Sports Redux: Can't Win Them All

Sometimes, you just have to tip your hat. And that's what we're tipping this morning, to Carolina goalie Cam Ward, after he survived 36 furious Bruins shots to shut out our home team and tie their series 1-1. It's too early in the series to tip anything else, but local packies are on notice.

Especially in the third period, Ward was transcendent. With a 2-0 lead already, on second period goals by Joe Corvo (clocked at 452 mph) and Matt Cullen, Ward stopped all 16 Bruins shots in the final frame. When Tim Thomas got pulled for the extra skater, causing the sad face seen at right, Eric Staal put in an empty-netter that sealed the B's' fate. "We've been practicing the not-too-high part, but now we get to practice the not-too-low part," said Thomas afterwards. Thomas did make 22 saves, some of them pretty impressive, but the Bruins were left with nothing but tipped caps at the end to show for it. Coach Julien: "The way their goaltender played tonight, it was hard for us to get back in the game." It happens. Game Three is Wednesday in Raleigh.

Hey, did you know the Hurricanes used to be the Hartford Whalers? If you didn't (and shame on you if that's the case, because we've mentioned it a time or 54 in this space), Dan Shaughnessy beats that horse a little more.

The Red Sox finished their lousy weekend in Florida in lousy fashion, dropping a 5-3 game to the Rays on a cavalcade of bad baseball. Jason Varitek, already famously heckled by The Onion, got in the history books for the wrong reason, allowing Carl Crawford to tie a modern record with six stolen bases. Julio Lugo is already in midseason form: he went 0-for-4 to fall into Ortiz Country at .214 and muffed a double-play ball that kept a Tampa Bay rally going. And speaking of Ortiz, at some point the daily writeups of his swing and mental state are going to shift from hopeful to fearful. These two coming games in the Bronx would be a nice time to turn it around.

CelticsBlog provides us with a nice little What To Look For summary for the C's series with Orlando, which starts tonight, even though we're not even sure the Bulls have vacated the locker room yet. The Herald looks at how the bench is ready to contribute after redeeming a shaky first round with a solid Game Seven.

Photo by Winslow Townson/Associated Press.