Sports Redux: A Thoroughly Happy Saturday

Where to begin? Two of our local teams played yesterday, and two of them won. Let's start with the Bruins, who needed this win much much more. The story was poised to be another in a terrible series of "why can't this team score" rants, until there were 26 seconds left. With Tim Thomas pulled for an extra skater, Andrew Ference picked a hell of a time to score his first goal of the season, beating Martin Biron to tie the game. That sent it to OT, and made sure that at the very least, Philly wouldn't gain any ground on the B's.

But the Bruins seemed encouraged by their good fortune, and taking the positive feedback to heart, actually won the game(!) when Aaron Ward converted a great Thomas save for the game-winner. That's the second time Ward has beaten the Flyers in OT this season. And it's an extra millimeter of breathing room as the B's desperately try to hold onto their playoff spot.

The Celtics began the toughest road trip of the season last night, but it was a nice mismatch to ease their way into it. The Texas powerhouses await, but the C's had no trouble dusting the Bucks in Milwaukee. Ray Allen was still nursing his injury, but wasn't needed, as this game was one of those "slowly build the lead and play great defense" specials, that the undermanned and overwhelmed Bucks had no answer for.

Sam Cassell and P.J. Brown got their first taste of big minutes with the team; Sam had 10 points and 5 assists in 23 minutes, while P.J. pulled down nine rebounds in the same span. KG led the Celtics with 19, but got another chance to watch the entire fourth quarter from the front row.

Every sports fan outside of New England is getting fired up today; it's NCAA Selection Sunday, and the powers that be get to justify once again why a 6th-place, barely .500 team from a power conference (we're looking at you, Arizona) is considered a viable candidate for national champion. Since the closest thing we have to a local team (in the men's or women's tournament) will probably be Connecticut, we're probably not going to get too fired up over the whole thing.

Not everybody in town feels like a winner today: Tim Wakefield misses his friend. It's getting a little dusty in here. Josh Beckett did a little throwing in practice, but almost surely won't be on the plane to Tokyo Wednesday. Mrs. Dice-K has successfully delivered little Dice-K, so Mr. Dice-K will be on that plane. There's a joke to be made here involving last week's Lost, but we're not sure what it is.

Image from Amazon.