Blog.WBRU

The Boston Bruins found themselves shocked in front of a full house of 17,565 when the Buffalo Sabres snapped the Bruins’ winning records with a 4-2 win at TD Banknorth. The Bruins entered the game riding a 10 game win streak and 14 game home winning streak. The black third jerseys…new intro pump-up video…”Lets Go Bruins!” chant from crowd to start the game…the game started with electricity and energy. However, the Bruins quickly found themselves in a hole falling two goals down.

The game consisted of a vicissitude of cheers and crowd enthusiasm. Phil Kessel’s Powerplay Goal from Savard gave them momentum but was lost immediately to a Stephen Yelle penalty. Milan Lucic provided his usual physical presence with 7 hits but it was not enough to rally his team to score. The Bruins had plenty of scoring chances but could not find the back of the net. Players after commented that the “bounces did not go their way”.

• First time Tim Thomas wore black third jersey…first loss in black third jersey.
• Dennis Wideman played 32:32 minutes. Career high.
• Aaron Ward did not return for the second period. He was missing due to a “charlie horse”.

GAME HIGHLIGHT: In 12th minute of 1st period, Ward placed a hit along the Bruins defensive end boards. A boy with his faced pressed against the glass was launched back and returned to his father holding his head. Unlike Ward, he returned in the second period.

Despite the loss, the Bruins are still on top of the NHL. Their next game comes on Tuesday versus the Minnesota Wild.

-Kit

You know the story by now. The NFL and its vengeful deities cruelly forced the Pats from the playoffs after a flat-out gutsy 11 win season. Pats fans had the highest of hopes coming into the season, after falling just 30 seconds short of the first 19-0 season in NFL history. Yet after losing Tom Brady 7 minutes into the season after a devastating blow to the knee from Kansas City Chiefs safety Bernard F. Pollard, most Pats fans immediately wrote off their team for dead and prepared for 2009. We had reached the point where nothing less than a fourth Super Bowl championship would relieve our football appetite, a perspective that put us on par with, dare I say, the abominable New York Yankee fans. With Brady out of the picture, our chance at a title was blown and a season initially filled with hope and expectation plummeted into the abyss. We were expected to pin these impossible expectations onto a quarterback who had not started a game since Clinton was in office? A 7 win team, maybe. The Lost Season. We’ll be back next year.

In the weeks following Brady’s injury, Bill Belichick and the Patriots organization were relentlessly scrutinized by the media and fans of the NFL. “If Belichick is the greatest coach of this generation, let’s see what he has up his sleeves for this one,” they said. The same media members who did not hesitate to write off all of Belichick’s achievements following the Spygate scandal were salivating at the prospect of a Brady-less Pats team. Brady was the heart of this football team, as evident by the Pats 0-4 preseason run, in which playing time under center was divided mostly between Matt Cassel and fellow backups Kevin O’Connell and Matt Gutierrez. It was brutal. Finally, Bill Belichick would be exposed as the cheating fraud that he is. And worse still, many Pats fans seemed to prepare for these truths to come out.

In the 2003 season, the Pats started 42 different players, an NFL record for a team that won its division. That team suffered key injuries that would have crippled most teams, yet the Pats went on to defeat Carolina in Super Bowl XXXVIII for the franchise’s second championship in three years. Belichick won the Coach of the Year award. In 2005, 45 different starters took the field and the Patriots once again won their division. Of course, neither of these teams had to deal with the loss of their star quarterback. But still, perhaps media members and fans (myself included) should not have been so quick to lose faith. Belichick always does seem to have something up his sleeve (insert bitter Spygate reference here).

But as it turned out, Brady’s injury would only get the ball rolling for the Pats medical woes. In Week 2, Laurence Maroney, the Pats leading running back from the ‘07 season, would go down as well, ultimately ending up on the Injured Reserve list after just 28 carries on the season. Second string rusher Sammy Morris also missed 3 games and received limited playing time in several others as a result of a knee injury, and third string rusher and newcomer Lamont Jordan was forced to miss 8 games with a calf injury. For several games, rushing duties were left to an undrafted back from Ole Miss named BenJarvus Green-Ellis. The football gods weren’t finished. The Pats put three-time Pro Bowl safety Rodney Harrison on the IR in Week 7 and two-time Pro Bowl linebacker Adalius Thomas on the IR in Week 10. Thomas had played 99% of all defensive snaps for the Patriots up to that point in the season. By all means, this was far too much for any team to overcome.

That’s why 11-5 and the 2008 season is simply an astonishing achievement and testament to Belichick’s coaching prowess. Certainly credit must be given to Cassel, who managed to silence all doubters and ensure a massive paycheck for himself for the next few seasons at least. But the Patriots had no business winning 11 games this season, especially in the manner that they did. Despite starting their fourth string running back for several games, the Pats finished the season with 2,278 yards rushing, the most in a single season since 1985. Furthermore, Belichick and the rest of the front office were left no choice but to reinforce its depleted linebacking corps with Rosevelt Colvin, who had been cut by the Houston Texans before the start of the season, and Junior Seau, the 39 year old veteran who went on to start a game just days after he had been surfing on the beaches of California. Colvin and Seau joined rookie linebacker Jerod Mayo, a product of draft day maneuvering by the front office and another testament to Belichick’s genius.

Over the years, a fair amount of credit has been given to Belichick’s coordinators. After the 2004 championship season, many wondered if the Patriots would be able to continue their success once coordinators Charlie Weis and Romeo Crennel left the team to pursue head coaching positions elsewhere. After the 2005 season, Crennel’s replacement, Eric Mangini, left to become the head coach of the New York Jets. While the Pats have not won a Superbowl since Weis and Crennel left, they have won their division each season except for this past one, and suffered some tough and very close playoff losses in their pursuit of another championship. On the other hand, Belichick’s coordinators have had varied success with their new positions, amassing just a single NFL playoff game and a few NCAA bowl appearances between them. Following the conclusion of the ‘08 regular season last week, both Mangini and Crennel were fired from their respective positions in New York and Cleveland. Weis is still the head coach at Notre Dame, but has a lot to prove if he wants to keep his job after next season.

With any luck, Tom Brady will be back in time to start the 2009 season and the team will return to it’s dominating form. The 2008 Matt Cassel campaign will be an aberration in the Patriots decade of dominance under Tom Brady. Yet while many Pats fans had initially hoped to block this season fully from their memories, those same fans may now see the season in a different light. Players come and go. They get injured, sign with different teams for larger contracts, retire, etc. But this season has reaffirmed for Pats fans that as long as Bill Belichick is making the calls, we’ll still have a contender to watch.

-Gabe

The Friars won their first Big East game to improve to 9-4 on the season by beating St. John’s. Here are my Five Providence Friars Points:

• [False Start] The Red Storm went up 11-0 on the Friars before Jonathan Kale hit a hook shot to put the Friars on the board after 4 minutes had already gone by. After that, PC finished the half on a 33-14 run.
• [Depth Factor] The Friars were too much to handle for St. John’s, a team missing some key players due to injury. The Friars’ bench outscored St. John’s 32-0 and played 43 more minutes.
• [Hanke Shines] Randall Hanke finally looked like the player from last year, or better yet, the player from his early days as a Friar. He played with much more energy, especially on the defensive end. He finished with a game-high 17 points and 3 blocks.
• [Home Factor] Friars fans are known for voicing their opinions, despite how loud or obnoxious they might be. Justin Burrell from St. John’s wore a face mask during the game and received a lot of remarks from the hometown fans. It might have worked though, as he shot terribly (1/5 from the field, 1/4 from the free throw line) and committed 4 turnovers.
• [Not Happy 2009] Don’t get giddy about this win. Who had St. John’s defeated this year? Basically nobody decent. They were picked to finish in the bottom of the Big East. The Big East schedule starts easy for the Friars, but then it gets brutal. Starting January 22nd, the Friars will played 4 of their next 6 on the road and the 2 at home will be against top-15 teams. Then, the Friars close with 3 of 5 on the road, with a game at Rutgers as the only one not against a ranked opponent.

- JE

After Wes Welker was fined by the No Fun League for a snow angel (really, c’mon), the Not Fair League prevented the 11-win Patriots from qualifying for the playoffs. Heck, if the Patriots had known 11 wins would have kept them tantalizingly close, they could’ve tanked their last 4 games and finished 7-9, so they could cash in and add some more mayonnaise to their sandwich. But nobody tanks that bad, right? See: Arizona, Dallas, Denver, New York, Tampa Bay, Washington.

But instead, the Pats played through snow that brought another division champ back to high school football status, wind that made goal posts look like shoestring spaghetti, and injuries that infected a percentage of Pats players near Black Plague levels. All for nothing.

Check this out. 4 NFL teams will be in the playoffs with a worse winning percentage, by wins: San Diego (8), Arizona (9), Philadelphia (9), and Minnesota (10). The Miami Dolphins won the AFC East tiebreaker with the Pats, despite the fact that the Pats played twice as many games against playoff opponents (6 to 3). Nice to see the NFL punishing the team that brought in record-breaking viewership (and therefore money) and instead rewarding… this guy?

The Pats got bamboozled. In fact, so did the Saints. The team that played in the most difficult division in the NFL was forced into a home game in London and went through a month and a half stretch where it did not play a single game in New Orleans. Who else got screwed? The Houston Texans. That’s right. They played a whopping half of their games (exactly eight) against teams that made it to the playoffs (nobody that qualified in the AFC played that many) and they were only one of 3 teams to beat Tennessee.

At this rate, the NFL should switch to a ranking poll, just like college football. What, college football getting something right? This is the way the playoffs should line up:

Tennessee and Pittsburgh with byes, Houston at Indianapolis, New England at Baltimore
NY Giants and Carolina with byes, Minnesota at Atlanta, Philadelphia at New Orleans

All 4 of those Wild Card matchups would be incredible games.

If you want to point your finger at somebody, point them at the NFL’s basement teams. It is absolutely unheard of to have 3 teams all win less than 3 games: Detroit (0), Kansas City (2), and St. Louis (2). Seattle, Cleveland, and Oakland, you just barely got yourselves off the hook. Back in 2003, no team finished with 3 wins or fewer, and only the Dolphins finished with 10 wins and didn’t make the playoffs.

Well, maybe this is due justice then. Oh wait, except the Pats missed with 11 wins.

- JE

PC finished off their non-conference schedule with an easy win over Bryant at the Dunk, 91-64. Time to look ahead to the Big East season, starting for the Friars on New Years Eve with a game against St. John’s at the Dunk at 4pm.

• [Rhode Islanders Play] Bryant has 3 Rhode Islanders (Chris Birrell from Scituate, Andrew Lyell from Portsmouth, and Peter Lambert from Cumberland) and PC has one - Jeff Xavier. Lambert made his first start, which was his coach’s decision. That meant all 3 Rhody guys started for Bryant. Coach O’Shea said afterward, “they deserved it after all they’ve been through.” Bryant is in its first year of Division I ball and dropped to 1-9 with the loss.
• [Inside Advantage] PC dominated inside, +12 rebounding and +14 points in the paint. It figures considering they had 3 guys playing taller than any Bryant player.
• [X Against Rhody Teams] Jeff Xavier did not have much success against teams from his home state this season. Combined, he scored just 3 points on 1/16 shooting and 0/11 three-point shooting against Brown, URI, and Bryant.
• [Wearing Down] PC has worn down its opponents the last 2 home games after halftime. Against Jackson State, they began the second half on a 24-6 run; tonight on a 24-10 run.
• [Big East Ahead] It’s hard to imagine PC winning more than 6 games in the conference this year. That would put them exactly where they finished last year in the Big East.

- JE

After the Boston Celtics dispatched the New York Knicks 124-105 tonight, and the Boston Bruins downed the Carolina Hurricanes 4-2 on Saturday afternoon, the two teams did more than just solidify their standing atop their respective conferences. They ensured that nobody going to the TD Banknorth Garden to cheer on the home team has gone home dissatisfied for over a month.

The Bruins, winners of 22 of their past 26 games, last lost in Boston on October 23rd against the Toronto Maple Leafs. They continue their five-game roadtrip Tuesday night and do not return home to play again until January 1st against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Celtics are no slouches either. They haven’t lost at the Garden since November 14 (85-94 to the Denver Nuggets), and are currently riding an 18-game win streak to tie the best start in NBA history at 26-2. They face the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday night before embarking on a four-game west coast journey of their own, returning to Beantown to face the Washington Wizards on January 2nd.

If the Celtics win Tuesday night, the Garden home win streak will be secure through the end of 2008. There’s no official statistic on the longest combined home win streak for NBA and NHL teams that share a venue, but this is pretty good. Oh yeah, the two teams have lost a total of two games at home this season.

Must be those five dollar hotdogs.

-BS

Tonight’s PC/Jackson State game was a lot like A Tale of Two Cities, except unlike the book, the game did not bore me to tears. After a rough, turnover-filled first half for the Friars, they trailed 43-32 and looked more than a bit uneasy after the 10-day layoff for finals. However, they came out of the gate shooting and driving to the hoop in the second half, and wound up winning the game 85-71 when all was said and done. Here are a couple quick notes from the game:

-Tonight’s opponent, the Jackson State Tigers, were picked to finish first in their conference, the SWAC. Their record after tonight? A robust 1-9. Their schedule has been extremely difficult, including losses to Arizona State and defending champ Kansas. Also, they looked very tough in the first half, taking full advantage of PC’s full-court press. Be afraid, SWAC. Be very afraid.

-The Friars were led down the stretch by senior Weyinmi Efejuku, who went 6-7 from the floor, and totaled 18 points. Midway through the second half, a prerecorded interview on the Dunk’s big screen with Jonathan Kale turned into an Efejuku highlight reel halfway through the conversation, and it could not have been a more appropriately timed video.

-After the game, PC guard Jeff Xavier said that coach Keno Davis was fired up at halftime, and gave the boys a little piece of his mind. Keno comes with a reputation for staying calm, so this new fiery style could be something to watch for. It certainly kept the troops motivated tonight.

-The officiating was much maligned by the PC fans tonight. Many seemingly unnecessary fouls were called, and a travel was called against Geoff McDermott when he simply fell over. This led to several choruses of boos, and several fans seemed to scream until their faces grew as red as the shot clock. Definitely an interesting experience, and I apologize for that horrible shot clock similie.

-Jackson State has the weirdest warmup attire I have ever seen. Whoever finances their clothing splurged on hooded sweatshirts, which are great for playing basketball outside in Siberia. Needless to say, I did not witness one player utilizing the hoods tonight. They did have some cool striped headbands, though.

-Pacman

The Providence Bruins (16-10-1-1) finished off a tough weekend with a loss to the Manchester Monarchs (12-10-0-4) by a score of 3-1 at the Dunkin Donuts Center. The two teams also faced off on Saturday in Manchester, a game that resulted in a 5-4 shootout victory for the Monarchs. The two losses give the P-Bruins an 0-2 record against the Monarchs on the season.

The Monarchs struck first when David Meckler came through on a powerplay, following a misplay by P-Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask in which Rask lost control of the puck behind the net. It was Meckler’s 7^th goal of the season, with assists by Eric Werner and Trevor Lewis.

After a scoreless 2^nd period, Manchester took a 2-0 advantage with a 5-on-3 power play goal in the 3rd when Trevor Lewis scored his team-leading 8^th goal of the season. Viatcheslav Voynov and Marty Murray got the assists.

The P-Bruins finally got on the board in the 14^th minute of the 3^rd period when Byron Bitz made a perfect pass from behind the net straight to Jeremy Reich, who tapped it in to make it a 2-1 game.

Scott Parse scored an empty-net goal for the Monarchs in the final minute to make the score 3-1 and hand the Bruins their second loss in as many days.

F

Schaefer – St. Pierre – Karsums

Reich – Bitz – Marchand

Marquardt – Hamill – Lehtonen

Lukacevic - Rabbit – Nelson

D

Penner – Boychuk

Engel – Stokes

Bodnarchuk - McQuaid

The Bruins were a disappointing 0-for-6 on the power play and 4-for-6 on the penalty kill.

The P-Bruins are off until Wednesday night when they will face the Hartford Wolf Pack (13-11-1-3) at the XL Center in Hartford. The Bruins are back at home at the Dunk on Friday when they take on the Toronto Marlies (12-12-0-2) at 7:05 PM for a Family Game.

-GP