Sports Redux: Boston Owns The Ice Edition

After Sunday, Boston is clearly the center of the hockey world.

The Boston Bruins clinched the Notheast division title for the first time since 2003-04 on Sunday after a decisive 4-1 victory over the New Jersey Devils. Boston locked up a playoff berth Saturday night when Florida lost to Columbus. The struggling Bruins enterred the game having won just three games in their last 9 starts and had to face the winningest goalie in NHL history, Martin Brodeur.

Michael Ryder scored first in the first on a power play thanks to a too-many men penalty. After a 1-0 first-period lead, the Bruins expanded their lead to 3-0 in the second period thanks to Chuck Kobasew's nifty wraparound and Marc Savard's power-play strike.

New Jersey rallied and scored to ruin a possible shutout from Tim Thomas (41 saves) and made the score 3-1. Milan Lucic's goal at 17:26 of the second provided needed insurance and stopped any New Jersey momentum.

Whatever momentum the Bruins gained may dissipate as they don't play again until Saturday, for some reason.

The Boston University Terriers earned the top seed in the 2009 NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Tournamentafter wrapping their season at 31-6-4 as Hockey East champs.

Saturday, BU faces Ohio State in the first round at Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, N.H.

Opening Day is two weeks away and Daisuke is being Daisuke, which means he won. Matsuzaka led Japan to a 9-4 win over a Sox-less Team USA and set up a Japan-South Korea World Baseball Classic Championship game tonight in Los Angeles.

Good luck to both teams. Seriously. But, Red Sox Nation is focused on how it affects us. Daisuke did just enough to win in by allowing two runs and five hits in 4.2 innings. He walked three and had five K's. But, 98 pitches might be a lot.

Matsuzaka loves him some WBC. He's 6-0 in its history and may be the MVP again, if Japan wins again.

More Sox news to chew on: Sox vs. Yankees on Tuesday; Kottaras is the other catcher, for now; the roster is taking shape after some cuts and some healing.

Despite the hockey awesomeness discussed above, there was a lowlight provided by Tuukka Rask, allegedly the next great Bruins goalie. Mr. Rask had a tantrum worthy of a six-year old after the Providence B's lost a game.

Bostonist doesn't know Samuel Arbesman. Fortunately. His psychobabble
theories about sportsfans from Sunday's Globe were very, very bad. Dude, "fans" is short for fanatics. It doesn't make sense. We like it that way.


Photo by flickr user tiffa130.