The Renewed Rivalry Dreamed For...

Both teams have defeated competition coming from New York on their way there: and both teams eliminated opponents hailing from Ontario too...

Both teams sport the exact same color scheme - and both have, over the years, courted the exact same talent pool as well (from the lamentable Kevin Stevens to Jarome Iginla, most recently...)

Both teams have won Stanley Cups with the exact same player in their line-up: Mark Recchi.

And, now, the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins are set to do battle once again - the winner representing the Eastern Conference in what probably will be a lopsided battle for that Cup again, advantaging the Western Conference champion (be it Los Angeles, San Jose, Chicago or Detroit.)

But then - the Western Conference champion was a heavy favorite in 2011 too: and the Boston Bruins did defeat that supposed juggernaut to hoist the Cup as the one true NHL champion.

But that is getting ahead of oneself now...!
Let's remain focused on the present task, that which lies ahead for the coming week or so - defeating some sort of cosmic twin opponent.

We say ''cosmic twin'' for various reasons: these teams' histories are intertwined in so many ways.  Both teams are led by a concussion-survivor in the B's Patrice Bergeron and the P's Sidney Crosby. Both teams are perennial contenders, dating back to the days when they were led by Raymond Bourque and Mario Lemieux, respectively - ironically two Québécois by birth who've become Americans by choice. There is bad blood between the teams, too: for it was a P, Matt Cooke, that gave a (all evidence leads to believe career-ending) concussion to Marc Savard - imagine (dream of) the team the Boston Bruins would have if they had Savard as an additional offensive threat...  It was also a P that effectively ended the great Cam Neely's career - when Neely was single-handedly defeating the Pens in the 1991 playoffs and then P-coach (we'll not ever speak his name again - ever!) dispatched a dirty-player to collide with Neely's knee in order to purposefully take him out of the series - which they did. Also, but of considerable lesser importance, there is that color scheme... The Pens used to be blue-garbed but, quite obviously out of envy, they adopted the same colors as the Bruins after a while...  Here are the eventual Stanley Cup champions of 1972, the Boston Bruins, facing off with the Penguins of their era.  Pens' goon Bryan Watson can hardly contain his jealousy of the great Bobby Orr and tries to hurt him - to no avail.  The Bruins' legend roughs him up, instead! Just watch an all-around hockey master, who could do it all on the ice, teaching the lesser opponent not to mess with his success...

Aw, that was beautiful - said Don ''Grapes'' Cherry to Blue. And speaking of success...

The Boston Bruins have already shown that they are a tailor-made team for success in the playoffs - that last year's failure to defend their championship was a fluke (losing to a lesser and lowly Washington Capitals squad that, immediately after, floundered and went nowhere at all; just like they did this year, too. The Caps couldn't handle the New York Rangers - what did the Boston Bruins do to the New York Rangers just now?  They dispatched them in five games!)  

The Bruins allow less goals than the Penguins do and produce more than the P's are used to allow to weak opposition such as the Islanders and Senators.  The B's have a better overall defense, with greater depth, a superior goaltender and four lines that have gelled well together. The Bruins are also more of a tight-fitting team, as the majority of the players have been together for more than three years and most of them were there for the 2011 championship.  Therefore, the nucleus remains that of a champion, even though more than a year removed from it.  The Penguins have their core top three still intact, of course, but then they've assembled a team of mercenaries - that's all.  They must realize that Krejci, Bergeron, Jagr, Marchand, Horton, Lucic, Seguin, Chara, Seidenberg and Krug match up extremely well with Crosby, Malkin, Neal, Kunitz, Iginla, Dupuis, Jokinen, Morrow, Letang, Orpik and Martin - it is only their fans that do not realize it. The Bruins have far more grit then the puny Pens, who rely on the referees not allowing anyone to touch their Sid The Kid and their Evgeni - and yet they still have got Matt Cooke, consummate goon, on their roster - the very same that injured Bruins star Marc Savard.  Forget revenge - this is a cause of JUSTICE. And justice will be served - by the Bruins! The Bruins are better coached too: a distinct advantage in the playoffs.  Aye, this will be a battle for the ages between two well-balanced teams - but only one deserves to win: the team that didn't injure the other's star forward, the team that plays hard but fair, without intent to injure the opponent - the Bruins!

But who cares about all of these stats and long, drawn-out series of numbers and analytics... For it just comes down to simple logic here.  BRUINS defeat PENGUINS - every time out!  A hirsute bear up against a bird that doesn't even fly? Come on!  It is a pre-decided outcome here! Especially since it is long-term competition between the two, a test of endurance such as a best-of-7 series... 

It is but simple pure common sense; such as the following demonstration illustrates perfectly well:

BRUINS IN SIX. 

Many thanks to the little sister's room 

for all the props - and inspiration! 

;-)

Krug The Bruin King!

Krug The Bruin is coming - and not since Kull The Conqueror, Conan The Barbarian, Claw The Unconquered, Beorn The Skin-Changer, Thorin The Dwarf-King, Bard The Bowman, Bilbo Baggins The Hobbit, Thundarr, Valdemar or Solomon Kane has his like been seen or heard of...!  

All of you listen and take heed of this now: beware of Krug The Bruin! 

He wandered for eons in the wastelands of the Spartans (MICHIGAN STATE SPARTANS-CCHA) - and honed his craft with the primal tribes up north (INDIANA ICE-USHL)  until he was free to offer his prowess to the Kingdom of Boston.  Emperor-King Cam saw the skill and strength of this new warrior Divine Providence had brought him - and so he was quick to seize the chance of knighting him so that he remained in the Bruins court (SIGNED BY BOSTON AS A FREE AGENT, MAR. 25, 2012.) 

Krug The Bruin got his first taste of battle as the kingdom repelled another attack from the northern-bound barbares sometimes called Les Canayens (des canailles, by any other name - on MARCH 27 '13 ) at the next solstice - it was an inconclusive skirmish, unsolved by the league's trickery of shooting wizardry that betrays the very essence of these wars on ice. 

Krug The Bruin retired to the forest after that, in order to ressource himself and prepare for the next big battle.  There, he momentarily joined a band of young aspiring Killer B's who'd done battle with another league of icy assassins; these were found to be on a different quest, as they sought a different grail - that of Calder.  In fact, the Calder grail is really a Calder Cauldron - but that is not important right now!   Krug The Bruin joined the battle alongside these other brave warriors from the Island at the crossroads - and he battled well for them.  They advanced, made significant progress in their quest while he was with them and slayed many a foe.- all thanks to the  very same Divine Providence that had brought them all together in the first place.

But then came the time that Krug The Bruin had secretly, in his heart of hearts, hoped and prayed for: the Kingdom of Boston had need of him once more and he was summoned.  Emperor Cam was sternly looking at his gathered forces and he assessed a sudden weakness in them.  A triad of justice on ice had fallen - Sir Ference, Sir Seidenberg and the errant knight Sir Redden - and so the times were dire and Krug The Bruin had to fill that void left in the Bostonian Round Table if victory was to be achieved.  Krug The Bruin was told he had to come in and basically replace three valiant warriors nearly all by himself! 

He did so in brilliant fashion, registering a tally on a show of force, as the Boston battalion overwhelmed the enemy.  However, the enemy came back to make it a challenging contest - but to no avail, as the Boston troops rallied to best the dastardly Lundqvist and wicked Tortorella with, ultimately, three well-aimed strikes against two fool's luck ones.   Emperor Cam was content - but he knew this was but one battle waged - and a war beckoned... The mighty Krug wouldn't have any other way though: ''bring it on'' he howled, fierce as ever, ready as always.  The feudal lord of the castle, Jacobs The First, saw this as a good thing, too - and both he and Emperor Cam saw to it that Krug The Bruin was bestowed with enough servants to make his stay comfortable - and his muscles well taken care of, until the next contest...

And Krug The Bruin was serene - because he was finally in his rightful place - and he would be king!

Beware Krug The Bruin!  For his wrath knows no bounds! 

And he will not stop until he is satiated either...! 

Photo Credits: all here! 

Creative Commons - you gotta love it! 

Unselfish don de soi  - just like the B's! 

They give it their all to win!

And they do! 

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Hey - Robert E. Howard wrote about barbarians he saw in his DREAMS...

J.R.R. Tolkien dreamed up all manners of allegories for what he truly wanted to write about - and did so splendidly well and so inventively that one just got the message - despite all the shenanigans, trolls, dwarves and make-believe fluff sugar-coating it all, really... 

Surely all manners of Boston Bruins fans will follow this piece of fancy of mine just as well - and get the true gist - and true grit - of it...! 

Sempre Por O Melhor

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The Dream Comeback

Not enough can be said about the stunning comeback orchestrated by the Boston Bruins in their do-or-die unlikely Game 7 (unlikely because the Leafs should have spared everyone -including themselves and, most of all, their delusional fanbase- and simply died in Game 5, really)  As they suddenly trailed in the game by three goals in the final frame, the Bruins once again mounted a resilient effort to dig themselves out of the hole they unjustly found themselves in and triumph over adversity in amazing fashion!  What they did, once again and quite simply put, no one had ever done it before in NHL history: they tallied one to make it 2-4, through the poised stick of forward Nathan Horton whose air of professionalism, calm demeanor after scoring, imposes respect right there and then.  Had the comeback fallen short, it would have still remained.  But it wasn't done at all - in fact, the record-setting feat hadn't even begun yet...  And no team had ever comeback after being down three goals in the third period of a decisive game seven: until these Boston Bruins did just that... Watch:




Once the final two minutes of play in regulation were underway, time truly started pressing the Bruins to make something happen.  Pulling the goaltender in favor of an extra attacker almost never works, but they did so anyway - they had no other choice.  The result would not only be favorable this time: it would be magical.  Within 1 minute and 22 seconds, the Bruins scored twice and almost scored a third!  The two goals salvaged their season and sent the game to overtime. And once there, within six minutes of play, the Bruins completed the rally by scoring the winning and decisive goal for the series - and once again it was assistant-captain Patrice Bergeron who scored, he who had tied the game in the first place.   His tying goal had been verbally requested by teammate Milan Lucic too: in the video above you can read on Lucic's lips ''one more'' after he scored on a rebound to make it 3-4.  And they did get ''one more'' - and then nearly another before the end of regulation, which would have been fair given that the Bruins should have won that series in five or six games maximum.  But the suspense - it had to last a little while longer - for the feat to be all that much more impressive, surely.  The same hero who had tied the game was destined to also net the winning tally. 

No Bruin partisan could have dreamed of a better ending, given the incredible circumstances: and what was a dream ending for B's fans was a nightmare for T.O. delusionals. 
And so it goes, as Linda would say...

BOSTON STRONG - as always

We all know what happened in Boston during the 117th edition of the prestigious Boston Marathon - and the subsequent wave of support, worldwide, for the victims of that cowardly act that left many Bostonians scarred for life, both emotionally as physically. Jeff Bauman was one of those people - one of those who lost limbs in the explosions that interrupted the marathon's finish and ended three lives as well. Mister Bauman lost, in fact, both lower limbs and yet he courageously faces the future with optimism.  He even accepted the invitation of the Boston Bruins organization to wave the flag of the new movement that the tragedy gave birth to: ''Boston Strong'' - strong in the face of cowardly terrorist attacks, strong in the advent of more threats mushrooming at every corner, the fruit of pernicious minds that should have never been born.  Boston Strong - when faced with evil. 

Honestly now, if it was you or I, would either one be willing and pre-disposed to go wave a flag at some massively public event, showing your newly-cut off legs, your new wheelchair to which you will be bound for the rest of your days, show up and subject yourself to all the inquisitive eyes of the world - some of which belong to morons who simply do not even get it...?!?  Honestly now - you and I would have declined this invitation - just like many other Boston Bombing victims surely did.  Our collective hat has to be tipped and has to be off for Mister Jeff Bauman - a true survivor.

There is but one easy step to make in order to deter from the original, meaningful and true definition of the Boston Strong campaign though - and to slap it onto mere sports contests. Of course. It was even cute, at first, when a message board user who, coincidentally or not, named himself ''Jon Strong'', lauded all three major Boston teams at once, earlier in May in this manner: commending the Celtics for staving off elimination twice against a purported-to-be mightier Knickerbockers team; lauding the Red Sox for a terrific start to their 2013 season, as they led the major leagues right out of the gate; and applauding the Bruins for taking game one of their first round playoffs match-up with Toronto extremely convincingly by the score of 4 to 1 - which is the way the entire series should have gone, too.  Cute, yes.  Alas, to do that opens the gates for all the morons to walk in and wreak havoc with everything: especially common sense and plain old civility.

For there are troglodytes such as this one from Toronto, who, first off, was obtuse enough to sincerely believe that the mere youthful enthusiasm of his team (all of which had made it to the playoffs for the very first time in their lives) was going to propel them past a former championship team that still retains all the elements required to reclaim said championship.  And that is without taking into account the experience factor, the trademark resilience of the Boston Bruins, the superior talent and skills of the set of players playing in Boston right now (not in 2011, when they won it all - right now) compared to the bunch of still-wet-behind-the-ears neophytes in T.O. today... (Which are, in truth, the same kind of neophytes they've had for over a decade - a decade spent without ever qualifying for the spring ''tournament'' as Europeans call it, always... But that is another aspect we need not address at this time, really.) Graver of all, the Toronto fan made the crucial mistake of never assimilating the true meaning of BOSTON STRONG - and he then cooked up for himself a sign (a professionally-made sign, in the looks anyway; how deceptive looks can be sometimes...) that read... Toronto Stronger.  Stronger?  When there were shootings downtown T.O. did your citizens suffer half as much trauma as Bostonians did, in April of this year?  When is the last time T.O. was hit by something nearly as trying as the Boston Bombing...?  To wish upon T.O. a ''ground zero type of experience'' because of that one turd would be way too extreme - but that is the only way they could possibly prove to be ''stronger'' in any way - if they can, at all. Alas, all that doesn't register with the troglodyte below, wearing shades to mask his shame, we hope: all he could comprehend would be, perhaps, that his slogan makes no sense at all even in the world of sports as neither the Raptors nor the Leafs have had anything to show for themselves that comes even close to match the successes of the Boston teams that they respectively compete against. And the Argonauts are not even in the same league -in all possible meanings of the expression- than the New England Patriots. Also, at blogging time, the New England Revolution is still better than the Toronto F.C. in Major League Soccer; which is, in truth, the real football -European football- but that is another topic once more; one we need not address here and now...

Truly, the Toronto Troglodyte has no base whatsoever on which he could possibly stand and build the foundation of his idiotic statement.  And when one knows the true meaning of the STRONG component at the root of it all, he comes off only as an obnoxious, repulsive, utterly clueless turd totally devoid of class. Sincerely, I doubt that he even had a clue how clueless he was about everything involved here... 

To match up this pathetic troll -one who somehow came out of hiding; 'tis foolishness, I tell you, not courage- therefore, with the amazing example of courage that Mister Jeff Bauman is, is actually in very poor taste as well, indeed.  However, since it has made the rounds in social media and needs to be done, in order for any other troglodytes to, possibly (hopefully) get it - and Lord Knows there are tons of those in various towns too: New York, Montreal, even Boston itself, alas - here we go: 

Photos Credits: Getty Images most probably 

- and the idiot's idiotic pal.

To think that some idiot recuperated that 

badder-than-just-bad idea 

and made it his monicker on NHL.COM 

- whilst he's an avowed Winnipeg fan 

(of all conceivable things to be) 

he chose this heinous way to bash Boston, 

as it eliminated yet another Canadian team, 

but, most appallingly of all, 

NHL.COM just let him do it 

under that very username...?

Boycott NHL.COM - I say!