It was painful to listen to, most times; but one had simply to turn off the sound and enjoy some fine classical music instead while watching the action on ice as the mighty Boston Bruins defeated in dominating fashion the hated Montreal Canadiens. Alas, for me, my location had me forced to tune in to the RDS broadcast (or worse yet: the CBC's!) and not the NESN broadcast - and so it was more of the same biased crap that I had to listen to, game after game, before I wised up and tuned out...!
An example: game one, right after Phil Kessel accepted the short pass from Milan Lucic to seal the B's victory by scoring the insurance goal into an empty net - what happened then, hmm? A frustrated Canadien (the Komi, I do believe) dared ruin the celebration of the sealing-of-the-deal goal by roughing Kessel -Kessel! The finesse guy! You don't rough up a finesse player, pal; it's an unwritten rule and a time-honored one at that- and he brought Kessel all the way into the boards too, as all that young Phil wanted to do was the same as when he scored all of his goals in the last two years; celebrate it with his teammates. But no - the Habs think they have a right to avoid their just desserts and thought they do unto their rivals what they would never accept them doing it unto their own guys, be it Kovy or Saku-Le-Fou! *lol*
(Sorry - couldn't resist!)
And so, the goal celebration -and game one win celebration, be it temporarily- were ruined by the unsportsmanlike behaviour of those execrable Habs... And what does their local play-by-play guy call, at that point? "And now Milan Lucic attacks Komisarek FROM BEHIND..."
WHAT THE...?!? How many games has this guy called, let alone seen, over the years...? Is it customary then, you so-called expert you, to see an NHLer celebrate his team's scoring the insurance goal by jumping an opponent from behind - for no reason at all?!? The fact was, all Lucic did was step in and defend his smaller teammate, a teammate who doesn't do any of that rough stuff usually, and he grabbed Komisarek and threw him off his teammate with conviction, as to say "you want to "dance" - do it with someone like ME!"
As it is, of course, Komisarek fears Lucic and loathes him with a passion for it: Lucic kicked his butt earlier in the season, showing him up big time then... The Komi was so badly beaten, he missed a considerable amount of playing time after the scuffle. Ever since, he's dreamed of some kind of chance for revenge - and he knew his teammates, tough guys Laraque and Stewart, would never get the job done either... So he tried to avenge himself, at first, by picking on Lucic's smaller goal-scoring linemate. When that didn't work, he tried his darn-best to mount the courage to go for a rematch - and with his team all but eliminated, he thought it was time to do just that in game four. A single punch to the jaw and Lucic had won the rematch as well. Finally, out of exasperation, The Komi made his last pathetic appearance of the season (and most probably as a hated Hab as well) when he high-sticked himself out of the game, the series and surely out of town as well, in the last few minutes of game four - he couldn't match Milan Lucic's brawn, so he used his stick instead! He got an automatic five minutes and ejection from the game, as Lucic was cut on the left cheek then - 'tis the only way The Komi could ever put a single scratch on Milan Lucic, I tell ya! PATHETIC.
But even more pathetic of all, was again the play-by-play description of it all! Aye, I confess, I'd stopped the music (much in my own disfavour - but at least, I'm doing it to myself, so it's okay then!) and "peeked" at the commentating that was being done by the so-called "impartial experts"... No underlining whatsoever of The Komi's pathetic attitude - instead they spoke of the refereeing...! Right...
I went right back to Beethoven, right there and then!
The Boston Bruins deserved to win LAST YEAR's series against these pathetic Habs - and they deserved to win both playoff encounters during the all-around sad Joe Thornton era (sad with unfulfilled expectations, quite inexplicably at that...! The San Jose crowd knows all about that now - eh? Bwah-ha-ha. Keep him, your Joe; we don't want him anymore!)
What's more, the Boston Bruins deserved to win more oftne than 22 times on Montreal's rink, all-time, during the playoffs... The winning streak they have going against the Habs currently (all but one game in the regular season and the four straight in the playoffs that amount to a sweeter-than-sweet sweep and nine straight wins overall) deserves to continue next season and the NEXT FEW SEASONS in fact! Verily, it should reach the 20-to-25 games plateau, I say; just to TRULY get the B's even! One has no idea the amounts of INJUSTICE ON ICE that the Boston Bruins have had to swallow down over the years against various opponents (Buffalo in 1993, New Jersey the following year and Florida the year after that, I do believe... If memory serves me right!) but none, NONE moreso than this hated rival: the Canadiens! A team with the most moronic fanbase of all: they actually boo their own when they lose to a far superior team like the 2009 Boston Bruins! And one year earlier, after stealing victory from these same Bruins, they were moronic enough to go on a rioting spree throughout their city, one that rose to the astronomical amount of in excess of 2 MILLION DOLLARS IN DAMAGES...! The Canadiens employees are saddened to see their team lose and make such an early (and so well-deserved) exit this April - but I am 100% sure that every other Montrealer with a business, city employees and insurance brokers alike too, are TRULY ELATED that they lost and had NARROW A MOMENT OF JOY for their stupid fans this year - giving the latter no cause to RIOT in the process, as absurd as it sounds!
But absurdism is found in every nook and cranny of the Montreal Bell Centre, I tell ya: starting with the spelling there (it remains english, no matter what; but they still feel they are complying with the silly LOI 101 and other restrictions by spelling both Canadians and Center with an "e" at a most strategic place: "centre" is French, but only if you pronounce it that way... But anyway...!)
More absurdism: the fans, in their incoherent chanting and booing; they cheer the rough stuff their Habs do on the ice, and boo the ensuing penalty it cost them! But then they will also boo when the B's are not penalized for doing much less than the Habs did - that's logical, eh. Thank God none of these people is actually refereeing the game; impartiality would rule the proceedings - not! It would fly out the window, rather!
Even the mascot is incoherent: Youppi was seen cheering when the Habs were called offside?!? Is he HIGH, underneath that orange fur?!? At least Blades The Bruin knows what's going on...!
And so do I...!
And in the light of this second sweep of the Canadiens by the Bruins in recent years -remember 1992! I sure do; and Shane Hnidy appears to me now as the second coming of... Jim Wiemer! But I am digresisng again-and so I can honestly say that we need to see more of this in order to be reminded that YES - there is still some JUSTICE in this sorry world of ours... sometimes!
The Bruins' coach was a true class act: he spoke of no malice, no revenge plan, no ill feelings towards the organization that kicked both him and one of his star players, Michael Ryder, out of town - by the way; thanks, CH, now both are serving the BOSTON cause very well! In fact, Julien hesitated to even use the word JUSTICE in both case, especially in Ryder's case... Of course I just did use the word, without any hesitation at all, but it is in the BOSTON BRUINS' case against the rivals they've had, especially the Habs - after all, Ryder and Julien are only two individuals implicated in the larger picture which is, itself, but a tiny reflection of the much larger picture that is the neverending (but soon to end anyway - by the Grace of God!) battle between GOOD and EVIL...! But I am digressing, aren't I? *lol*
The Bruins can target the Stanley Cup next: and no team, no organization deserves it more than they do. They've had seven magnificent twenty goal-scorers this year (eight, I say: after all, Zdeno Chara got 19 and scored his 20th on the very first playoff game he played - and it was the game-winner too!) but it is true that, under Don Cherry, the Bruins established the record "never-to-be-broken" as he always says: ELEVEN twenty-plus goal-scorers on the roster, in the late 1970s! And that team, though dominating too, was robbed of a championship. Still, the fanbase in Boston is so classy it stood and applauded the enemy camp, the CH, when it paraded with the Stanley Cup in the venerable Boston Garden (maybe not the same year though - gee, I hope not!)
This year, Marc Savard, Patrice Bergeron, Chuck Kobasew, Phil Kessel, Milan Lucic, Blake Wheeler, Zdeno Chara, Mark Recchi, Steve Montador, Tim Thomas, Michael Ryder, David Krejci, Chuck Kobasew, Shawn Thornton, Stephane Yelle, PJ Axelsson and the rest of this formidable line-up can aspire to accomplish what that other great Bruins team, somehow, wasn't fortunate enough to accomplish themselves.
Me, of course, I wanted to see it done back in 1993 - when Dave Poulin (not Krejci) was in town. The hired guns were Dave Christian and Brian Propp - not Recchi or Ryder. The pillars on defense were Ray Bourque and Don Sweeney, not Aaron Ward and Dennis Wideman. And the main man was Cam Neely - not... well, this 2009 edition of the B's is well-balanced and they rely on a total team effort to get it done (that is why it is so impossible to counter them too!)
At least, if the 2009 edition of the Boston Bruins does win it all, Cam Neely is still a part of the club - in some function... So are Bourque and Sweeney. They'll get to hoist the Cup - as Bruins - yet...!
Onwards - with the opposition likely being pesky Rangers, Penguins and... hmm... Ducks or Canucks, the rest of the way...!
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Labels: Boston, Bruins, hockey, luminous pundit me, simulcast
