The Montreal Police plan to interview Zdeno Chara regarding his hit of Max Pacioretty on March 8th. This will be part of their ongoing investigation into the incident. This interview has been delayed due to Chara's involvement in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, along with other "witnesses."
The involvement of police in this incident is one of the silliest sports stories of the year. While the circumstances around Pacioretty's injuries were unique, other big hits in the game weren't investigated by law enforcement officials. And there's a longstanding precedent in the sporting world, that what happens between the lines (or on the field, or within the boards) is governed differently. Fighting in hockey, for instance, doesn't result in arrests for disorderly conduct or assault.
It's a joke. And Canada is getting a reputation for whining and sour grapes. I love how passionate they are for the game, I was happy to see Winnipeg get a team, but look at the temper tantrum that Vancouver threw (again) after losing Game 7. And the uproar in Montreal after this hit. This Canadian crybabyism is preposterous.
I seriously doubt that Chara will be punished in any way. But just the fact that Montreal cops are spending their time looking into this is a massive joke.
The Bruins begin their defense of the Stanley Cup (God that felt good to write) on October 6th at home. They'll get to raise the banner (another orgasmic phrase to type out) as they host the Philadelphia Flyers. On October 8th, they'll play a rematch of the Eastern Conference Championship against the Lightning, also at home.
The big date that stands out is January 7th, when the Canucks come to town. The Bruins will not travel to Vancouver.
Canadien games: Thursday 10/27 in Boston Saturday 10/29 in Montreal Monday 11/21 in Montreal Monday 12/19 in Boston Thursday 1/12 in Boston Wednesday 2/15 in Montreal
The Detroit Red Wings come to town on November 25th in the Black Friday matinee.
The Bruins will host the Flyers on St. Patrick's Day (Saturday March 17) in what will probably be the drunkest game of the year, despite the 1:00pm start time.
The Bruins make their first trip to Winnipeg on Tuesday December 6th.
Phil Kessel and the Maple Leafs will come to town on October 20th, December 3rd, and March 19th.
The regular season will end Saturday April 7th when the B's host the Sabres.
Some of you might have noticed that the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals start tonight at 8 p.m. in the United Center. This year's final series will pit two classic franchises with two extensive title droughts, meaning either Philadelphia's 35-year dryspell or Chicago's 49-year stretch will be no more in about two weeks.
Of course, the matchup is a curious one that at the start of the tournament six weeks ago, most would be hard-pressed to have expected. Chicago finished with the second-best record in the West and were widely considered a Championship contender, but the Flyers' road to the Finals was somewhat bumpier and less expected. If you've been following the playoffs at all, you don't need me to recount the improbability of their run, but in case you missed it here we go:
-- The Flyers earned a playoff spot on the final day of the season when journeyman Brian Boucher improbably outdueled Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist in a win-and-you're-in season finale shootout. -- Philly took out the favored, second-seeded Devils in the first round, though given the Flyers' 5-1 record against New Jersey in the regular season this may have been the least likely step. -- In a remarkable comeback, the Flyers became the fourth team in professional sports history to rally from a 3-0 series deficit to advance to the conference finals. To boot, Philly rallied from an early 3-0 deficit in Game 7 on the road in Boston. This series also saw Boucher suffer a season ending injury, leaving Michael Leighton, the fifth man to dress for the Flyers in net this year, between the pipes. -- The Flyers dominated torridly hot Montreal goalie Jaroslav Halak and ousted the Canadiens, themselves on an unlikely run, in five games to make a wholly unexpected Finals appearance.
Of course, if you're a full-fledged Hawks, or a supporter of any stripe like myself, you'll be hoping Philly's dream run ends here. Of course, you might also want that strictly for the integrity of downtown Philadelphia's infrastructure. Either way, my entirely meaningless and uninfluential prediction will give you an only slightly biased idea of where the series is going, but I'll break it down this way.
While the Flyers have potent primary scoring on match with Chicago's the secondary scoring is not there. I'd have to give the Hawks the edge based on their offensive depth. Edge: Hawks.
Chicago's defense has bruisers and puck movers alike, which likely Norris winner Duncan Keith and his pretty new smile in tow. Philly's defense doesn't have the same depth. But it does have Chris Pronger. Edge: Flyers.
Neither goaltender is much to shout about, but I'll give Chicago's Antti Niemi the slight edge because of his tendency to come up big for most of this postseason.
So that leaves us where? Here. Blackhawks in Five. Chicago's secondary scoring puts it over the top. On the regular.
Generally I make a comment here about how I'm certain to be wrong, but, uh, I really hope I'm right this time around. Tune into NBC at 8 to see if I am.
In approximately nine hours I will be airborne from Laguardia to Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport for my first trip to the state of Georgia. I have been there once before, a delightful two-hour sojourn as I switched planes on my way to Kansas City last October, but I've never actually been to Atlanta and left the airport.
This will be a new experience.
The reason for this trip? Well, if you've been reading here you already know, so, in all likelihood, you don't know, but if you know me you can probably guess. I'll be meeting up with a few friends, one of whom was my freshman year college roommate, as I see the Amazin just-got-swept-by-the-Marlins Mets visit the Atlanta Braves in their former house of horrors, Turner Field.
This will be team No. 32 for me, meaning I'm almost out of the 90s in that ever-shrinking category of "Teams remaining". I doubt I'll be attending any debutante balls or touring antebellum mansions, but I'm pretty excited for my first trip to the deep south -- assuming you don't count my trip to New Orleans nine years ago. I'm going to try my best to squeeze in a stop at the Coca-Cola Museum and/or the aquarium, but failing that the baseball will do just fine.
Rest assured, you will all have a full report at some point in the future.
Meanwhilst, the trip to Atlanta will provide me with a brief break from the Stanley Cup playoffs, which had one result expected and one result surprising in the first game of the Western and Eastern Conference Finals yesterday. While Chicago's victory in San Jose is not necessarily the assumed outcome, the hard-fought back-and-forth game put on by what very well may have been the two best teams in the League this year was just what a hockey fan would have imagined it to be.
Montrealers, however, might have to wait a little while before doing their best Philadelaphia Phillies impression after seeing the Habs drop Game 1 to the Flyers Sunday. A shutout could have been foreseen in Game 1, but Philly's little-played Michael Leighton pulling off the clean sheet and not Montreal's blazing hot Jaroslav Halak caused a bit of a double take, particularly considering Halak's disastrous showing. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Canadiens get back on track in Game 2, after all, the Flyers are supposed to defend their home ice. The Habs just need to win there once.
But more than anything else, Sunday may have showed that the more competitive, and better played game in the West, features this year's likely champ. Philadelphia and Montreal are both riding remarkable momentum, but neither stands a chance against a San Jose or Chicago team if its running on full cylinders.
That's all for today, kids. See you in the Peach State.
I don't have a whole lot of time today to talk to you about how mind-numbingly bizarre it is that the Flyers are the seven seed and yet they have home ice in the Conference Finals....
But with two hours before the West Finals kick off between the Sharks and my (sort of) Blackhawks, I'll give you some rudimentary and hopefully right but probably wrong predictions.
Eastern Conference Final Montreal over Philadelphia in 7
Western Conference Final Chicago over San Jose in 6
It should be noted that in the West I'm rooting for the Hawks and in the East, with no palatable champion left for me, I'm rooting for an earthquake.
Is a healthy rivalry that is entirely unrelated to judicial review and entirely related to New York baseball.
That's right, people. Yesterday Barack Obama announced his next move to shape the future of this country by naming the successor to the seat that will soon be vacated by Justice John Paul Stevens (Northwestern graduate, natch). And with that choice, Obama has selected Elena Kagan, a woman who has experience as White House Counsel, the Dean of Harvard Law School and Solicitor General -- being the first female to have either of those last two positions -- but there is a considerable red flag in that she's never been, you know, a "judge".
Don't be surprised if some Republicans pull that out when they try to turn Kagan into Obama's Harriett Miers, but some might be surprised to hear that the last Justice to be nominated with no prior experience as a judge was William Rhenquist, and things worked out ok for him, at least as far as competency is concerned. It might be wiser to attack her on her previously declared judicial stances, but without her being a judge, attacking any sort of track record seems difficult, which likely was a factor in selecting her for the bench. And so, it seems, with a Democratic congress, that Kagan is likely to be confirmed to the Supreme Court -- and become the third Jewish Justice to currently be serving -- but what happens once she's there could be awfully interesting.
And here's why.
Most of you reading this, I'm sure, are wondering what I'm doing blabbing on about Supreme Court nominations when this blog is mostly supposed to be about sports. And you all have a point. This is an unusual turn for me to take here, though I do find politics to be similar to sports in a number of ways. But the reason I'm mentioning this is because of one little important nugget that Obama squeezed into the introductory speech.
I think to make truly make wise decisions impacting all Americans from the wealthiest to the less fortunate, it will serve Kagan well to have had her heart broken almost annually by that delightful squad in Queens. As as some people have speculated, perhaps she can use her new position to rule it unconstitutional the next time New York nepotistically signs Frank Catalanotto, who, unsurprisingly, was designated for assignment last night.
I doubt Kagan will actually lean on the administration in such a manner, though it might be helpful, but what makes this all particularly interesting is that Obama's previous nominee, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, is a Yankees fan who hails from the Bronx. The tension could be acrimonious, as Obama noted in his speech introducing Kagan yesterday that Sotomayor has "ordered a pinstripe robe for the occasion". In the case of Sotomayor, her Yankee fandom is hardly just an auxiliary characteristic -- it was her ruling that ended the Major League Baseball Players strike in 1995.
Sotomayor also has played a crucial role in football where she reaffirmed the NFL's eligibility rules in requiring draft prospects to be out of high school for three years, effectively ending Maurice Clarett's efforts to leave school early.
The only unfortunate thing about Sotomayor's place on the bench and Kagan's appointment and expected confirmation, is that the two baseball fans have no jurisdiction over Canada, and if they did, they might just stop the Montreal Canadiens from unleashing the worst blight on sports fan music since Nuts About the Nats.
Yeah, that's right. "We're right in the mix and it feels a little like '86." And "the cradle of organized sports?" Really?
I wouldn't claim the Habs should stop trying to win titles, and considering that they've just forced a second straight heavy favorite to a Game 7 last night, they haven't stopped trying, but there's something irksome about a pump up song that a) ruins "Don't Stop Believin" for me more than any crowd of drunks in a bar ever could, and b) boasts of the need for a 25th banner. Twelve NHL franchises have multiple Cups. Only seven have more than three titles. Only three have more than 10. And the Canadiens have 24 Stanley Cup Championships. I think you can tone down the anxiety just a bit, though I do enjoy the shot of Montreal's 1993 Cup-winning head coach Jacques Demers giving a thumbs up. And to think no one in the organization at the time knew the man was completely illiterate. Oh yeah, he's a senator now. And why the hell do they even bring up the Expos in this video?
I have no problem with confidence. Even musical confidence. But unfortunately, they just don't make them like the Super Bowl Shuffle anymore. If only Kagan could write an opinion making "Feels Like '93" unconstitutional.
That kind of Championship monopoly has to violate the Sherman Antitrust Act, right?
Nearly as much as it excites me, but I hit a tremendous groove writing today and the result is that I've zipped through and finished the chapter I'm writing in my book about when I went to Jacobs Field with my mother in 2007.
I'm not sure when a condensed version of it will pop up on here, but for now I'm very satisfied with how the long version that will, theoretically, show up in the eventual book turned out. I get the feeling that this blog is really giving me the impetus to start getting through my writing at a solid rate, though I do have concerns about what happens when I catch up to the present and start running out of things to put up here regularly.
I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. In any event, my New Years resolution was to spend part of every day writing or researching one of my independent book projects and so far, for the most part, I'm sticking to it.
Lastly, for those of you who are keeping track of my sporting ventures, there will be a Dave sighting this Friday at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. when the Devils host the Montreal Canadiens. This is hardly a major trip for me. I've been there several times. But if anyone out there is going to be at the game, don't be afraid to say hi.
Have a good day everyone. A new story will be posted in the coming days.
