Yeah, the Bruins

I haven't mentioned the Bruins much lately, other than that I watched a game in Florida, and before that when they fired the coach, and if you know how they're doing (hint: well), that might seem odd. It's partly to do with the weirdness that was their schedule in February.

The NHL season started later than usual this year, thanks to the World Cup of Hockey tournament, and thus the schedule has been what they call "compressed"--more games in less time, meaning more exhaustion and injuries, less practice time, etcetera. This is also the first season the league has had a "bye" week for each team to get five days off in a row, which has been plenty controversial in the execution: more compression on the schedule (leading to things like three games in four nights), teams doing very poorly in first games back, and so on.

So the Bruins in February (and I'm looking at the three full weeks of the month):

• the first week they had all of two games (and fired their coach), with a mysterious four days off in a row
• the second week they had one game, then the bye week gave them six days off
• the third week was their yearly western road trip, meaning they played games that started at 8:30 (so I would have missed part if it had been a work night) and 10:30 (twice)

So basically, after they were playing what seemed like all the time before, there just weren't that many games I could see in February. But this week, things are more normal: they played Sunday afternoon, and last night, and play tomorrow and Saturday. The rest of the season, they have three or four games every week, almost all at times I can see. That will be nice.

And even nicer if they keep winning! Since firing their coach, they are 7-1, which is amazing, and something I was not expecting. If they can keep the pace ... win lots of games ... make the playoffs ... not get blown out in the first round ... well, I can dream, can't I?