Stuff to Complain About

• Are we going to sign Marchand, or what?

• I had to retire my Saucony sneakers. They were black 'n yellow Jazz TR 12. I wore them all thru the end of the season and the entire playoffs. They withstood even the 2" deep pool of piss I had to stand in at Sully's during game 7. The tread handled the slick Fleetcenter concrete stairs with aplomb. And it knocked a few minutes off of my pace, too. I stepped in something weird and bright green back in round 1, but since we won round one, I refused to clean it off.

Good Soldiers

• So I've had to spend my summer hockey downtime getting reacquainted with the Sox, and so far I've reached some pretty obvious conclusions: Scutaro sucks. Lowrie sucks. The sellout streak is a FARCE. Some idiot, with the bases loaded, just interfered with Gonzalez trying to catch a foul ball in the stands. What an IDIOT. oh yeah, CAPS.
  
• So, okay, what scheduling GENIUS made it so there were no BOS/MTL that occur on a weekend? What could be more awesome than attending a violent hockey game on a Saturday night? The setting is RIPE for an international incident. This is why the NHL is a failure. Similarly, there's no road trip that involves OTT/MTL on the same weekend, either, continuing to foil my epic plans of B's/OTT/MTL and Tremblant skiing.
• I hope Wheeler is lustily booed when the Jets hit town. The first time he goes offside, everyone should cheer wildly.
• it's awesome how the NHL Network is replaying the Bruins' Cup run. I just watch it and say to the TV, "I know it's only Game 1, but Philly - you got no hope." And, of course, I'm right.
  

Nothing to Complain About

ya know, the B's just won the Cup some 3 weeks ago. The team has plenty of cap space. The core is basically signed long term. They got rid of the 2 schlubs who were kind of sucky last season (Kaberle, Ryder). They have lots of young forwards/defensemen in the minors who are good and will compete for jobs this fall. There's nothing to complain about. What am I gonna do with myself? This is bizarro territory for the long-time Bruins fan. Management, for the first time, doesn't look like retards and actually seems to have a plan.

Kaberle Gone

• Yup, set fire to your Kaberle jerseys. He has jumped ship to land in Carolina. 3 years, $12.75M. That's what, $4.25M/yr? That's a lot of dough and I'm glad that Chiarelli held onto his money. Then the B's traded a 4th rounder for Joe Corvo. Corvo's career: 568 games 79-179-258 204 PIM (too low) but the guy loves to shoot (about 180 shots/year). Plus his salary's a nice, low $2.5M/yr.

• Most folks will say that Kaberle cost a lot but I don't care what Joe Colborne does for the rest of his career - we got the Cup and that's all that matters.

• What's the latest on Marchand? Are the B's gonna sign him or what? Even after they sign him, and Savard retires, there's substantial cap room on the B's roster, like $9M or so. And we finally moved the Peter Schaefer buyout off the books. Still paying for Eaves, though ($258K)
  

• Today, the Habs made a trade, got minor leaguer Dennis Blunden from the Blue Jackets. Dennis Blunden, if you recall, was the overweight computer whiz from Head of the Class. Good move, Gauthier.
  

Free Agent Frenzy

So Brad Richards hasn't been grabbed by anyone yet, but here's some non-expert comments on yesterday's signings.

• Michael Ryder to Dallas. Yup, he of the quick release, the playoff goals, the regular season absentee-ism, our "enigmatic" forward has jetted to the Stars for $3.5M/yr. A little bit of a pay cut for Ryder, but pretty good money for showing for 25% of the games.
• Benoit Pouliot signed by the B's. This one is a head scratcher. But he does have some sort of upside I guess, being 4th overall pick back in the Crosby draft. So he's capable, I guess it's a Claude Julien reclamation project or something.
• Wizniewski to Columbus. They overpaid for him at $5.5M/yr, but he's about ready to make "the leap", so we'll see if the rest of the Columbus team can help him out.
• Chuck Kobasew gone to the Avalanche
• Marco Sturm signed by Vancouver
• Ville Leino signed by Buffalo. Buffalo's really making a push this off-season to win it all next season. Oh man, this is going to get good.
• Alex Auld signs with Ottawa. You pink hats may not remember Auld, but he played for the B's when things were bad - back, back in the dark ages.
• Heater to the Wild for Havlat. Heater's going to get a chance to drive drunk now on Minnesota's icy roads. Watch out, kids.
• Tlusty stays with Carolina. Tlusty is notable mainly because the letters in his last name can be re-arranged to spell "Slutty".
• Brad Richards goes to the Rangers. Guess he loves money & golf! NY is where good players go to get paid well and die.
• Marty Reasoner hooks up with who cares. Someone thinks Marty Reasoner has enough talent to warrant a contract larger than the league minimum. Marty Reasoner has negative skills. I don't get it.
• Ruslan Fedotenko signed by the Rangers. Why. Why does this guy still play. Okay, he will always be on my shit list because I had him in fantasy hockey (got him as an afterthought in a trade) and he was HORRIBLE.
• Hal Gill sucks.
  

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.