Hockey-Hockey-Hockey Time Again

I was still in the middle of post-trip fuzz last Thursday, when the Bruins opened their full training camp, but not so much that I didn't notice when the news broke that the Bruins had finally (finally, finally) signed free agent David Pastrnak, something I had been waiting for with increasing worry for over two months (face it, the Bruins don't have the best record when it comes to retaining hot young talent). He's so good; I first mentioned him here in 2014, and often since, as by now he has proven himself pretty decently. The last few months have been full of hockey-blog posts that boiled down to (and sometimes stated outright), "Pay the man! Just pay him!" And the Bruins kept not doing it.

But look, they didn't screw it up! He missed a few days of camp, having to fly over from the Czech Republic (or Czechia, I'm not sure how widespread the new name is)(he just calls it Czech himself, to confuse me further), but now he's signed, and camp is on, and the exhibition games have started.

Because not all the preseason games are broadcast, on Monday night, the first game against Montreal, I went online to see if the Canadiens' station was carrying the game, and found a baseball game, of all things in the hockey-mad north. The best I could find was a French-language station covering it, which I listened to for a while, picking out words here and there--at least I understood that it was Boston 3, Montreal 2 at the end of the second period*--but overall not getting the full idea of what was happening. Still, hockey! It sounded right, even as it sounded wrong.
*That was the final score, and no matter how much you believe that the results don't matter in the preseason, beating Montreal always feels good.

Last night they were in Boston, and the game was on the Bruins radio station, so I could listen to it in English. And you know what that means, right?

Internet, bah! Transistor radio time.

Then tomorrow night's game is on NESN. We're just all over the place here. And so happy that hockey is back.