Bruins camp opened Tuesday with dry-land testing and training, featuring the dreaded shuttle run. Thirty yards, up and back, eight times. And they do it three times over. In 100-degree heat. ::clunk::
It’s like boot camp, I guess. Physical testing is secondary. I think they just want to put these guys through torture to see how close they come to cracking. Mwahahahaha. Also, by the time they hit the ice (first session is Wednesday afternoon), they’ll probably be so happy/eager to be out there they’ll do anything they’re told. (More evil laughter).
First things first, though. Wednesday morning, I got a Tweet with this picture, before I even got out of bed:
Everybody into the pool!
Jump in with sweatshirts on, tread water, take sweatshirt off, hold over head, put back on, swim to side. (And I’m thinking, what if one of these kids can’t swim? Well, apparently they all can. Thank goodness.)
John Bishop of www.bostonbruins.com is live blogging the camp, and also has provided local media updates here. Day one in a nutshell, the media are swarming around Tyler Seguin (no surprise), his teammates don’t mind (no surprise) and Joe Colborne has taken up the leadership mantle in his third camp (mild surprise).
And in a (sort of) related note, Tyler Seguin has been discovered by the local gossip media. He’s sooo cute!
Sigh.
I’ll be attending camp Friday at the practice arena in Wilmington, so I’ll have a report here. Stay tuned!
I spent most of the day Saturday watching the second round of the draft and stressing over the Marc Savard trade rumors. Then I received this Tweet from the Bruins:
GM Peter Chiarelli just announced that the Bruins have acquired unsigned draft choice David Warsofsky in exchange for Vladimir Sobotka.
And I cried.
I cried over the Bruins losing Vladimir Sobotka, a little guy with a huge heart, a guy who hits like like a freight train.
The big man in a little man’s body. Or, as he has been dubbed on the Web, the SOB. The Little Ball of Hate. A pest, but not a punk, who plays the game the right way. I always thought of him as a minature bull, charging around, hitting anything bigger than him. Which was pretty much everything.
Used sparingly, moved from role to role (set-up center; checking center; wing), never logging enough ice time, up and down from Providence to Boston, he hung in there and finally got a chance to shine in the first round of the playoffs this year, driving the Sabres mad. Unfortunately, he aggravated a shoulder injury late in the series and was consequently robbed of his effectiveness against Philadelphia, one of myriad (but unreported) Bruins injuries. Sobotka’s ineffectiveness against Philly was ignored in the rush to scream about the Bruins’ collapse, but it was a factor.
And now he’s gone. And the worst part of it, beyond losing a player who was born to wear the Spoked B, is that next to nobody cares. “Garbage in, garbage out,” one message board poster wrote.
How sad. How wrong. How cavalier, not only to disparage a player who laid it on the line every time he stepped on the ice, but to dismiss the feelings of those of us who love him.
Take good care of him, St. Louis. Appreciate him, because he’ll give you everything he’s got. He can’t play any other way.
I knew when the Bruins lost four straight to the Flyers in the Eastern Conference semifinal that a significant percentage of Bruins fans were going to go off the deep end, but it’s gone beyond ridiculous. Blogs calling for GM Peter Chiarelli and/or coach Claude Julien to be fired, half the team to be traded, HAVEN’T WE SUFFERED ENOUGH?
Enough already.
What short memories people have. How quickly they forget how mired in mediocrity the Bruins were before the Chiarelli/Julien administration. How many other teams would give anything to be in the Bruins’ situation right now?
I certainly expected frustration and disappointment. I didn’t expect the hysteria and stupidity that is running rampant in New England right now. Even the media has succumbed: Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe (sorry, I’m not going to link his joke of an article) wanted nothing less than an abject apology from Chiarelli at his end-of-season press conference. An apology for what, exactly? A team that was within a hit goalpost (by Milan Lucic, late in Game 7) of moving on to the EC finals despite its players dropping like flies? For not trading half the farm for Ilya Kovalchuk? (Fat lot of good he did for the Devils.) For trading Phil Kessel for Taylor Hall/Tyler Seguin?
I heard a caller to sports radio (yeah, stupid me, but I figured they would have moved on to baseball by now) complain that the Bruins were steamrolling the Flyers in the first three games, and then choked. Already with the revisionist history: The Bruins won the first game 5-4 in overtime, the second 3-2. The score of the third game was 4-1, but that was misleading; it was a one-goal game until late in the third, when a fortuitous bounce put the puck on Mark Recchi’s stick for the third goal, and then Patrice Bergeron added an empty-netter.
Game 4 was a 5-4 Philly win, and the turning point in more ways than one: the Bruins lost David Krejci and the Flyers regained Simon Gagne. Game 5 was the only lopsided game of the series, 4-0 Flyers; then back to one-goal games: Flyers 2-1, and 4-3. Bottom line, this is a series that, with a lucky bounce here or there, could have gone either way. I’m amazed that nobody in the hockey media seems to have pointed this out; guess they’re all too gleeful about the OMG THEY BLEW A 3-0 SERIES LEAD. Yeah, whatever. To paraphrase that noted hockey observer Getrude Stein, a loss is a loss is a loss.
Life goes on. You cry, you pick yourself up, you move on. You don’t let a loss, no matter how devastating, define your career (believe it or not, I actually got into a back-and-forth with a Bruins blogger who is certain this is going to RUIN THE FRANCHISE FOREVER. Seriously.)
Krejci: “It seems like every year we’re getting much closer. We were really close this year but it didn’t happen. Next season everybody is starting from zero points. It’s going to be a new season, new year and everybody’s going to have the same chance, so obviously we’re going to have a good year again, make the playoffs and make a good run.”
Well said. At least the players have some sense, if nobody else does.
I think that as fans, we can all agree that NHL officials have a very difficult job. I think we can also agree that there are times when officials do their jobs VERY badly. Like, if a player has an opponent’s stick lodged in his visor, that maybe it’s high-sticking?
When “High Sticking” is an Understatement
Anyway, as fans, we can whine and complain about the officials. It’s what we do. And we’ll be sure to note that (obviously) the officials have it in for OUR boys, who are clean-living, honest and reverent, and would never dive, high-stick or surreptitiously punch an opponent.
Coaches, however, are not fans. And a coach should not be whining about the officials. Yes, I’m looking at you, Lindy Ruff.
The officials were not out to get the Buffalo Sabres in their first-round series against the Boston Bruins. Trust me on this. That goalie interference that Ruff whined about in Game 4 was identical to one called on the Bruins in Game 1. In six games, the Bruins were whistled for 34 penalties, the Sabres for 36. And the officials missed calls on BOTH sides.
What Ruff really should cry about is the fact that the Sabres went 0-for-19 on the power play. THAT would be understandable.
But no. At the end of Game 5 in Buffalo, Zdeno Chara was returning to the bench when he was slashed from behind by Paul Gaustad. Chara turned around and punched Gaustad in the face. And Ruff wanted Chara suspended as the instigator. (!)
“It’s a serious risk of an instigator when you come in throwing punches,” said Lindy Ruff. “They’ve got to take a hard look at that. Anything in the last five minutes is stupid to do. I like the fact that we had one grab him around the knees, one guy grab him around the waist, and another guy grab him around the neck. And the big man went down. You get in a situation like that, everybody knows the rules. You can’t start slugging people. That’s exactly what Chara was doing. Our response was good to that play.”
Look, you poke a bear, don’t be surprised (or outraged) when the bear turns around and slugs you back, or worse. Anyway, how Ruff could actually make a statement like that and keep a straight face is beyond me (He LIKED the fact that it took three Sabres to bring Chara down? And while we’re on the subject, where’s the penalty for third – and fourth – man in?)
For the record, Chara was given an automatic suspension, which was rescinded less than an hour after the game (probably amongst laughter and a few “are you kiddings”?). Here’s the official rule:
“An instigator of an altercation shall be a player or goalkeeper who by his actions or demeanor demonstrates any/some of the following criteria: distance traveled; gloves off first; first punch thrown; menacing attitude or posture; verbal instigation or threats; conduct in retaliation to a prior game (or season) incident; obvious retribution for a previous incident in the game or season.”
Um yeah, so no suspension for belting someone who slashes you with two seconds left in the game.
Anyway, the bottom line is, blaming the officials for the failure of a team (and the failure, by extention, of the coach) is childish, classless and embarrassing. Lindy Ruff should be happy he’s not coaching in the NBA, or his wallet would be decidedly lighter. Like, $35,000 lighter.
With the exposure of Olympic hockey, and with the Matt Cooke incident provoking headlines, here in New England there has been a lot of hockey talk lately in the media. Unfortunately, that means bandwagon fans and self-proclaimed experts are coming out of the woodwork. If these sorts are driving you mad (as they are me), feel free to direct them here for Savvy’s Rules of Hockey Fandom:
1. Know the sport. This seems like a given, but I’ve actually known of hockey “fans” who don’t know what icing is. There’s no shame in admitting your ignorance. We all had to start somewhere. Learn the game, THEN you can spout off.
2. Know the players. You don’t have to know the entire roster of every team (even the “experts” don’t), but at the very least you should know your own team.
3. Pronounce their names correctly. You may say you are a Bruins fan, but if you can’t pronounce “Lucic,” you are not a Bruins fan. (Hint: it’s not “Loo-shick.”)
4. Don’t wax nostalgic for the “good old days.” Hockey players are bigger, stronger, faster, and, with a few exceptions, better than they were 20, 30, 40 years ago.
5. Don’t whine that you can’t tell who the players are because they wear helmets. If you can’t tell the difference between Alexander Ovechkin and Alexander Semin because of their helmets, you either never watch hockey, or you’re blind.
5a. And don’t opine that the game would be “better” if the players didn’t wear helmets. That is, in a word, insane.
6. Anyone who leaves a game early deserves this:
7. Don’t play the blame game. The other team doesn’t always score because your guy screwed up. Sometimes, the other guy makes a stupendous play. They get paid too.
8. Sometimes, shit happens. The game is played on ice. The puck bounces around. Guys fall down, the puck takes funny bounces. Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes the other guy gets lucky. It’s part of the game.
9. Don’t ever, ever, EVER call an NHL player a pussy. Because, you know, they aren’t. And this is you:
Reportedly during a radio interview yesterday from the NHL general managers’ meeting, you responded to a question about possible discipline regarding Matt Cooke’s hit on Marc Savard Sunday by saying “it wasn’t an elbow.”
Please. Let’s watch the video one more time.
Cooke could have hit Savard with a solid open-ice body check. Instead, he deliberately moved his arm so it made contact with Marc’s head. Whether it was his elbow, shoulder, knee, foot, stick or a tire iron makes no difference (for the record, you can see that it’s neither precisely his elbow nor his shoulder, but somewhere in between that makes the connection). Are you going to make a decision on a suspension based on a few inches? Matt Cooke deliberately attempted to injure Marc Savard, and succeeded. No ifs, and, or buts about it.
I’m certainly not counting on you giving Cooke the 10-game suspension he deserves. Not after you handed Derek Boogard a pathetic two games for a hideous knee-on-knee hit. Not after you ignored Tomas Plekanec butt-ending David Krejci in the face. NHL discipline is, in a word, a joke. But as Marc Savard suffers the pain of a Grade 2 concussion, maybe, just maybe, this time, you’ll do the right thing.
Just imagine this: What if that was Sidney Crosby being carried off the ice on a stretcher? Because if you don’t stop this now, it very well may be, in the very near future.
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