Sports Redux: Finally, A Win

Our nightmare is over. One of our floundering local wintertime teams finally broke into the win column last night, as the Bruins refound their offensive mojo and whacked the Ottawa Senators, 6-4 at the Garden last night.

The B's struggled through two periods, but David Krejci broke the 3-3 tie midway through the third, then Marc Savard hit the insurance goal four minutes later. Ward, Kobasew, Ryder and Axelsson scored the other four. Claude Julien, who apparently unleashed the hounds of Hell in the locker room after the second period, said afterwards, "losing this game would certainly have hurt us a lot more than we might think," which makes us think some guys would be spending today in the pillory if things hadn't turned around.

The Bruins' great start and overall balance was rewarded earlier in the day, as they found out that one forward (Savard), one defenseman (Zdeno Chara), and one goalie (Tim Thomas) were named as reserves to the NHL All-Star Game. It's the fourth appearance for Chara, the second for the other two, and all we can say is congratulations and what about Phil Kessel?

Now the only losing streak in town belongs to the Celtics, who have a big test tonight in Cleveland, with first place in the Eastern Conference on the line. Both teams are grimly aware of how important home-court advantage will be assuming that these teams see each other again in the spring (which we still assume, the last two weeks notwithstanding).

The Librarian on the Run points us to today's news that the Red Sox are now BFF with the Professional Bullrider's Association. She wonders if they're going to bring a bull onto the field at Fenway to celebrate; we say that's one time when we're really going to miss zany, unpredictable Manny (who's still in a staring contest with the Dodgers).

Finally, congratulations to the Florida Gators, who stuffed Oklahoma's powerful offense and won the BCS Title Game 24-14 for their second title in three years. And we know people in Austin, LA and Utah are wailing about how the Gators aren't really champs, but maybe then they shouldn't have signed on to this ridiculous system in the first place.