This time its all about Peter Chiarelli. We Bruins fans knew with all our heart that there was no way the Bruins were going to land the only person out there who can thread a need with his stick and score goals at will. Ilya Kovalchuk would never see what the Zakim Bridge looks like at night all lit up. Despite all our hopes and dreams, admit it, we knew it was just that. A pipe dream.
Chiarelli said that he was not going to trade the Toronto draft pick he acquired for Phil Kessel. He said he was not going to mortgage the team for a rental. All those cliches to NOT do something. Well, Mr. Chiarelli, it’s time you tell us…or better yet show us what you ARE going to do. We’ve had enough of what isn’t being done to improve this joke of a team, please give us something, anything that will give us hope of what the local hockey product claims to be a professional hockey club cuz right now I don’t see it! Did you hear Claude Julien say that this team “dominated” the Washington Capitals on Tuesday? Is management on this team really thinking that the team is good? Granted they have played the last two games with more intensity that the past two weeks, but they are in 12th place in the Eastern Conference. Twelth place! They could have given up that Toronto pick for Ilya Kovalchuk (there I go dreaming again) because they are gonna have their own top 5 pick.
So now the General Manager needs to tell us and show us exactly why we should be laying down good money to watch such pitiful games. Why we should even care about the Boston Bruins. (because we will always care..its what we hockey fans do) And that’s the rub. We watch every game, we root for the team to do well even though we know in the end that this organization will do its damnedest to break everyone’s heart. Chiarelli tells us he’s not going to do this and that and meanwhile he is doing absolutely nothing which means wait till next year!
The Coach has rose colored glasses on if he thinks this team is playing well with nothing to show for it.
I and the fans should be used to this but because we care it really does hurt. Especially since this goes on constantly. It was pretty much the same in Harry Sinden’s later years and the Mike O’Connell years were just tragic.
Now we have the “Outsiders” who don’t seem to know what they are doing to rescue the B’s from oblivion. There must be reason Julien was fired twice….once with an overall first place team with 2 games left before heading into the playoffs! Last years over achievers have left us with the Chicken Little syndrome.

-Diehard

Ya know, sometimes there comes something from someone that is truly right on the money. My friend Coop sent this missive about hockey which shows he is not only a good writer but as passionate about hockey and our beloved Bruins as anyone. Here is what Coop says about hockey in general and I really could not have put all these thoughts in one sitting like he did. So enjoy!

“Enough with the shoot out. End it. 4 on 4 for 5 minutes, 3 on 3 for 5 minutes. No goals? A tie. The shoot-outs BORE me. It’s fun to watch a guy on a breakaway, only if a defender is busting his ass to catch him. Do you think in a million, yes a MILLION years we would see a move like Kopitar’s in a game with someone racing after him? Never. The fights are stupid, the shoot-out is stupid, give me 60 minutes of hockey, 10 minutes of modified hockey, no winner? Tie game, one point each. See you in the playoffs. Why aren’t the players credited with a goal on their records if they bury one in the shoot-out? I am so disappointed with our guys this year. I give them my heart every season, and it gets crushed like an abandoned car at Stinky’s Auto Salvage. I remember when a fight excited me, now it’s just absurd. Some guy lays a great hip check on Joe Schmeaux coming into the offensive zone, a perfectly legal, hard check, Schmeaux is floored, and 4 of his teammates rush over to fight the guy that checked him. CHECKING is LEGAL in hockey. Shmeaux should get up, take a number, and throw a check, or score a goal to burn the player (lets call him Murray Hamilton *look it up*, and his team later.) Two guys with face shields wrestling for a minute is about as thrilling as watching my puppy dog. Hockey is never going to get better TV ratings than CSI-Brighton, but there are hundreds of thousands of fans that live and breathe hockey, think about them (us), hockey is WORLDWIDE, there is a league in Russia that can lure layers away from the NHL, paying them millions. We have a great sport, bleep the salary cap, the best teams should be able to get the best players. If that means Bah-Bye to Columbus and Nashville and Atlanta, so be it . If your pond don’t freeze in January, you ain’t a hockey market. The Bruins are NEVER going to win the cup with Jeremy Jacobspenis owning the club. They don’t try to market sailing in Nebraska, so don’t try to sell hockey in Nashville. We need a 24 team league, 12 teams each conference, give us the best you can offer. I love the Bruins and want them to win, but if you give me a dynamite playoff series with Toronto against Los Angeles, I will watch every minute. (I know I said “pond freezing” earlier, but LA is the one warm weather exception to the warm weather rule, we can live without Anaheim, San Jose, Florida and Tampa Bay, put a club in Seattle-former home to the Metropolitans, or Portland, if you have to, and see what transpires). With the HD TV, the game looks GREAT on TV, even though I’m a die-hard, the biscuit was a tad hard to pick up on Ch. 38 back in the day, squinting was not optional, it was mandatory. Not everyone likes Def Leppard, not everyone likes hockey, let’s try to make the game good for the people that like it like us, and try a bit to recruit the people hanging on the fence. There are millions and millions of folks who love the game of stick and puck, so let’s make them happy and excited, if our efforts reinforce their love and get a few folks hanging on the fence over to our side let’s do it. Remember, once you have seem a hockey game in person, LIVE, you are a fan, FOR LIFE. Teams should give FREE tickets out to groups in their areas, offering them seats at a game, GOOD seats. Once you have seen a game live, you are on board, you know it, I know it. Sitting in the stands, hearing the sounds of the game and leaving your seat when the locals score is the nucking futs, you WILL be hooked for life on hockey. One other thing that has to change. GOALS. It is complete bullsh*t when a goal is waved off because it was “kicked in”, that is complete bullsh*t. If you have the skills to direct the puck into the net with your skate, your nose, your swinging johnson, your knee… Outstanding – it is a GOAL!!!!!”. Awesome!!! Line up for a face off. Same thing with a leg, a hand, an elbow, anything. Like soccer, if you have the skills to get the puck in he net, it is a bleeping GOAL. Testes, heads, ankle, chest. faces, (Andy Brickley, anyone?) bums, shoulders, hands…. If you’ve got the skills to knock it in, well, then…. It is a …. G O A L. , yes … A G O A L! …. Yay! (the fans do not leave their seats yelling….. “Wasn’t that an outstanding wrist shot???”, “Wasn’t that a really great dump and chase play???? (AHHHHHHH, on that one!! ) direct it in with the shaft of your composite material hockey stick… G O A L!. Crash the net and blast the goalie and the puck into the net, G O A L, (I know that you will hate that one RICARDOAVACARDO, but too, bad, you should have played left-wing then you wouldn’t be biased towards the crease resident), if you can get the puck over the goal line, more power to you! I am not saying you should cross-check the gardien de buts in the head to score, but good a smashing of puck, body, ice shards, equipment, the full Sex And The City DVD Compilation, mouth piece, CCM’s, an autographed 5 X 8 of the great man tucked in your shin pad, banana cup, Gold Bond powder liberally applied to the crotch area, laces, skates, appropriate hockey undergarments, a serious knob on the top of your shaft, your shaft, the realization that while you are falling into the net, you are participating in the greatest sport on the globe, f*ck what Latin America says about Futball (soccer), what those tea-sipping florists in India and Australia say about cricket, you know I know that there is hockey, and there is everything else…… And!!!!!! It is better to have played hockey and lost….. than it is to have played basketball. Do not even get me started on golf. Here’s to ya my puck loving chums!!!!!!! God bless both of you…. You hockey enthusiasts! I love both of you. G0 Bruins! Your chum, B. Scot L. Cooper, currently with fingers crossed, hoping for a Bruins victory, Tuesday evening against the Washington Crapitals.

Well Done Coop!

-Diehard

OK Boys and Girls. Are we ready for another trade deadline passage where the Bruins do little or nothing. We have seen this before. Last years trade deadline brought us Mark Recchi and that’s all! The last trade of any significance was in 2003 when they traded some guy named Jeff Jillson for Brad Boyes! Between then and now, we have been forced to see them stand pat with the team they began the season with. I don’t expect anything less this year! Another lost season for the hard working folks who fork over thousands for the right to see this team score more than three goals just once in the New Year which amounts to 14 games.
Lets face it…last season was a pure and simple over acheivement for the Boston Bruins. From Coach of the Year, to Vezina and Norris. Yes they all played well, but it was a perfect storm and you had reason to believe that it would be a learning process for the players and they woould be better this season. Instead, tons of under achieving by this team. Listless play and looking like they haven’t a clue on most fundamentals. And of course, there are the injuries. But sorry, this team, injuries aside is just a horrible team. No one shows accountablilty for themselves and it sure seams to me that the coach isn’t holding them accountable. The players still have the ice time despite the no emotion figure eights they are doing out there. How long is this supposed to go on. Are they looking for their own top three pick to go along with the one they may or may not get from the Toronto Maple Leafs? The Leafs went out and got a solid 24 year old defenceman in Dion Phaneuf and what I think is the key to more winning is former Conn Smythe winner Jean-Sebastien Giguere as their goaltender.
So we have 31 days to see if your Boston Bruins have the fortitude to go out and do something that will improve the team to where they make the playoffs or as is usually the case, do nothing and tell the fandom too bad we have your money and we know you are not gonna give us up….yet!

-Diehard