Oh, The Bruins

Following a recent conversation with a friend about my Bruins fandom, I decided to ask the question on Facebook.

Survey time! Am I, in fact, the biggest Bruins fan you know?

Please answer either "yes/absolutely/oh hell yeah," or "actually, I know someone even more crazy than you." Just curious!

Sixteen people commented, and fifteen of them (if I include the smartass response) were versions of yes. One friend said that her brother is a bigger fan than I am, "but not by much!" So I call that fairly conclusive.

And then there was last night's game, which I turned off before it was over.

This is rare for me, unless there's a time zone issue (or, actually, a network issue: tonight's game is on NBCSN and is starting at 8, not 7, so I doubt I will be up for the end even if they play superbly). But last night, man. Well, not the first period, that was okay, and ended with no score, but after that the Bruins played like a peewee team in adult bodies, making mistakes, not making good plays, leaving their poor, minor-league goalies* out to dry. They were down 4-0 after the second, and when it went to 5-0 in the third, off went the TV. I'm not missing sleep for that.
*Tuukka is still out with "general soreness" and hasn't been on the ice, even for practice, since last Thursday. Then Khudobin got hurt in practice on Monday and is out for a few weeks. So Subban and McIntyre were the victims last night. 

Stanley Cup of Chowder, looking at the four-game road trip the Bruins now face, had this to say:

"Should the Bruins not be able to pull out a W at some point, we’re looking at a 3-7-0 start heading into November, and the calls for the coach’s job and drastic changes will start.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Let’s aim small with goals for tonight: how about scoring first?"

They haven't done that yet, six games into the season. It's kind of a miracle that they're even 3-3.

Of course, in commenting on last night's game specifically, SCOC was equally pithy:

"Look, a lot of bad stuff happened in that second period.

But let’s look at the positives:

• There were no sharks on the ice.

• The ice didn’t light on fire.

That’s about it."

Yeah, that really is. You can look at the injury excuses all you want (the goalies aren't the only ones out), but that doesn't excuse how the remaining players are playing. I hope they're just getting settled, and soon they play like a pro team again. Win or lose, that's much more fun to watch.

Basically, the only enjoyable hockey-related thing I've seen recently is this video, of a kids team that got to be on the ice with the Tampa Bay Lightning, and were more excited than I think I have ever been for anything in my life.



If you don't want to watch all the way to the end (and I'm not judging, I know five minutes is a lot of oh-my-gods to get through), then click here to see them at the end, rejoicing over their gloves, which the pro players tapped as they went past. "That was awesome! Oh my god! I'm never washing this glove again!"