The NHL has just announced that the Bruins and five other hockey teams will begin their 2010-2011 season in Europe. The Bruins are set to the Phoenix Coyotes in Prague. The other teams on the trip include the Minnesota Wild, Carolina Hurricanes, and Columbus Blue Jackets. Is the NHL trying to sabotage its European recruiting efforts by sending these sad sacks overseas?
1
Results tagged “nhl”
There's a new reason for us to hate Roger Clemens. Indirectly. Baseball legends Clemens, Reggie Jackson, Joe Morgan and Pete Rose were treated to plane rides, strippers and hookers, among other things, from a "friend" named Kenneth Jowdy. Unfortunately, Jowdy paid for the plane rides, strippers and hookers using money 19 current or former NHLers invested with him in a golf resort that was never built. Oops! Five of the NHL veterans, who are now suing Jowdy, played for the Bruins. Sergei Gonchar, Glen Murray, Bryan Berard, Dmitri Khristich and Jozef Stumpel all spent time in Boston and lost between $250,000 and $500,000. Morgan, already not popular with the Nation, denies involvement.
It's two huge games tomorrow night, as the Bruins face elimination (again) in Raleigh in game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinals of the Stanley Cup playoffs and the Celtics try to put an end to the Magic in the NBA playoffs. And Bostonist wants you to watch the games with us. We'll be live blogging the Bruins and (maybe) the Celtics games tomorrow night. Pencil us in and tell your own hilarious jokes about the invisible appendage that Paul Pierce has been using to foul people.
Word has just arrived from the NHL that Carolina Hurricanes wing Scott Walker will be fined $2,500 for rearranging Aaron Ward's face at the end of last night's game, but he will not be suspended.
The punishment is the second of a one-two sucker punch—a more accurate metaphor might be a sucker punch team-up—because the NHL rules prescribe an automatic suspension for any player who receives a fight instigator penalty during the last five minutes of the game. Walker's instigator penalty came with just under 3 minutes left to play.
Today marks the first post by Boston-bred comedian Bill Burr for the NHL's Boston Bruins. We've talked to Bill many times and he even took Bostonist on a video tour of Hollywood back in January. In between his stand-up schedule, Burr has managed to do a weekly podcast for years and has now been picked by the Bruins as their celebrity blogger. Burr is a dedicated Boston sports fan, and an even more dedicated Bruins fan so we commend them on their choice as blogger where he will be contributing at least weekly through the playoffs and, we hope, beyond.
It seems that the Bruins' approach to the NHL trade deadline - to hold steady and remain as is - might just pay off. On Tuesday night, against an Ottawa Senators team that the Globe kindly referred to as "thoroughly disinterested" (read: someone's will to play didn't arrive at the TDBN Garden with the rest of the Senators' gear), the Bruins cruised along to a 4-0 win, extending the winning ways that began out on the road. We're liking these results - and we're also digging Coach Claude Julien's decision to start the game with the bash brothers line (Jeremy Reich, Vladimir Sobotka, and Shawn Thornton).
Today, we're not going to talk about YouKnowWhat XLII. Because there's nothing to talk about. Today, we're going to celebrate two big wins from our two local winter teams. (We will remind you, however, that we'll be live-blogging YouKnowWhat XLII starting 7:30ish on Sunday. Get your commentin' fingers in shape.)
In a sense, it's comforting. The Celtics went to battle against one of the other good Eastern teams without Kevin Garnett, and almost beat 'em. On the day of the C's' long-awaited return to national afternoon TV, the script ran eerily similar to the first game in Orlando; the Magic jumped out to a big lead, the Celtics clawed their way back, but ran out of gas at the end. Orlando's the only team to get a 14-point lead on the Green all year, and they've done it twice.
This morning, the Patriots are headed to Phoenix. Most of America is uncomfortably embracing a New York team as "good"'s only hope against "evil", while we're just waiting and anticipating that Tom Brady will eventually show up and rejoin the team. (We think he will; it's not Manny we're talking about here.)
Let's say you're going to the Celtics-Timberwolves game tonight. If you're like most of the people at Celtics games these days, chances are you weren't there last year. Which is perfectly legal on your part. But there's something you should know. Most of the Timberwolves played here last year, during that long, miserable 06-07 campaign, and several of them - promising, hardworking youngsters for the most part - were sent away to make room for the Celtics team you proudly cheer today.
In a way, it doesn't feel right; the Colts should perhaps be in town today. They are(were) the defending champs, after all. They gave the Patriots the first in a long stretch of runs for their money that the Pats survived. The Dungy-Belichick and Manning-Brady rivalries are about the biggest stories in sports in this young century.
The Bruins have, objectively, been pretty good this year. They're still in playoff position (it's tenuous, but still true), and have won some pretty exciting games. But for some reason, the sight of the Canadiens turns the B's into frightened little kittens, commiting penalties and hanging their goalies out to dry on power play after power play.
There are plenty of reasons to like Doc Rivers right now. Twenty-eight reasons, actually. But we wish we could kindly remind Rivers and the Celtics that you have to focus on winning the little games in order for the big games to mean anything.
The Red Sox won their last seven games. The Celtics have a six-game winning streak. The Patriots haven't lost in - well, we can barely remember. Even the Bruins stopped Atlanta yesterday. So every local team finished 2007 on an up note (yes, Revs, we know, and we're sorry).
One of the most remarkable things about the Celtics' remarkable turnaround is that NBA players actually want to come here. You may remember the lure of playing in Boston almost got Reggie Miller off his couch, and now there's talk that future Hall-of-Famer Gary Payton called his agent the other night and said he'd like to come to Boston.
That's right; we almost had to go in the closets for a rare winter activation of the Panic Button. The Patriots were struggling on offense, dropping passes left and right. The defense really struggled, allowing Raven Willis McGahee to run amok for three quarters. Don Shula was up in the booth with corkscrew in hand. But somehow, the game stayed close. And Tom Brady had a chance to go up the field with 3:30 to...
No matter how old we get, the more we get a kick out of the immature, downright gleeful sensation of zinging another city's team. Case in point: Toronto on Tuesday night. The Maple Leafs hosted Boston, who in turn officially introduced the NHL to Tuukka Rask. Rask, a mere cub at 20 years of age, then made 30 saves and led the Bruins to a 4-2 victory over the Leafs. The zinger? Bruins fans know...
In the first half of the Patriots' perfect-so-far season, there were a few scary moments. There was the time Dallas took the lead in the third quarter, and....well, that was about it, actually. For eight games, the Pats picked the tune, and the opponent either danced along, or more likely, got flung out of the way. We've had our scary moments now. Yesterday was a game when the Pats not only didn't pick the tune,...
Speaking of wanting to appear on Matt Taibbi's Sports Blotter, no local sports figure has craved it more than Billy Tibbetts. Tibbetts, a burly and surly hockey right wing who briefly played for a host of teams - including some in the NHL - and who was on the reality show "Be a Bruin," led police on a high-speed chase in Abington. He eventually crashed into a telephone pole and tried to hide from the cops in a stranger's back yard early Monday morning. Can you imagine looking out the window and wondering, "What the hell is Billy Tibbetts doing in my back yard?"
It may not have been as impressive as the fireworks display later in the evening, but the continued presence of actual offense - beautiful, productive, run-scoring offense - at Fenway Park warmed the hearts of Sox fans and good Americans on the Fourth of July. The immediate beneficiary was Tim Wakefield, who improved to 9-8 after pitching six very fine innings and one-third of a bad one. He fell apart in the seventh, but the...
After three innings last night, the mood at Fenway was as good as it gets. Josh Beckett was on the mound, and the Sox had staked him to a 4-0 lead. The team was hitting well, including superprospect Jacoby Ellsbury, who got his first major-league hit by zipping down the first-base line to beat the throw on a routine ground ball. The Sox even had a helper monkey named Ayla throw out the first pitch....
Jerry Remy summed it up perfectly last night: "Both are terrible." The Rem wasn't talking about the play on display Saturday night at Petco Park in San Diego (although at times, he wouldn't have been far off), but was discussing the throwback uniforms worn by the Sox and Padres last night. Memo to both teams: burn those uniforms now. It looked as if "The Wizard of Oz" had thrown up all over Petco Park. Boston...
You can't help but kind of miss Lenny DiNardo. The guy, for all accounts, is a pretty young, affable, decent enough guy with an arm that wasn't Beckett standout, but still something to look out for. When the Red Sox let him go to clear room on the roster for J.D. Drew, we weren't heartbroken, but there was a moment of disappointment, too. Of course, DiNardo looks even better when he's pitching scoreless ball -...
We've now entered the portion of the 2007 Red Sox season where, frankly, it's not that big a deal if the starters struggle. How long this portion will last, we don't know, but we saw the Sox' offense rescue a queasy Daisuke on Friday, and they bailed out a shaky Wakefield Saturday to club the Rangers 7-4. Wake struggled in the fifth, giving up a two-run double to Gerald Laird as the lowlight of a...
No games last night of local interest. So let's take a spin around the country to see what's going on in the rest of the sporting world.
ESPN has never met a story it couldn't drive into the ground. Remember Terrell Owens' "suicide attempt" last fall? Unfortunately, with the Red Sox off, we need something sporty to talk about, so enter the Worldwide Leader's hyping of Barry Bonds' chase of the home run record. Jayson Stark, probably the best non-Gammons baseball writer out there, is flummoxed that not as many people are against Bonds as everyone seems to think.
Bostonist would much rather sit in an obstructed view right field seat behind a sign-wielding fan gabbing on his cell phone than trade in Fenway Park for a newer model. Whenever Tim Wakefield takes the mound in a domed facility, however, we can't help but wish that there was a canopy or something that the Fenway crew could erect over the ballpark every five days. The typically fluttery knuckleball becomes even screwier, allowing Wakefield to...
There are two types of people in the world: those who are willing to slog through rain, wind, possible snow (hey, you never know) and agony to complete a marathon, and...the other kind. Bostonist freely admits to being the other kind. But to everyone who wills their way through this, we tip our hats, raise our glasses, and count our blessings that we'll be home watching you on TV. If you have time to fiddle...
It seems like just yesterday that we were reading articles about the Sox home-field advantage, the way the team lights up the ballpark when they make it home to Yawkey Way. After Tuesday's 14-3 slaughter of the Mariners, Sox fans made their way into Fenway Park with cameras (lots and LOTS of cameras with very bright flashes) and the hopes that that advantage and the much-hyped Matsuzaka/Ichiro showdown would make for memorable baseball. It was...
It's the day we've all been waiting for, particularly if you're among the 38,805 blessed souls holding tickets to the Sox home opener against Seattle. The Mariners have been snowbound in Cleveland since Thursday; hopefully, they'll be rusty from a long weekend of playing tiddlywinks and touring and retouring the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Josh Beckett goes against Jeff Weaver. The Globe has a photo essay of the preparations for Opening Day. Some...