Sports Redux: Drama, Drama, Drama

We already knew that tonight was going to be intense, given that the Celts, Bruins and Red Sox again find themselves playing on the same night. Monday surprised us, however, by successfully upping the drama surrounding most of these matchups. In one of those "only in Boston sports" setups, tonight has the potential of becoming another one of those nights that we discuss in the years to come.

On the Bruins front, the NHL decided Monday to throw player safety and hope for civil play out the window when the automatic one-game suspension on Carolina's Scott Walker was lifted. Walker, of course, was the one who sucker-punched Bruins defenseman Aaron Ward on Sunday night. As we mentioned yesterday, the punch, decision to lift the suspension (which falls under the stupidly vague Rule 47.22 of the NHL rulebook), and Carolina GM/Resident Douchebag Jim Rutherford's comments on the matter will be great for ratings and harvesting a new hatred between Boston and Ye Olde Hartford Whalers, but tonight's game has the potential to be ugly. We want Walker to experience karma as much as the next person, but we also want the Bruins' karma police (Milan Lucic and Shawn Thornton) to get ample playing time, which probably won't happen if they unleash a little vigilante justice. We don't know how Ward is doing today - there's still no word from the team - but we do know that we'll be chronicling the whole game during our Bostonist Bruins Liveblog Extravaganza tonight. Be sure to join us!

On the Celtics front, we hope that Orlando Magic fans everywhere wind up demanding apologies from the men in green. When the Celtics get in the faces of the opposition - whether player or young fan with seats way too close to the action anyway - that opposition gets spooked. Tonight's Game 5 will show us what Orlando can do when they have a confident team standing in front of them, ready to fight.

In regular season action, the Red Sox are on the opposite side of the country again. We'd typically complain about the fact that West Coast trips makes work unbearable the next morning, but we won't this time. Why? Well, there's the fact that this is the last such trip of the season, but it's mostly because this allows us to watch the Celtics and Bruins games before we switch over to the Sox-Angels matchup. Thank you, MLB!

Photo by Flickr user uzi978