Misc.

Bruins selected in the 2nd round, 4oth overall, Alexander Khokhlachev. The kid can snipe a little, that is for certain. That's 2 silent h's.

Misc. again

Jay Mohr. I forgot to rip into Mohr's performance at the awards show. Actually, ya know, he wasn't that bad. A lot of his jokes fell flat on the live audience, but they weren't that bad ya know. His best line, "I'm glad the NHL gave me a nice, quiet auditorium where I can practice my jokes." At least he's fully aware that his own career's in the shitter because he didn't know when to stop making the Chris Walken impression. Actually, ya know when his career went bad? When he played that dick sports agent in Jerry Maguire. After that, no one wanted him around. Jay Mohr reminds me of the E-Trade baby, but all-growns-up. And who doesn't want to kick the E-Trade baby in the face??? Who wants to receive investment advice from a baby standing up in his crib, wearing a visor, honing his douche-shtick? That's like GMC trying to sell their trucks with, ah, some pussy-ass band playing in the background like Sister Hazel or Train or whoever the hell that is. Nothing says "V8" like "Maroon 5", amirite? Also, the audience is, like, Euro folks and they have a different sense of humor (I guess?). And for music, you get the Dierks Bentley for the North American crowd and whateverthefuck that other group was (Far East Persuasion? or some shit) for the French Canadians and the Euros in the crowd. Just awkward as hell, them awards shows.

Any sign of Marchand slowing down yet?

Misc.

• Tim Thomas wins the Vezina. Like there was any doubt?
• Lidstrom wins the Norris. FIX. Should have been Chara - of course, right? But Chara got the consolation prize in the form of the Mark Messier Award. No one really knows what the award is, but he got it.
• Bruins selected defenseman Dougie Hamilton 9th overall in the draft. He's about 6'-5" about 190lbs. He's going to be nasty when he grows into himself.
• The dismantling of Confederate Flag hockey continues as the Winnipeg Jets officially are the Winnipeg Jets.
• Hal Gill re-signed with the Habs, 1 year for $2.25M. Hal Gill Sucks. Habs also re-signed Mathieu Darche and Max Pacioretty. Terms aren't interesting or worth reporting for them because they both suck. Also, Andrei Markov re-signed for a couple billion as well. 3 years, $17 million or something. He'll get injured.
  
• How bout that, the Flyers blowin' it up, sending Carter & Richards packin'. I figured Richards to be Mr. Flyer, never to be traded, but I was wrong as usual.
  
• So the awards the other night, the draft tonight, more draft tomorrow, then free agency in about a week or so. It never ends. Which is good because baseball seems so boring by comparison.
  

I like winning. Winning is good.

Hey, didja hear? The Bruins won the Stanley Cup.

You know, we predicted this. No, really. Check our January 28, 2011 post, titled "Plan the Parade Route". I wish I could take credit for that, but I had little to do with that post - I just heard the theories all along and another contributor decided to put his thoughts out there into the aether where it sits in perpetuity.

Most of Vf311 caught Game 7 at Sully's Tap. It was pretty insane inside. It got really insane on Marchand's (Marshmont) empty-net goal.
I don't have a smartphone, I have a dumbphone. With awful lighting and everyone spazzing out, it's just a blur of stuff. Then after about 20 minutes of celebrating and trying to not slip on the beer-soaked floor, headed out onto Canal St. where the po po had set up a weird corral for us cattle. All side streets were shut down, had to walk to Haymarket before finding my way to Charlestown. It was odd how everyone was herded into 3 main blocks. But nothing really happened, just a buncha folks whooping it up.

Game 6 featured some interesting folks in front of us - they claimed to be cousins of Marchand (Marshmont)

unverified relatives of Marshmont; the shine off that guy's dome was remarkable

So today was the Parade. Some of Vf311 hung out on Tremont St. Lots of people - duh. Got there real early, had a large breakfast, then waited for the duck boats to arrive. I got mainly photos of everyone else's cameras being raised in the air.

Thomas & Chara

The pre-parade rally featured some rapping by white boy Marshmont as he spit some rhymes from Wiz Khalifa's "Black 'n Yellow". Then Bergeron snatched the mic away from Marshmont because Marshmont was still bombed out of his tree.
I screwed when it was over. There was a lot of humanity out there.

HAHAHAHA!

Wow.

We finally did it.

A big thanks to "Morale Officer" for keeping this blog going. I know I haven't wrote in over a year. Today is a great day to be back.

I ran into Don Cherry at Logan flying back to Austin after Game 6. I said to him "Coach Cherry, remember, the story lines too good for the Bruins not to take it home."

And the story was too good.

As a sports fan, you dream of a team like this. A team to tell your kids about. A team that embodies everything you want to root for. I mean, look at these guys. Timmy, Patrice, Shawn, etc.

Heroes. Forever.

This is beyond the guys on this team. They did everything so many teams couldn't. Growing up watching Ray, Cam, Andy. They were my heroes, but they couldn't do it. This team did.

This one is really for the fans. All of us. Some of the greatest people I've ever met in my life. Section 311. This one is for all those half empty games in the Garden. The losses. Toiling. Toiling away. To my favorite season ticket holder who has had a single ticket for over 30 years, and brings us all candy for every game, and sends me Bruins care packages in Austin. For keeping the faith. For the laughs, for the tears. For wishing. For hoping. Some day. Some f'in day we'd win the Stanley Cup.

And we did. Last night awash in beer, cheap champagne, cigar ash, and yes tears. I couldn't believe it. I still can't believe it now. Waking up this morning, realizing we finally did it, not giving a damn about anything else in the world. We won the Cup. The Boston f'in Bruins finally won the Cup.

To the games we couldn't GIVE away tickets to. To the game in the snowstorm against the Devils a few years ago, with 200 fans in the Garden. To Sully's Tap for hosting us for so many times we will always remember, and nights we can't remember! To Game 6 against Montreal when hockey FINALLY came back in this town.

To Timmy's paddle save. To Horton's OT goals. To the Kid Seguin having his break out game. To Thornton coming back and bringing so much energy to this team. To Marchand's gorgeous shorthanded goal, and to being a god damn rat who we'd hate if he wasn't a Bruin. To Chara for always poking away the puck. To Looch playing Black and Gold hockey since he first put on the spoked B, and to keeping it going. To Savvy. This cup is yours to. For always making the play. For Campbell and Peverley and Kelly for playing the unsung heroes. For Mark f'in Recchi. For giving this team the veteran leadership they DESPERATELY needed. For Krejci giving us a shot. Yes, to Michael Ryder for showing up. To Patrice for being the ultimate team player you want your kids to play like. For Johnny Boychuck for straight destroying dudes. For Tuukka for holding it down last year. For Adam Mcquaid for stepping up when he had to. For Seidenberg for just playing damn good Defense down the stretch. For Ference, always steady. Even for Tomas Kaberle, you're here too.

For my dad for taking me to the Old Garden and teaching me how to skate. To my brother, who I'll never forget buying NHL 93 with in change we saved from recycling cans. To my mom who hasn't watched this much Bruins hockey since the early 70's.

And most importantly. For 311. For Section 311. For all of us. All those nights, all the great times. All the bad times.

We did it. We won the F'in Stanley Cup!

Hahahahaha!

I hate Max Lapierre

Of all people, Maxim Lapierre...

• The Bruins got out-played physically by the 'nucks tonight, who were emboldened by playing in front of their raucous home crowd. Luongo gets the shutout but wasn't really tested, just like the other 2 games in Vancouver. Rather, the Vancouver defense actually felt like playing again.
• Luongo's goalie mask/helmet thing looks like he was pissed on. Like yellow snow. Watch out where the huskies go....
• Officially sick of Emerick. Either because he's screwing up names, or looks like my mom's aunt, or not varying his language well enough, I don't know. Boston fans need the homer-ism of Jack Edwards.
• Milbury, actually being forced (conspiracy theory) to say something nice about the Sedins actually playing well during one of the intermissions. You and I both know he hates them and the Euro game, destroying his rock 'em sock 'em hockey.
  
• NBA guard Steve Nash, whose bro in law is Manny Malhotra, picked the 'nucks in 7 games. Like he'd go against his relative. Dumb question by the media.

• Yeah, that was ex-Hab Max Lapierre, bringing some of the ghosts from the old Montreal Forum with him to Vancouver to kick sand in the Bruins face. I would rather anyone else, even Burrows, over Lapierre. HORRIBLE. Thomas didn't get a good push-off with his opposite leg there, but he actually saved the shot but rolled the wrong way due to his momentum and the puck plopped in over the goal line. That's brutal stuff, he'll see that shit in his dreams for the next few days.
• Vancouver the city looks like a nice place. Ocean over here, mountains over there, looks like they may have it all. How close is the skiing (Banff/Whistler/Blackcomb)?
  

Mercy!

The B's made the Canucks their prison bitch last night, crushing them 8-1.

• Game was a lot closer for awhile in the beginning. The first period ended, 0-0 with Thomas making crazy saves as usual.
• Then they got a fluke goal and then the floodgates opened. Ference is mad clutch. I actually told the guy to my left during the first intermission, "Ference is so clutch". Then he scored 11 seconds in.
  
• That Marchand goal, holy shit, that was something else. Steals from one of the Sedin Sisters, smokes, uh, Edler or something, beats Kesler, then beats Luongo. Then kisses his glove in front of the 'nucks bench.
• Having 'nuck fans in the arena, with those colors, felt very Whalers-ish, like the Canes were in town. Most of 'em looked Samoan.
  
• The drama/circus that was the 2nd & 3rd period, I don't see that happening again. The whole finger thing, the scrums, the 10-minute misconducts, the NHL doesn't want that stuff happening again. As much as it makes people watch the game, they don't want it for some reason. I dunno.
• Possibly the defining moment of Tim Thomas' season, if not career, could be that check he did on one of the Sedins. No one was expecting that, for him to just shove the guy while he was trying to field the puck in mid-air. I was wondering if it was a penalty - but what would that penalty be? 2 minutes for being awesome?
• Rogers Network, TSN, and NHL Network were set up at the east entrance to the Gahden. Saw Bob Mackenzie & Ray Ferraro talkin' about stuff.

• So, yeah, all I wanted was 1 good game in this Stanley Cup Finals. Now, I'm actually believing in the team again. The Russian's been cut! Perhaps one could think to what Aaron Ward said a few years ago in the postseason (and I'm paraphrasing here) "[the playoffs are] about finding an identity, then maintaining that identity." So the B's tried to play the prevent defense and the finesse game in Vancouver, but they come home and go "oh yeah, we don't do that; we play like THIS" and then laid the smack down. Or maybe they just wanted to give us all a good show before puking like McNabb. Not McNab.
• The hit on Horton was just horrible - mainly because he was so dazed and the camera zoomed in on his face...and his chest struggling to breathe as the wind was knocked out of him. This one may linger, not only was the hit bad but his head hit the ice weird. Hopefully his recovery is on schedule for next season.
  

Ugh

Paul Revere reacts to Sarah Palin's comments and the Bruins' 0-2 Series hole.

• Okay, what's there to say? I think, generally, the B's have played "okay", and only if they could bury their chances, we'd be talking a different story. Most of the 'nucks backers were thinking that every game would be 6-1 victories. Except the B's have hung around despite being outplayed for a lot of each game. I went from being optimistic saying the B's would win in 6 games; now I'm hoping to not get swept.
• But it just sucks to see someone dominate a game like Tim Thomas only to have him hosed on some play and have Burrows (!) score on him.
• Emerick needs to hit the thesaurus, kids. He used the word "knifed" at least 10 times last night. Also, "squibbed", "ricocheted", "careened".
• Burrows! I told folks, "you're gonna hate him by the end of the series!" folks dismissed me. Now they know what I mean.
• KPD today in the Globe renounced fighting. It was like...I dunno...me renouncing food. He's crossed that line, he says.
• Andrew Alberts! are you KIDDING ME???
• Hal Gill re-signed with the Habs. I forget the terms, but who cares. He suckitude continues at the only place close to home that will actually employ him. Turncoat bastid.
• Seguin had, what, 6 minutes of ice time last night? Paille & Campbell had something like 4 minutes each.
• Ugh. Just win one, okay?