holtby has matched Lundqvist in goal in what has become a fascinating series with each team blocking shots, both teams top players coming up with big goals when needed. When the Bruins were eliminated, I wanted to root for the Rangers. I like their work ethic, being a goalie, I love Lundqvist, and what could be better than Boston College alumni Brian Boyle and recent BC National Champion Chris Kreider winning the Stanley Cup after witnessing what we all witnessed June 15, 2011, even though Boyle said he hated the fact that the Bruins won. What I really don’t like is the pompous ass of a coach, also from Boston, John Tortorella. Confrontation is his number one agenda. I’m not sure the National Hockey League always wants to see one of their coaches of a high profile team constantly acting like a detestable child at virtually every press conference after each game. Tortorella needs to grow up and suck it up and quit acting like he is hiding states secrets if the media asks something he doesn’t like!  Sheesh!

I believe this series will go the distance and right now have no clue which team will blink. But because there is nothing like playoff hockey, it’ll be so much fun to watch!

~Diehard

#wbz