Burly Ironing...?

Warning:

This just exposes the dirty bruins
- SportsVids33

Yep, a comedian from comedy central who obviously knows as much about hockey as he thinks he knows about government (hint; not much). I am sure the Bruins organization has never been dealt such a blow by such a credible source before! I hope the organization and their fans learn a lesson from all this, or they may never be taken seriously by the comedic community ever again!
- Bruinology in reply to SportsVids33

What is THAT all about?
Just a little video found on YouTube - again.
The battle rages on, especially as the playoffs approach once again, and the rather dim chances of a rematch between Boston and Vancouver are there - no matter how unlikely it can be, in truth.
(I mean, Vancouver has so many opponents that can oust them before they make it anywhere close to a Final again: St-Louis, Nashville, Los Angeles, San Jose, Detroit and Chicago to name but those likelier to make the playoffs, at blogging time. Boston has a tough challenger in the NY Rangers - but they are not afraid of them nor of Pittsburgh. New Jersey, Washington, Buffalo and likely first-round opponent Ottawa shouldn't be that difficult for Boston to take apart in five or six games. The Bruins' true toughest opponents in the playoffs last year (Tampa Bay and Montreal) are not even going to make it to the playoffs, this year! (That'll teach them to try soooooo hard to stand in the way of the Champions!) And as for Philadelphia - their Flyers were defeated by Boston last year and the Bruins can do it again, if ever they meet the representatives from the so-called city of brotherly love on their path once more. Vancouver, defeating Chicago once again? Not a chance. But enough about all that...!)

This video that we were talking about - it's here (well, for now it is, at any rate!) and it is but an uncategorizable tasteless bit of vitriol against the Boston Bruins organization - as if this team, the championship team in defence of its title right now, was guilty of all the sins of the league...! Jon Stewart leads the charge here with a barrage of charges made with so-called ''evidence'' - all taken out of context. Great job, Jon!

The video was titled ''The Ironing Is Delicious'' to make use of the form of humor called malapropism which is nothing more, nothing less than the artform of misusing similar sounding words or outright replacing the proper word with a homophone, usually with hilarious results indeed. An example given by the guy who did this was attributed to the one and only (but no Bruin) Yogi Berra and his infamous statement about Texas: "Texas has a lot of electrical votes," he reputedly said, rather than saying "electoral votes". "The Ironing Is Delicious" is actually ripped off from The Simpsons though (how dishearteningly disappointing to see our opponents stoop so low) and therefore cannot be given much praise whatsoever. The video's uploader, the machiavelian MAKAVELI719696, really should have gone for something more original, with a double does of malapropism then, if he likes it so much...? Something like what I just did here, perhaps...? I've got a better one: how about ''The Ironing Is Delirious'' eh? That would have been GRAND. Too bad, MAKAVELI719696 - too bad that you're not me. But you're a Jon Stewart fan - quite obviously.

Let's have a look at this video, then - and we'll come right back after that, with Jon and friends...



So, Jon, you found contentment with taking things from left and right, plastering them all together into a nice montage that supposedly ''proves'' the Bruins' double-face policy (and that is simply not true: for, coach Julien said certain things and they were true when he said them. It was only afterwards that his players, fueled by a sense of retribution and justice, started those ''bite my finger'' shenanigans in the Stanley Cup Finals. As for GM Chiarelli's statement that ''our players are generally clean'' - that is true. The two incidents displayed after that are absolutely not evidence of the contrary: as Chara's much-maligned hit on Pacioretty was a routine play gone wrong due to the presence of a certain stanchion. The hit on Miller by Lucic came afterwards - much later on, in fact - and a goalie who knows not his place shouldn't complain after being touched. Do you even know of these aspects of the story, Jon? Perhaps your team does not research as thoroughly whenever the topic is not as much ''hard news'' material as political or economical stories, because you usually are as factual as CNN and Fox News, right, Jon? Just not on sports. But let's get back to that montage right now...
For then there is this ''un-self-awareness'' thing that you talk about, Jon, in an effort to be volubile - takes one to know one, Jon? Fact is, Brad Marchand plays smart, that is all there is to that - and, yes, it is smart to hurt instead of being hurt. Don't play innocent because any other field is as ruthless and cut-throat as hockey can be, and you know it, Jon! Coach Julien's comment was neither ''stupid'' as the sore loser Vigneault so distastefully labeled it, nor was it, again, untrue at all. Coach Julien was talking about hits in general, not so specifically the Salo hit or attempt to mash Marchand up against the boards that went horribly wrong for himself. And about Dan Carcillo being bitten - if he was, he, unlike Patrice Bergeron, totally deserves it! I don't expect you to know these details, Jon - nobody really does, because you're just a whimsical guy, not to be taken seriously.)

The most infuriating moment though is when you edit out Shawn Thornton's retort and replace it with an expletive delivered by Mike Tyson himself. For your information, Thornton is ten times more articulate than Tyson - and he could match wits with you, Jon, despite all the blows to the head that he has taken over the years. (By the way... When's the last time that you were boinked on the head, Jon? Back in kindergarten? Or just last week, when she found you watching porn? No need to answer that - ever.)

Shawn Thornton just took a split second to clear his throat and make sure that he really was on the air (don't Comedy Central give you any heads up on it, too, Jon? You are simply far more used to it than Shawn - but you would be just like a deer caught up in the headlights on the ice, if was open season on your skinny frame: you would never see that coming, would you, Jon? No - you wouldn't. Not even if you had one, two or ten full seconds to react! But that is purely theoretical now...)

Well, anyways, here is what Shawn Thornton really sounds like when he actually starts talking after that nano-second of a pause, Jon:



Like, you never had to collect your thoughts before speaking, Jon? It never happened to you? Maybe that would explain the crazy things uttered over the years, both by you and Colbert there, but that is another story, really - so let's not get into that foolishness here and now!

If anybody is to blast Thornton, it should be me - me or Don Cherry! Leave it to the experts and to each their field of expertise, okay? And to illustrate this so well, here is a video of one of the true hockey experts blasting Thornton, at first, as he analyses the proceedings as the Boston Bruins are about to even the series at three games apiece:



Don ''Grapes'' Cherry gave you a lesson of fairplay there, Jon! One you would do well to take into much consideration now... For, when you are part of mainstream media (even if it be cable clods land) you always have to give equal chances to both sides of the story - capisce, Jon? Cherry did just that - so much so that this video was posted by a Vancouver fan, actually! And labeled as something lambasting ''Thornton's douchery'' - not that Cherry calls it that, but he does address something Shawn Thornton did during the warm-up skate before the game. It was something many have done before though, over the decades, which is somewhat criticized by Cherry as something not to do. Later on, he condemns a dirty hit from behind by a Vancouver player on an icing call. No bias.

Got that lesson, Jon?

To finish in style, though, let's go back to the question of expertise for a second: for I wonder what is, exactly, your expertise, Jon? Is it politics? Not quite. Is it comedy? Well, just because you host something on Comedy Central since whenever it was, does not truly make a comedian out of you, by any definition of the word found in either Old English or current American slang. You would be a sports expert, Jon? You? Not possible.

Oh, and about the distasteful comments and classless statements - maybe that is your field of expertise indeed then? It certainly is your forté, apparently for you said it so yourself and I quote:
''I said it before and I'll say it again - go f*** yourselves''
Really, Jon? A TV host should say such things? I say no - a TV host shouldn't say such things, ever. Nor should he show montages that purposefully edit out the counterpoints in order to make fools out of people that you simply do not like.
What happened, Jon? Sports is not worth the same fair play treatment politics get or your TV pundit buddies get, even when it's obnoxious loudmouths such as Bill O'Reilly (he's no Terry) or Rush Limbaugh?

You can go f*** yourself, Jon!
(And, no, I am not contradicting myself here - acting all righteous and then stooping down to their level? No. This is totally within what I have defined to be normal behaviour for a luminous pundit blogger such as moi! Dishing out what they have had coming their way for a long, long time - in some cases.
Well... Case closed.)

The Bear And The Gang - First Episode!

As seen on The Luculent Blog...!

Going To Boston... Boston... Boston, Massachusetts...
Ohh, I'm going to Boston...
Oh yeah baby - I'm telling you like it is; I'm going to Boston!
The City of Champions - yeah baby!
(Singing this to the rhythms of Paul Simon's old tune about some other place that he visited - wherever that was...! Oh yeah: I'll be singing these lyrics I spontaneously cooked up on my way to... BOSTON!)


And I will be going there a mere few weeks after I went to... CUBA!

Is it to antagonize Americans in general, that I get to go where they cannot go, due to their own embargo and associated imbroglios...? (As for the latter, sing it to the tune of Guantanamera like I do...! But that's another story - back to our questioning here!)

Is it to partake of the ambiance that permeates the entire Boston area, ever since they defeated seven annoying adversaries in roughly a decade (give or take 12 months) and were therefore crowned seven times in that short span, effectively becoming the city of champions, hoping some of that will rub off on me and extend my very own lucky streak (hopefully make it reach ever higher, greater heights too!) and consecrate me as a champion, too?

Or is it simply to bask in the merriment of March Break *and* upcoming St-Patrick's Day festivities in a city that truly appreciates the Green... The Red... The Silver... And the Black and the Gold! But we're getting sidetracked here, now...!

Let's say that it is, quite simply, all of the above!

(After all, I am a history buff -formally trained in the field too but, alas, with the least interesting subject there was- and I may just be in the midst of a Revolutionary Tour -instead of, say, an umpteenth Luminous Tour?- so certainly Cuba and America had to be the first two stops there! In that order. Just to antagonize Americana - indeed! After all, the latter's revolution was done and over with by the late 1780s while, in Cuba, it's 53 years of Revoluciòn - and counting! They had to be first. Next stop: I think I'll simply go back to Bulgaria then...? But let's leave all that revolutionary talk at that, for now...)

And let's just explore the luminous city of... Boston!












Truth be told, we didn't have time to truly roam all the historical sites, streets, nooks and crannies of the great city of BOSTON - but we saw enough and we WILL RETURN...! And, next time, we'll shoot for certain true blue Bostonian standards as far as the choice of our lodgings are concerned - not that we poorly set up at all, mind you, but then again we were not in Boston per say: we were in one of its suburbs' hotels!


On our way there, though, we know what to expect now for we had to go through the harshest territories there are or that there could possibly be (you know the drill: New Hampshire, Maine... Vermont! Brrrrr - it's so damn cold there! But then again - we were coming from the darndest, grimiest cold town there is: murky Montréal - yerck!) and we had the fortune of stopping by The Eastside Restaurant & Pub - if we had not, we would have surely died!

And to think that the American customs guy sent us, originally, to Hoagie's! It was a chance encounter at the gas station that made us discover The Eastside, guiding us there! You can eat as unhealthily as cops and other boogers do, customs guy - but we sure won't!

The Eastside is described as a fine establishment and its slogan sums up its attributes well; it reads like this - "fine family dining on the water." The menu does have lots of seafood on it - but not exclusively that, fear not! Fine dining on or by the water is just fine with me though: I love the water! Especially that dirty water; you know it! And, so it is here, fine dining by the sea, with an atmosphere of nautical paradise (complete with washrooms for mates and mermaids) that most certainly can be more convincing once it is summertime again! We gotta drop by once more - the very next time that we'll be going to BOSTON!

;-)

Boston: City Of Glory...?!

Okay, maybe it is a tad overstating it -
but there is no denying that BOSTON is indeed
THE CITY OF CHAMPIONS now,
what, with 7 championships in 11 years
- my, that's got to be the best 7-11 of all time!
;-)

Too bad the video doesn't have more Bruins content though
- especially pertaining to championship #7 indeed
which the Bruins brought to the city
after winning nothing less than three
seven-game series and sixteen extra victories
on top of their great season totals, in the playoffs...
(the required number in order to win it all, really!)

It is true that, overall, in the last decade
the Patriots won three times
the Red Sox twice
and the Bruins are tied with the Celtics
with a championship apiece.

However, historically,
the Celtics have the most titles
followed by the Bruins now
and then the Red Sox
and, finally, the Pats.
There are lacrosse and soccer teams in Boston, too,
but they haven't won a title yet.

Winning isn't everything though:
and before you quote that crazy guy who said
"it's the only thing" -
well, think again!

All the accolades, the cheers, the joy
- all that glory -
is very ephemeral.
There were so many truly GREAT players,
great athletes and great individuals
(no matter what they did in life)
that NEVER got to taste such "glory"
- and nowhere else is that better understood
than in BOSTON.
In the above video, we see several greats
that were never part of a championship team:
chief among those would be Ted Williams.
There were TONS more, in Boston:
and yet they are there, on the video.
And the Boston Bruins of 2011 are not.
That is due to two things, most certainly:
probably this video was done before 2011
and whoever made it understands like Boston does
that one can achieve glorious moments
even in defeat
or apparent defeat...

Another GREAT that could have been there
part of this glorious montage
would have Boston Bruin Normand Leveillè:
another site of Bostonian Remembrance
recently chose him as their "vintage athlete of the month"
and it was one of the greatest choices they could have made!
Léveillé's story is one of tragedy indeed;
but it is interesting to note at this time
that his name literally means "the awakened"
and perhaps it was in the tragic unraveling
of the promise of a brilliant NHL career
that he did awake to greater things...
Some will say it is just lost opportunity
others will focus upon the tragic destiny
of an unfulfilled tremendous potential
but all will agree that there still lies
a GLORIOUS accomplishment there,
as Léveillé's path resonates with all who know it
and from his tragedy came true glory and a greater cause:



Even so, even after all we've said here
Normand Léveillé himself would agree
that the 'City of Glory' video above
could use much more Bruins footage
which consists of beating adversaries
and beating them up!
;-)

The Bruins Are Brought To You By...

The 2011-2012 Boston Bruins season is presented by the Massachusetts State Lottery.

Maybe that is the chief reason why things are not going as well as planned in this "Stanley Cup Defending Champion mode" type of year? It's been a roller-coaster type of ride instead: starting slow, going up to the top again before it fell flat again.

At blogging time, it is one of those valleys again - but we shall not fear as we travel through the valley of death, right? WE BELIEVE!

Truth be told, things were not always going perfectly on the actual, eventual Championship season either... And I haven't the foggiest idea who or what entity was officially "presenting" us with that one...!

I never paid any attention to those things - because, to me, as it is for coach Julien, it is the players' effort that mattered. And year in, year out, whether it was a good year or a rather mediocre one (though true mediocrity was hard to find in the Boston Bruins' camp in the last 40-odd years: they made the playoffs in the great majority of them and were true top contenders in a cyclical and extremely respectable period of five years - consistency was thus to be found throughout the "valley" in-between two Stanley Cup titles, basically! There never was anything to be ashamed of in Bruins Nation not even when they had forwards named Roy and missed the playoffs for an extremely rare occasion by the same occasion... But we are digressing.)

The team always gave a decent effort, therefore, even on those rare seasons in which their record was not good enough to qualify for the "Big Dance"... The team was always battling, against all comers. The team was a true TEAM - and even more than that, the Boston Bruins have always been like a fraternity, like a family. Red Sox outfielder Youkilis said that there was such a thing as a "Boston fraternity" uniting all athletes of the region, be they footballers, knuckleballers or apt to shoot hoops. Well, before that, even, there was the Boston Bruins family uniting all generations of hockey players to ever don the black & gold of the team, from Eddie Shore & Léo Labine to Milan Lucic & Brad Marchand!

It is not in itself bad that the MSL is sponsoring the Bruins' season, of course.

Americans always have had these sponsorship deals - one has to accept it as part of the game, almost... It used to be worse - much worse. Television shows in the early days of the medium were literally prisoners of their sponsors and had to accommodate them, often making a plethora of changes to their scheduled shows (usually live broadcasts) at the very last minute, not to "hurt the image" of the sponsor in any shape or form. The Boston Bruins do not have to change a thing about their "show" - they just have to perform. If anything, it is the MSL that is having some sort of effect on the team: making victory or defeat come as it does to any sort of gamblers - through mere luck. And, in today's NHL, where parity reigns and there is virtually no difference between teams, save rare exceptions (teams such as that Original Six team from a French town somewhere north of the border comes to mind: it's them and the team in Columbus that suck royally these days. Aside from that, the rest of the league is pretty equal and anybody can beat anybody else on any given day - almost!) sheer luck is, therefore, a major factor every time out.

Nowadays, a sports team owes nearly as much to their sponsors as they do to actual ownership or the fans. It probably makes complete sense that it is that way, too.

That is why one can never escape the "brought to you by..." messages - ever!

But why in blue blazes did it have to be the State Lottery? It may have jinxed the proceedings beyond repair already (lest it is me who has just done that, by inferring all that at all!) for the odds of winning are always dismal with any given lottery - don't they know that? So why have the State Lottery pass on this nefarious bug to the B's here - especially as they had everything (including Lady Luck - that bitch!) going their way just months ago, really (in June of 2011, of course!) and the odds of winning were, hence, totally fine? If this is not the jinxing factor, what is - the visit at Barack's baraque blanche there? What else can we suspect...?

The team just had a dismal month of February - just as they had a terrible month of October, to kick off the season and the defense of their title, both. In-between, they were invincible, ascending from last place to first in the East and overall even if only for a few weeks... The Boston Bruins have since seen the Canucks, Red Wings and Rangers surpass them in points totals and the likes of the Sharks and Senators come dangerously close to do so, too. Other hated rivals such as the Flyers and Lightning are not far behind at all either. For some inexplicable and totally illogical reason, the Bruins were unable to defeat the pathetic Carolina Hurricanes this season, not even a single time, in four confrontations this season. The good news is, of course, that these pathetic Canes will not even be in the playoffs - and nor will other perennial foes. But who cares about those, as the slate is already full and the championship defence is going to be extremely difficult as it stands right now...

At the deepest of the current valley the team is skating through, additions made to the team are rather discrete and valueless, really: two more defensemen and... Brian Rolston. BRIAN ROLSTON? He was one of the greatest disappointments of the resurging Boston Bruins of the early turn of the century, back when they were contending again under the so-called leadership of Joe Thornton, Mike Knuble, Jason Allison, Bill Guerin, Anson Carter and Glen Murray. Oh, did I forget Martin Lapointe? How could I have: the only biggest disappointment than Rolston was ML! But let's not get into that depressing stuff now - truly, let's NOT.

Alas, GM Peter Chiarelli forced all of the Bruins fanbase to relive those atrocious times: those of the Mike O'Connell regime, the guy he was hired to replace and mend the bodywork of. By recuperating a washed-up Rolston, and through trade to boot, Chiarelli totally wiped off anyone's mind the impression that he might be, indeed, some kind of genius at putting together a winning team. Compared to last year's additions of gutsy elements such as Chris Kelly and Rich Peverley around the same trade deadline, this year's additions are totally devoid of sense. Or impact.

Rolston had good numbers ten years ago but now, to think that he might somehow partially fill the void left by an injured Nathan Horton is pure folly. At best, his experience might have him serve some sort of defensive role on the team: but what good can that be when the team needs a clutch goal late in a game? Of course Kelly, Peverley, Seguin, Bergeron, Marchand, Krejci, Lucic and Caron are all there to deliver those - but, lately, it hasn't come as easily as it had. Recchi is sorely missed at those times - and he is not going to be replaced by Rolston either.

And to think that the organization could have simply claimed B.R. off waivers - and didn't. They then saw only him available, along with defenseman Mottau, from the lowly NY Islanders, and had to trade for both, losing two prospects in order to acquire two temporary assets, one of them way over-the-hill and previously available - for free! Nope - Chiarelli ain't no genius after all. No one is! P.C. hasn't got a computer as a brain: he merely has more luck than his predecessor had...

Luck has deserted Boston lately, though: the Celtics have their leprechaun truly scrambling for his pot of gold these days... The same problem exists there, even heightened: as their three top players are slumping almost as bad as Rolston, and they are the same age too... The Patriots failed to go all the way again, against the execrable Giants again. To top that in the saddest of ways, a mere few days after the heartbreaking loss, quarterback Tom Brady's lifelong coach died. The Patriots have a great team, but these two devastations may be too much to overcome, next season... A collapse like the Red Sox went through just last season could well be in the cards for the Pats as well: and as for the former, here, the loss of several players can only indicate that Red Sox Nation will be suffering some more, as they used to regularly, pre-2004...

Maybe the Bostonian Dreaming can only be indulged in in times of difficulties indeed?

So... Who was "presenting" us with that greatest of recent seasons to remember, again, last year, when the Boston Bruins ended the season in brilliant fashion by simply winning it all?

Oh - it was probably Bob's Discount Furniture Store - again!
Let's stick with Bob, I say: for the odds of him jinxing the team are rather low!
:-!