Seriously, Bruins fans. You’re embarrassing me.

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.

Image: Boston Bruins logo from NHL.com.

Yet another “mainstream media” guy decides to rag on the NHL. So what else is new, other than the “No Olympic bounce!” bonus this season?

This time around, it’s Mike Freeman of CBSsports.com who is providing us such gems as:

I’m not certain how it happened and don’t know if it was possible for the NHL to stop it from happening but that once-captured post-Olympic hockey glow is now gone. It has dissipated into the ozone and the NHL is back to being ignored by most sports fans.

For the rest of his rant, mostly about how the NHL needs more scoring and is less popular than SpongBob SquarePants, here you go: NHL toils in anonymity

Anyway, my own reaction to this isn’t umbrage that the dedicated sports fans of the United States are stupidly missing out on something great, or that the mainstream media are disrespecting the greatest sport on earth. My reaction? Let them miss out. Please. And mainstream media? You too. Go stalk Tiger Woods or cover the NFL draft like it’s Armaggedon.

Hockey doesn’t need validation from the casual sports fan. It doesn’t need explosive growth. It doesn’t need 24/7 coverage on ESPN (don’t bother them – they’re busy lining up another interview with Pacman Jones).

And as hockey fans, we don’t need to have our sport endorsed by ignoramuses who think a 10-9 game would be more entertaining than a 2-1 game.

And if mass popularity is the measuring stick of success, then shouldn’t “The Dukes of Hazzard” be held up as a shining example of great television?

I cherish my fandom of a “niche” sport, and you should too. The “average” American sports fan is drinking rotgut, while we’re quaffing (and discussing the quality of) the finest wines the world has to offer.

But mum’s the word, OK? Let’s keep this to ourselves.