Yeesh. Red Sox go from bad to worse. Fun season, though.
I did want to break this up into another entry, as I feel that the Bruins deserve more than just a cursory mention in my venting about the implosion of the Red Sox season. Why, do you ask? Why do I latch myself onto this team when all of Boston's other major sports teams have won championships in the last 5 years?
Well, I could answer that by saying I was born and raised a New England Calvinist, and I'm not happy unless I'm miserable. Ergo, the support for the 4th-best team in the city (or the region). I could also point out that I was on skates before I could walk, thanks to my father, who came of age with Bobby Orr and the "We're actually really good and relevant" Bruins of the 1960s and 1970s.
And, for those of you who apparently didn't go to school in Vermont or Minnesota, hockey is fucking awesome. It is easily the best spectator sport there is (Fact!). It's like soccer, if soccer was played with knives on your feet and instead of taking a dive to draw a red card, you went up to the guy that tripped you and whalloped him in the head instead. Now, of course, there are a lot of Bruins "fans" out there who would say that the team has been in a downward spiral for 30 years and that as long as Jeremy Jacobs owns the team, they'll never win anything. To those people, I'm probably a hopeless sheep (baaaaa!). So move along, these aren't the droids you're looking for.
The Bruins are exciting again. I say that given the tremendously entertaining regular season and postseason they had last year; most experts were picking them to finish last in the league again, and they snuck into the playoffs with the 8th seed (though they were denied the 7th seed only because Ottawa won the season series), and took the hated Canadiens to a 7th game before they shit the bed. Raise your hand if you saw them going the distance with Montreal, after not winning a game against the Habs all season? Anyone?
There are a lot of reasons the B's are exciting. First, they have arguably their best player back in Patrice Bergeron, who is younger than I am but has been in the NHL for 5 years. After nearly having his career ended on the ice a year ago (BOOOOO FLYERS), he's back and looking sharp through preseason and the first couple games of the regular schedule. I also like him a lot because he grew up in Quebec, but was a Nordiques fan. Fuck you, Montreal!
Also, and I'll take a minute here to address the Jacobs ownership, the Bruins are headed in the right direction. Yes, I would love it if Jacobs sold the team (psstt...Bob Kraft...want to buy a hockey team?), but with the post-lockout salary cap in place, he can't screw the team up nearly as much as the haters would want you to believe. Peter Chiarelli is a good GM who has learned from his past mistakes, and is committed to building a winner. It also bears mentioning that Claude Julien is a fantastic coach who whipped a last-place team into shape and did wonders for their work ethic. This team *never* gives up. The game ain't over until the last buzzer.
So, what possessed me to get partial-season tickets for the Bruins this year? Apart from the fact that they're the only Boston team I can afford tickets for?
Honestly, I think they have something good building here, and I want in on the ground floor. With the Patriots floundering and the sox 4 innings away from the off-season, the Bruins and Celtics will be carrying the city for a while, and this Bruins team is more talented than people think. Plenty of room on the Bandwagon, but I want good seats on it while I can.
While they're 1-1-1 right now, the B's have showed me that they can compete with some of the best teams in the division, and they've come back from some sizeable deficits to earn some points. Granted, the fact that they've had to come back from such deficits shows that they have some work to do, but they are nothing if not tenacious.
Marc Savard has 5 goals in 3 games. All of last year, he only had 15. I'm thinking he and Michael Ryder (1 Goal and 3 assists through 3 games) are finding some chemistry. I thought it would be the other way around (Ryder the scoring machine, Savard the assist machine), but I'm not complaining. The Bruins had some real trouble putting the puck in the net (which is, after all, a big part of how to win a hockey game) last year, as they were 24th in the league in Goals Scored. If they can keep the solid defense and up the offensive pressure, they should be in good shape. I'd prefer to score more goals than we allow this year.
The goaltending situation is interesting, if only because I'm not sure what the team is going to do. I think I'm going to refer to him as Manny Fernandez's expiring contract, as he hasn't been one of Chiarelli's best moves, but I'll wait before totally giving up on him. Tim Thomas somehow evolved into a top-flight goalie last year, though I'm still not really sure how. Sure, he started the All-Star game and guided the Bruins to the playoffs, but he flops around and gives up waaaay too many rebounds to make me comfortable. I'll continue to underestimate him (a la Tom Brady from 2001-2007), and be pleasantly surprised when he surpasses my expectations. Also, bears mentioning that Tuukka Rask, the Finnish goaltender of the future, tore up training camp and is looking like an eventual long-term solution at the position, something the Bruins haven't really had since Byron Dafoe (or, to a lesser extent, Andrew Raycroft before he flamed out)
And, with Rask, it bears mentioning that with the Bruins youngsters, the future is bright. From Bergeron's being 23, to Phil "Benching me in the playoffs was a wonderful way to kick me in the ass" Kessel, to the possible Second Coming of Cam Neely (Milan Lucic), to impressive camp survivors Blake Wheeler and Vladimir Sobotka, the next couple of years could be a lot of fun. Just like the Tampa Rays, except hopefully Boston will realize what it has going before too much longer. Color me excited.
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