Dan
Shaughnessy Sucks –
This is only the third Bruins
piece since I began this feature. Shaughnessy’s first. Very exciting. I’m
expecting at least half of it will be quotes from Claude Julien, there will be
some gushing about a white role player and he’ll make mention of a time when a
Boston team lost for no apparent reason.
(Shaughnessy’s smelly douche in bold,
my springtime fresh chicanery in plain.)
In A Season Of Change, It Was
Perfect Timing All Around
My favorite Art Garfunkel song.
The Red Sox are in last place,
Whoop, cancel my season tickets.
the Patriots are out of season,
Lazy football players not playing
football when I demand it.
and the Celtics are out of
luck.
Um, hello? Patrick O’Bryant is
perfectly healthy!
This is the Bruins' chance to
take back the sports night in an age-old hockey
town.
If only the sport still existed..
It's time for the local skaters
to step up,
Boitano, I’m looking at you.
which is exactly what happened
at (what do we call it this week?)
Anything but the
Yargh!
last night.
Thirsty for their first sip
from the icy chalice in 37 years,
Whew, that was strangely erotic.
the suddenly formidable Bruins
kicked off their Cup quest on
Lousy secessionists..
The Bruins effectively won it
on a booming slap shot by Zdeno Chara with
It was the first playoff game
of any kind in Boston since late October, when
the Sox came back from a seven-run deficit in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series against Tampa.
Oh yeah, that series they lost. As
usual, thanks for the memories Dan.
And it was worth the wait.
Except Versus is the only station
that carries hockey anymore and only could televise one of the four games on
that night; while TNT & ESPN are airing every single goddam basketball game
over the next two months, because that league still cares about its fans.
Our town was badly in need of
some good news. Celtics playoff hopes were crushed early yesterday when Doc Rivers went on the radio and announced that Kevin Garnett is done for the season. At dinnertime,
Hey man, I took the KG news pretty
bad too.
It was time for the Bruins to
do what they used to do on a regular basis: make everybody feel good.
Bow-chika-bow-wow.
The Bruins delivered. It was
2-2 midway through the third, but just when it was looking like we might be in
for a dreaded overtime, Chara - the biggest man ever to lace 'em up in the NHL
–
Shaq, the gauntlet has been
dropped.
blasted a slap shot past
helpless Habs goalie Carey
Price. The Big Slovakian, you might remember, set a record with a
105.4-mile-per-hour slapper at the All-Star skills competition in
Remember it? I was killed
by it!
This one might have been a mere
100, and poor Price looked like Bob "Beetle" Bailey staring at a Rich Gossage fastball.
I can’t even visualize that.
Clearly, my imagination is not nearly as strong as Shaughnessy’s.
"The monster was waiting
back there with his stick touching the roof," said Bruins center Marc Savard.
Now that’s what she said.
"See an opening and go for
it and try to shoot it," Chara said softly.
Ibid.
"He's our heart and soul,
and I can't say enough about him," coach Claude Julien said. "I like
the way he led our team tonight, and it's quite appropriate he scored the
winner."
C’mon, keep the quotes comin’ Dan!
Recycle other people’s words! For the environment!
Phil
Kessel potted an empty-netter
in the closing seconds, then there was a predictable melee at the buzzer, but
Chara's power-play goal goes down as the top moment of the postseason's first
night.
It was loud during the pregame
- much like last April when the Bruins outfought Montreal in Game 6 of a
first-round series they wound up losing at the Bell
Centre. Veteran crooner Rene Rancourt
brought his "A" game for both national anthems.
Rene kicked that anthem’s ass!
Bruins players fidgeted
ferociously while Rancourt delivered the goods. Shawn
Thornton looked like he would come out of his skates.
Goodness!
/monacle drops into champagne
glass
The packed house was no less
inspired and drowned out every word after "banner yet wave . . . "
Those jerks, you couldn’t hear
Rene kick anthem asses!
The Bruins struck first on a
goal by Kessel, who was benched in the middle of last season's series. Kessel banged
home a shot from in front of the crease after the puck was poked away from
Price.
Puck-Poke!
A minute and a half later, it
was 2-0 when David Krejci took a pass from Michael Ryder and backhanded it past Price.
Sieve! Sieve! Sieve! Sieve!
Garden fans got a little full
of themselves for a few moments, but the hilarity was short-lived as the Habs
cut it to 2-1 on a goal by Christopher Higgins.
Sounds like a fucking McSweeney’s
writer.
It stayed that way until the
18th minute of the second period, when the Canadiens
tied it on a sensational one-timer by Alex Kovalev.
The Bruins had just killed a penalty and looked safe to take a 2-1 lead into
the third when Montreal's veteran winger blasted the puck into the only 3-inch
corner (top right) that wasn't covered.
Tim Thomas has clearly
never been to prison. Didn’t cover all his holes.
The Canadiens had exactly what
they wanted: a 2-2 game after two and a chance to win. It was a little shocking
for the Bruins and their fans. The Canadiens applied more body than they had
during the season when they were dominated by the Bruins. Boston went 5-0-1
against Montreal during the regular season and expected to continue its
dominance as the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
Which is probably what Montreal
thought last season when they were the one-seed and Boston was
the eight-seed, but whatever.
"You have so much eneregy
before the game, and then I think we were a little flat for those first two
periods," said Savard. "But I thought in the third we picked it up.
It wasn't our best game, but we got the result we wanted."
Marc Savard’s Eneregy Drink,
brought to you by the editors at the Boston Globe.
Never discount history in these
matters.
You won’t make anything back on
overhead.
It was the immortal John
McNamara
Johnny Mac!
who once said, "I don't
want to hear about history or chokin' or any of that crap," but any time
the Bruins meet the Habs, it's hard to toss out that little 45-year stretch in
which the Canadiens won an astounding 18 consecutive playoff series against
Boston.
More bad memories brought to you
by Danny Shaughn.
History has not been the
Bruins' friend in recent decades.
Well fuck history then!
In addition to the 37-year Cup
drought, there is the embarrassing fact that the franchise has won only one playoff
series in the last 15 years. Hard to get your hockey arms around that one.
Wha?
But now they have a team that
won more regular-season games (53) than any team since the Orr-Espo marauders
of 1971-72 and they give
Jinx. Jinx. Jinx.
It's the Bruins' time, and in
Game 1, they seized the day.
Isn’t that a song from Fame?
Dan
Shaughnessy is a Globe
columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. 
~~~
Another
Shaughnessy masterpiece. Not much to say here except, Hey ESPN, buy hockey
back. I miss it.