If it was any secret that girls at hockey games are cooler than girls at just about any other professional sporting event, Barstool Sports has busted the story wide open (relatively NSFW).
If you were puzzled by cheering from the hometown crowd during the Bruins stink-fest of a home opener, perhaps these two ladies were responsible. Come to think of it, this sort of activity actually makes sense, given that the food that comes with the 'Hungry for Hockey' tickets is on par with a strip club buffet.
Anyway, well done, ladies. I'll be in Section 304 on Thursday.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Breaking News: Lucic Extended
The Bruins announced today that Milan Lucic, F, has signed a 3 year extension through the end of the 2012-13 season. Read the official release here.
Obviously, we love every damn bit of this.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Heroes of Fort Wilderness - B's mess up Canes, 7-2
Remember that part of the Patriot when Mel Gibson and his two pre-adolescent sons save Heath Ledger from 20 redcoats and a hangman's noose? At the end of that scene, Gibson (Benjamin Martin) takes a Cherokee Tomahawk to a redcoat who he'd already wounded, and finishes him off to the tune of 17 or 18 hacks and more blood than a Mike Myers movie. Later in the story we come to discover that this was a resurgence of brutality from his youth whereby he led a platoon of men to take revenge on French/Indian troops at Fort Wilderness after they'd abused a group of English Settlers and left them for dead at another camp. Brutal, but loyal and protective to no end.
Last night, the Bruins began a road towards redemption. Brickley summed it up best in the third, after the 6th Bruin of the night (Matt Hunwick) had dropped a tally in the goal column, when he said "Balance and Depth". That Bruins team reminded us why we fell down a stairwell in love with them last year and introduced some new faces (Hello, Steve Begin: I'll come back to you later) in the process of doing so with a 7-2 scalping of the sorry Carolina Hurricanes; They're basically Tropical Depressions at this point.
My favorite moments weren't the goals, though man were they pretty at times (Savard's feed to Sturm was much more difficult than the casual observer will realize, as was Sturm finishing it off). No, my favorite and i believe the most telling sign that this team is going to be as good as we hope this year came in the second period when old "friend" Andrew "the ankle bender" Alberts took a bit of a high attempted check at Marco Sturm of a faceoff. This was just moments after Lucic had won a game of uncle against Jay Harrison (Harrison was literally begging for mercy at the end, watch below). After Sturm got ran, Marc Savard jumped on Alberts like Quagmire on a panty-less Asian flight attendant. Savard's defensive manuever led to a full on 5 v 5 scrum with the hated Tom Kostopoulos trying to take on Chara's shinpads for a time.
This kind of shellacking is exactly what makes the Bruins good. They're physical, they're smart and they are hard to play against. Most importantly, they don't back down. Savard saw a teammate recently recovered from a season lost to both a head and knee injury get pseudo run (i only denote this because Alberts basically missed, but the intent was there) by a former teammate he knew to be a goon - He didn't hesitate for a moment. Savvy was in on Alberts like he'd talked about his sister. That kind of camaraderie and fight is what makes them big and bad. It's what makes them the Bruins. By the time we were done in this one, it felt as though the Bruins were committing a massacre the likes of which we'd not seen since the days of Benjamin Martin. These guys had stolen our dream last year. They'd punctured our proverbial balloon and then they'd come into our building and tried to run us. Not a chance. Beat 'em on the scoreboard, beat 'em in the fight and beat 'em in their hearts.
The fact that seven different people scored in this one? Well, let's just say it won't be a one man massacre this year. All 23 of these guys want to be that hero of Fort Wilderness, together. Just for good measure, let's all enjoy Shawn Thornton reminding Mr. Alberts why you don't fuck with a man with a Positron Pack on his back.
Last night, the Bruins began a road towards redemption. Brickley summed it up best in the third, after the 6th Bruin of the night (Matt Hunwick) had dropped a tally in the goal column, when he said "Balance and Depth". That Bruins team reminded us why we fell down a stairwell in love with them last year and introduced some new faces (Hello, Steve Begin: I'll come back to you later) in the process of doing so with a 7-2 scalping of the sorry Carolina Hurricanes; They're basically Tropical Depressions at this point.
My favorite moments weren't the goals, though man were they pretty at times (Savard's feed to Sturm was much more difficult than the casual observer will realize, as was Sturm finishing it off). No, my favorite and i believe the most telling sign that this team is going to be as good as we hope this year came in the second period when old "friend" Andrew "the ankle bender" Alberts took a bit of a high attempted check at Marco Sturm of a faceoff. This was just moments after Lucic had won a game of uncle against Jay Harrison (Harrison was literally begging for mercy at the end, watch below). After Sturm got ran, Marc Savard jumped on Alberts like Quagmire on a panty-less Asian flight attendant. Savard's defensive manuever led to a full on 5 v 5 scrum with the hated Tom Kostopoulos trying to take on Chara's shinpads for a time.
This kind of shellacking is exactly what makes the Bruins good. They're physical, they're smart and they are hard to play against. Most importantly, they don't back down. Savard saw a teammate recently recovered from a season lost to both a head and knee injury get pseudo run (i only denote this because Alberts basically missed, but the intent was there) by a former teammate he knew to be a goon - He didn't hesitate for a moment. Savvy was in on Alberts like he'd talked about his sister. That kind of camaraderie and fight is what makes them big and bad. It's what makes them the Bruins. By the time we were done in this one, it felt as though the Bruins were committing a massacre the likes of which we'd not seen since the days of Benjamin Martin. These guys had stolen our dream last year. They'd punctured our proverbial balloon and then they'd come into our building and tried to run us. Not a chance. Beat 'em on the scoreboard, beat 'em in the fight and beat 'em in their hearts.
The fact that seven different people scored in this one? Well, let's just say it won't be a one man massacre this year. All 23 of these guys want to be that hero of Fort Wilderness, together. Just for good measure, let's all enjoy Shawn Thornton reminding Mr. Alberts why you don't fuck with a man with a Positron Pack on his back.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
My Fellow Nerds and I Will Retire to the Nerdery With Our Calculators
It was a rough morning around my house.
Last night started at the Sox game and ended at a law student kegger in Allston, MA. There were a lot of things that took place in between but lets just say drinking was a focal point.
For whatever reason, this hangover got me thinking about statistics. Maybe it was the Beer-aide served out of a plastic bag lined cardboard box, maybe it was how I angry I got about the guy with dual-popped polo collars (Duke colors, too - this was no accident), I don't know.
In any case I went over to Puck Prospectus and started checking out some of their predictions for the year. They just came out with the season previews for all 30 teams - including, of course, your Bruins.
Take a look at the defense:
2009-2010 VUKOTA Projections
Name Age GP G A Pts GVT
Dennis Wideman 26 77.0 10.9 34.4 45.2 12.7
Zdeno Chara 32 73.8 12.2 33.8 46.1 12.6
Matt Hunwick 24 57.2 6.3 19.9 26.2 7.2
Derek Morris 31 64.7 4.5 15.5 20.0 4.8
Mark Stuart 25 66.6 3.4 10.6 14.0 3.9
Andrew Ference 30 51.4 2.5 12.9 15.5 3.2
Johnny Boychuk 25 27.9 1.6 5.3 6.9 1.4
I've altered the table slightly to fit in this space, but the last stat on the right is Goals Versus Threshold (explained here). It's similar to VORP in baseball and attempts to put a number on how much better any given player is than a replacement.
So Wide-Man projects to be just as valuable as Chara in 2009, at least according to this metric. We'll certainly see how the whole thing shakes out. He's got the talent and if he can stay consistent and healthy then I don't see why he can't build on last year's success.
Like all projections, it's just that, an educated guess. Perhaps the nerds won't win. Perhaps I won't drink Beer-aide out of a garbage bag lined box. It's really all up in the air at this point.
Check out the season preview and projection article on the Bruins, lot's of great stuff in there, as usual. In any case, we've got a big revenge game against the Canes tonight. Remember Scott Walker?
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Game Notes Haiku: We'll Start on the Road Again Next Year , Thank You
Season starts tonight
Ovechkin got the memo
No one told the B's
Opening Night - Jitters, Thoughts, Kid's Names
I've decided to spare you all the 200 page novel of a season preview I've been dreaming about writing. Thank me later. This is my version of a cut to the chase, season opening post. Man, I'm more jittery and nervous than a paparazzi taking photo's of a Brady/Bundchen dinner party.
How do we assess the team and its moves...?
1. Kessel Trade - look, this was inevitable. You need to look no further than the descrepancy between Krecji's contract and Kessel's deal in Toronto to understand the overwhelming fact in this case: Peter Chiarelli knows what he's doing. I'm starting to develop a Scott Pioli/Bill Belichek type trust for his business decision making (don't get me started on Derek Morris though, he's the Joey Galloway of the Bruins until proven otherwise). Straight up, i'm dissappointed that i'll have to re-thread my Kessel jersey, but the guy had to go and they got a very good return considering the economic condition of the league.
2. The Goal Scoring - the Bruins didn't do much to bolster their front line scoring potential. I know what you're thinking, "Bonesaw, come on, maybe Steve Begin will be this year's Michael Ryder". If that's your thought process, go ahead and take that last step off the Tobin and rid us all of your bullshit. Fact is, the Bruins didn't need to bolster this. There, i said it. Between the return of Sturm (the team's leading goal scorer in 07-08) and the eventual re-emergence of Bergeron we'll be well on the way to making up for that production lost in the Kessel trade. I haven't even mentioned the growth of guys like Wheeler (totally fell off in the second half after hitting the rookie wall around game 50 last year) and Krejci. Plus, we don't need to score as much. Why?
3. Defense/Goaltending - Funny you should ask. Few teams can win both the Jennings and Vezina trophies in a season and actually have BETTER goaltending the following season. But, the Bruins will have exactly that. Now, i'm not guaranteeing both trophies show up again, but Rask is the real deal. I watched him shutout the Rangers 1-0 last year while turning back 41 shots and he is hands down a better keeper than Fernandez. Consider that along with the fact that he's in a contract year and knows that the starting job for 2011 and beyond is his to lose (Timmy has one year left and will be 36 next season), Rask will prove himself and will make Timmy better at the same time.
As for defense, we lost a slow old man in Aaron Ward and replaced him with a slow middle aged guy, in Derek Morris. Otherwise, we get better with age because the combination of Wideman, Hunwick and Stuart all project to improve on solid seasons last year.
I think that's enough food for though for one day. We're all gonna have to wait and see how things like Sturm/Lucic/Savard and the D-pairings play out, but rest assured, this team is going to continue to step in the right direction. We don't need 116 point season to get better this year. We need to solidify the experience they've acquired in the last two post-seasons, win the Northeast handily and be healthy come playoff time. Game 1 of 82, at a minimum is tonight. Let's drop the fucking puck already.
The Bruins kick off the 2009-10 season tonight against the hated, but very talented, Washington Capitals and the most entertaining player in hockey, Ovie. A few questions have been running through B's fans head's these last few weeks, so let me give you some answers while you stir about your office trying to look busy until pregame. Just try not to think about the fact that you named your newborn son Kessel.
How do we assess the team and its moves...?
1. Kessel Trade - look, this was inevitable. You need to look no further than the descrepancy between Krecji's contract and Kessel's deal in Toronto to understand the overwhelming fact in this case: Peter Chiarelli knows what he's doing. I'm starting to develop a Scott Pioli/Bill Belichek type trust for his business decision making (don't get me started on Derek Morris though, he's the Joey Galloway of the Bruins until proven otherwise). Straight up, i'm dissappointed that i'll have to re-thread my Kessel jersey, but the guy had to go and they got a very good return considering the economic condition of the league.
2. The Goal Scoring - the Bruins didn't do much to bolster their front line scoring potential. I know what you're thinking, "Bonesaw, come on, maybe Steve Begin will be this year's Michael Ryder". If that's your thought process, go ahead and take that last step off the Tobin and rid us all of your bullshit. Fact is, the Bruins didn't need to bolster this. There, i said it. Between the return of Sturm (the team's leading goal scorer in 07-08) and the eventual re-emergence of Bergeron we'll be well on the way to making up for that production lost in the Kessel trade. I haven't even mentioned the growth of guys like Wheeler (totally fell off in the second half after hitting the rookie wall around game 50 last year) and Krejci. Plus, we don't need to score as much. Why?
3. Defense/Goaltending - Funny you should ask. Few teams can win both the Jennings and Vezina trophies in a season and actually have BETTER goaltending the following season. But, the Bruins will have exactly that. Now, i'm not guaranteeing both trophies show up again, but Rask is the real deal. I watched him shutout the Rangers 1-0 last year while turning back 41 shots and he is hands down a better keeper than Fernandez. Consider that along with the fact that he's in a contract year and knows that the starting job for 2011 and beyond is his to lose (Timmy has one year left and will be 36 next season), Rask will prove himself and will make Timmy better at the same time.
As for defense, we lost a slow old man in Aaron Ward and replaced him with a slow middle aged guy, in Derek Morris. Otherwise, we get better with age because the combination of Wideman, Hunwick and Stuart all project to improve on solid seasons last year.
I think that's enough food for though for one day. We're all gonna have to wait and see how things like Sturm/Lucic/Savard and the D-pairings play out, but rest assured, this team is going to continue to step in the right direction. We don't need 116 point season to get better this year. We need to solidify the experience they've acquired in the last two post-seasons, win the Northeast handily and be healthy come playoff time. Game 1 of 82, at a minimum is tonight. Let's drop the fucking puck already.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
No More Tomfoolery, No More Ballyhoo
“The sleeping fox catches no poultry.”
Benjamin Franklin quotes (American Statesman, Scientist, Philosopher, Printer, Writer and Inventor. 1706-1790)
We're not sure Mr. Franklin had hockey blogging in mind when he said this, but we can be sure that it applies to our blogging this entire summer. We have been sleeping, ergo, no poultry - er, posts.
Whatever simple pleasures that you derive from reading this blog, rest easy because we're back to provide them once again. After a summer of complaining about the B's early play-off fade we've fallen way, way behind in the news. There have been trades, awards, contract extensions, and a whole mess of shit we haven't thought of yet.
We've got some new faces around the Cave and that can only mean more hockey discussion, homerism, analysis and, of course, dick jokes for everyone.
To prove we're serious, we even took down the play-off banner that was up all summer at the header. Now, if only we knew how to get rid of the one at the bottom ...
Check back soon and GO B's!
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