Sports Redux: Slovak Showdown

"Did you see the Slovak on Slovak battle?" Single best remark we heard after the Bruins skated to another win at the Garden (their eleventh straight - the longest such Bruins home streak since any of us can remember) on Saturday night.

In this corner, Boston's Zdeno Chara. In that corner, Atlanta's Boris Valabik. Somewhere off to the side, Phil Kessel, whose stick-turned-lightsaber duel with Valabik in the second period got the Slovak Showdown underway. Chara, in his wisdom, didn't like Valabik messing with his teammate; the leader landed himself 17 minutes of penalty time for mixing it up with the Thrasher, but continued to earn points within the clubhouse and certainly with the fans. When Manny Fernandez remarked postgame that the towering Chara is "the father of us all," we couldn't help it. We wanted to - for only a moment, mind you - call Chara Big Papi. Fortunately, we recovered.

The same can't be said for Atlanta. A night after thrashing - sorry for the pun, but c'mon, it's true - Atlanta, the Bruins again handed the defeated (and frustrated) opposing team a big loss. The 4-2 Boston victory featured goals from Kessel and Dennis Wideman, as well as two from Michael Ryder.

Boston eyes turn today to the West Coast, where the Pats will face down Oakland and Pats QB Matt Cassel will demonstrate how he handles his job after a huge personal loss. While it's understandable to imagine that Cassel will be having difficulty during his first game after father Greg Cassel's death on Monday, we offer Matt a simple message: December 22, 2003. When Brett Favre overcame his father's death with a Monday Night Football performance for the ages (four TDs, 399 total yards as the Packers beat the Raiders 41–7), the then-Green Bay QB was quoted as saying, "I knew that my dad would have wanted me to play. I love him so much and I love this game. It's meant a great deal to me, to my dad, to my family, and I didn't expect this kind of performance. But I know he was watching tonight."

Today's game is for Greg Cassel. We think everyone back home in New England will be hoping that Matt is able to show his father (again) what he can do.

In other news, several hundred Red Sox fans will now be able to gleefully bask in the envy from their peers. Did anyone out there manage to get tickets during Christmas at Fenway?

Image of Chara by flickr user Dan4th