Bob Ryan Also Sucks –
My first hockey article!
Us Bruins fans haven’t really been
true Bruins fans for awhile. Really, the team hasn’t been relevant since Neely
& Bourque were slammin’ the boards.
But now we’re good again, so
yayyyyy Bruins!
A good hockey team means Globe
writers actually have to cover hockey for a change. Let’s see
(Ryan’s windbag pomposity in bold,
my windbag pomposity in plain.)
A Happy Return For Ryder So Far
I toldja, boy. I’m a soldja, boy.
I got no choice but to be a Ryyyyyder!.. I got nothin’.
To paraphrase Bill Parcells: In hockey season, hockey players play
hockey.
I’m gonna start off this hockey
article with a football reference, because, eh…hockey.
Take an errant stick in the head?
Sounds good to me. Just keep your
head still, Bob..
Get three "fractured
facial bones" in the forehead?
Hold on, just lemme go get a club.
Can’t believe he’s letting me do this..
Have surgery and then step back
on the ice to play in a real, live NHL game 15 days later?
To be fair, the surgery was
elective. Have you seen Michael’s nose? Actually, you probably haven’t.
Television & hockey don’t mix.
Put up 3-2 -5 numbers in your
first two games, including a pair of goals in last night's 6-0 dispatch of the
Not so mighty anymore, are ya
punks? Suck it, Emilio!
What's the big deal? He's a
hockey player.
Bob Ryan’s patented
“Write-A-Lot-Of-Stuff-And-Then-Utterly-Disregard-It” technique.
"I feel good,"
Ba-na-na-na-na-na-na!
said Michael Ryder,
I knew that he would..
who indeed took that whack in
the forehead from the stick of
It was an intentional high-stick.
Fuck him. Shoulda been ejected..
who really was operated on four
days later, and who now acts as if there is nothing abnormal about getting back
in the lineup so soon after that kind of physical trauma. "I was a bit
worried about my timing and my legs, but it was only two weeks. It didn't take
too long to get it back."
There was lots happening at the
Garden last night.
Lots of hockey stuff.
Ryder and Chuck Kobesaw each
had two goals. Five players had multiple-point games, and it was the first time
that's happened since Dec. 21. Tim Thomas had his first assist of the season.
That’s one more than his basketball
counterpart has..
Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Even Marc Savard had a scuffle,
mixing it up with noted noncombatant Scott Niedermayer.
Scuffle! Scuffle! Scuffle!
Scuffle!
Oh, and Thomas submitted a
richly deserved shutout. You see that 6-0 score and you naturally think about
offense being the story, but this could have been a very different evening of
hockey had the goalkeeper not made some nice early stops. The fact is the
Bruins were outshot, 10-5, in the opening period and the Ducks did have some
legitimate scoring chances.
It’s cause they use that damn
triple-deke V-formation.. HOW DO YOU STOP THAT?!
But if you're looking at the
famed Big Picture,
Is that a WWE wrestler? Or just
another of Bob’s Unnecessary Capitalizations?
there may not have been any
developments bigger than another excellent outing from Ryder, the ex-Canadien
Boooooo!
who was brought here at some
expense to, well, to do exactly what he did last night.
Hooray!
And if he's going to play this
way down the stretch and into the Stanley Cup playoffs, that elusive Cup might
come back to the Hub after all.
Jinx! Jinx! Jinx!
Peter Chiarelli put himself in
the line of fire for the Ryder signing.
There was some Reasonable Doubt
over the acquisition.
Once a promising goal scorer
(25, 30, and 30 in his first three seasons with the Canadiens), the
Newfoundland native slumped to 14-17 -31 totals last season and was not in
uniform for nine of Montreal's 13 Stanley Cup playoff games. But the Bruins general
manager still threw $12 million over three years at Ryder,
Did he have to pick it up?
inducing
Guh. Please never use this word
again, Bob.
him to come our way via free
agency last July 1.
The GM knew one thing for sure,
which was that Ryder had always performed well for Claude Julien, who just
happened to be the Bruins coach.
Sacre bleu!
Julien was Ryder's coach for
three seasons in juniors, seasons that included such totals as 50-58 -108.
Julien also coached Ryder for a season in the AHL and two more in Montreal.
Whether it was button-pushing or stroking
Hey now!
or who knows what, there simply
appeared to be a bond between this particular coach and this particular player.
Claude Julien is the
Francona/Rivers of the NHL. A middling head coach who lucks into a talented
team, will probably win a championship and be beloved for years to come; even
though he may not even be the best coach in his division.
Also, jinx.
Things weren't looking so good
after 20 games. At that point, Ryder was sitting on 3-8 -11 figures and the
fans were getting restless.
The natives demand blood.
BLOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!
But he began to pick it up in
the next 20, going 11-5 -16, and now he is making his GM look very good.
Especially in a thong..
The sturdily built wing has a
shot, all right. "I shot a lot as a kid," Ryder said. "That's
all I did."
Yeah, well so did Timothy
McVeigh..
That shot was in great evidence
on his first goal, which came when the Bruins were nursing a 1-0 lead early on
the second period. Swooping in from the right wing on Jean-Sebastien Giguere,
Ahhh! I’m surrounded by Frenchmen!
he unloaded a rocket that
basically paralyzed the Anaheim netminder.
Seriously. He’s in a wheelchair
now. It’s very sad and depressing.
It was a goal scorer's goal
I thought it was a coalminer’s
goal.
"He's a threat when he's
out there,
And, oddly enough, an even bigger
threat when he’s not.
and, again you see how strong
he is on the puck," said Julien. "He's not an easy guy to push off,
and he wins those battles, and he's still a pretty physical player for a guy
who can score goals. So he brings that element to our hockey club, and I think
three goals now in two games since he's been back definitely helps our
offense."
Scoring goals is good.
Hockey.
Ryder isn't a 50-goal guy,
So fuck him!
but with his equipment,
Brought to you by Easton!
and in this company, he
certainly could get 35 or 40 one of these years. When it comes to goal scoring,
the Bruins are a safety-in-numbers club. No one has gaudy stats (other than
Savard's 46 assists), but right now they have Phil Kessel (25), Ryder (22),
Savard (21), and David Krejci (20) all in the 20s, with Blake Wheeler (17)
reasonably certain to join them. Their production possibilities aren't limited
to one, or even two, lines.
Yes, that’s right ladies &
gentlemen. Three lines. So it’s come to this..
But the numbers on Ryder's
paycheck indicate that management thinks he may be a little more equal than the
others.
Superior equal.
On that fateful evening in Ottawa,
what Ryder was most concerned about when Vermette's stick made that inadvertent
contact with his head was his eye. "That was the thing that gave me the
most concern," he said. "Everything else you can fix, right?"
(shrugs)
I guess.
His eyes are fine.
Like cherry wine.
What he had was damage to
something called the "frontal sinus." It required surgery, and now he
is going to spend the rest of his life with three little metal plates in his
forehead.
No more plane trips for Michael.
He doesn't seem too concerned.
He doesn’t seem too anything. He’s
got plates in his head!
He's a hockey player, isn't he?
I dunno, you’re the one
writing about him! Go to the front of the building you’re in right now and look
up. Does it say TD Banknorth Garden or Dunkin’
Donuts?
He met the media with a
baseball cap worn backward with the word "Ironhead" on it.
I got some of that once. Never got
her number though..
Knowing hockey players, what
else could anybody deduce other than this was his new team nickname?
You could deduce that it was Shawn Thornton’s hat..
"No," he laughed.
"This is a Shawn Thornton hat,"
Aha!
and, sure enough, on the side
it read, "Sugar 22."
“And I began to salivate
profusely.”
"But that's a good
one," he agreed. "I like it."
Take it, Mike. You've certainly
earned it.
And take me too, Mike. Please!
TAKE ME!!
~~~
Bob Ryan
= Hockey expert.
Whether
you play baseball, basketball, hockey or lacrosse.
Bob Ryan will slurp you ‘til you’re virginity’s lost.
Wipe your
chin off, Bob..