Hockey Time!

Can you believe it's hockey time again? The Bruins are playing their first preseason game tonight, up in Montreal. It isn't on TV (well, except on the NHL Network, which I don't get), but it's on the radio, and I've been enjoying it. Jarome Iginla with the first of the season, the first of two power-play goals for the Bruins in the first! Pretty wild.

Meanwhile, my favorite Bruin, Patrice Bergeron, is going to be keeping a diary for ESPN.com this season, yay! He's so amazing. It's even fitting that his first entry is titled "Nobody's Perfect" because he's modest on top of everything else. Take a gander at this, about the end of last season:

I don’t think I would have played had there been a Game 7. I don’t think the doctors would have let me. Because my lung was collapsed 30 percent, I don’t think I would have been able to play.

Yeah, not "I wouldn't have been able to play," but "I don't think they would have let me." With a collapsed lung. And "a separated shoulder, broken rib, torn rib cartilage". Yikes, man.

He ends the piece with this gem:

Hopefully there are many more years ahead of me.

I hope so, too! He's been a Bruins for 10 years, but he's only 28, so he could keep going for some time, thank heavens.

In non-Bruins hockey news, there was a story earlier this month that caught my attention. It's a fact of life that people make mistakes; I hate making them myself, and try hard not to, but they happen, and I do think that how you handle them is almost more important than not making them (a laudable goal, but not one easy to attain). So a good example of this came up in the hockey world, when the Nashville Predators, who are often referred to as the Preds, sent out a letter to season ticket holders that concluded, "Go, Perds!"

Embarrassing? Sure. But they handled it with humor and, in my opinion, turned the story into a positive. Well done, Nashville.

Now, Iginla just scored again, and I'm off to concentrate on the rest of the game. I truly believe the score in a preseason game is meaningless ... but I'm still really enjoying listening. Go Bruins!