Results tagged “nhlplayoffs”

Everybody's still alive. But for very different reasons. Bostonist covered the Celtics and the Bruins live, and they won. Now let's try to figure out why.

"This is a nice spring/summer day sometimes where I'm from, so, you know, I enjoy this," said Jason Bay. Bay, as you probably know is from Trail, British Columbia, a collection of 7,000 hardy souls in the middle of a frigid, less-than-hospitable environment*. So the Bronx must have made him feel right at home last night.

Bostonist just finished rereading one of our favorite books, W.P.Kinsella's The Iowa Baseball Confederacy. A tale of time-travel, mysticism and sports, the book's centerpiece is an exhibition game between the 1908 Chicago Cubs and the amateur Iowa Baseball Confederacy All-Stars, which, through a series of events beyond anyone's control, turns into a month-long, time-space bending battle of over 2,000 innings.

It was exactly and totally unlike last season. This time, the #1 seed fully lived up to its poisition, while the #8 seed meekly submitted. Last year, the Bruins were #8, and came out of the series loss with unbounded optimism for the future. This year, the Canadiens were #8, and they're just done.

What a day at the Garden. A little depression, a little mania. A loss, a win. A soul-stealing episode, and a moment of triumph.

    

The State House snazzes up for the Celtics' and Bruins' playoff runs.

We're big microcosm fans here at the Bostonist Sports Department. So we're even more excited by the Bruins than we'd ordinarily be. The story arc for their whole season has been overachievement, resilience, and good old-fashioned grit. They weren't supposed to be in the playoffs. They weren't supposed to hang with the mighty Canadiens. And they sure aren't supposed to be heading back to Montreal for Game Seven.

He says he feels better. He says he's actually felt pretty good for a couple of weeks now. But David Ortiz must feel great today, after his season-long slump ended with a Monster shot grand slam off the hapless Rangers to spark a 11-3 whupping. It was such a rebirth for Papi that his teammates gave him the "silent treatment" in the dugout usually reserved for rookies hitting their first homer.

Some people do their best work under pressure. Maybe that was the key to the Bruins 5-1 win over the Habs last night in Montreal. Phil Kessel, who has spent the majority of the playoffs on the bench, was the spark that got the B’s going in the second period, scoring the first goal for the team. It was the 3rd period when the Bruins decided to show the Canadiens that they weren’t going down without a fight with goals from Glen Metropolit, Zdeno Chara, Marc Savard and Vladimir Sobotka. With this win, the Bruins bring the series back to Boston Saturday night for game 6.

We'll just say pitching was a factor in the Sox-Yankees game last night in New York. To be more specific, the Red Sox pitching - and complete breakdown thereof - allowed the Yanks to run amok, and while the Sox got plenty of offense, it wasn't enough, as the Sox got smacked 15-9.

Time to bring in the big guns. We need what's left of the 2004 Red Sox to make a conference call from the Bronx. We need Terry Francona talking to Claude Julien, David Ortiz talking to Zdeno Chara, Curt Schilling talking to Tim Thomas. Call Dave Roberts and Kevin Millar and get them involved, too. Maybe even Curtis Leskanic is available.

They worked hard enough in Game Two to go to OT. Last night, they took it a step further, as the Bruins beat Montreal for the first time since about 1982 in a thrilling 2-1 OT win at the Garden.

The Bruins had high hopes coming into their first playoff series in years. Within two minutes, though, Montreal had slapped them with a cold dose of bitter reality. The Habs were faster, stronger, more accurate, and less nervous. The result: a 4-1 loss.

It was a lot closer, anyway. That's about the best thing we can take from the Sox' 7-4 loss in Toronto that ended the worldwide road trip and sent the boys home 3-4 and in the AL East cellar.

A very weird day in Boston sports. It's a day when Ghidorah takes the day off, but the Celtics still romp. A day when the Bruins' hard work and perseverance is rewarded with a trip to the torture chamber. And we still don't know what the hell is going on with the Red Sox.