The Happy Recap: We Have a Really Long Weekend Ahead. It’s Gonna Hurt.

So that brings us to the end of our broadcast week.  There won’t be much here this weekend, to tell the truth.  We might get around to doing an attendance post we’ve been wanting to do for a week or so, but other than that, likely nothing.  We have a lot of work calling college basketball this weekend, then a Giants game on Sunday.  We’re going to try and take in Devils-Flyers in the $10 sections Sunday, so if you see a chubby kid in one of those sections, say hey.

Otherwise, see you on Monday for a truncated week of hockey talk.

Puck the Media’s NHL Tournament of Announcers, Round 2, Match 2, Foster Hewitt Bracket: Joe Beninati vs. Ralph Strangis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow, thank you New Jersey Devils fans for getting into it.  Doc Emrick throttled (as he would’ve put it) Pat Foley in their round two matchup.  Next up is a 3-2 battle between Caps/VERSUS man Joe Beninati and Stars play-by-player and George Carlin eulogizer Ralph Strangis.

Voting till 5:30 Monday.  Enjoy!

Jack Edwards and Andy Brickley Get in the Spirit of Awesomeness This Holiday Season

Now, it’s no secret that, if you’ve read this blog before, we like to have a bit of fun at the expense of Bruins play-by-play man Jack Edwards.  But that’s all it really is.  Just a little fun at the hands of a guy who is CLEARLY having tons of fun himself.

So, in the spirit of Christmas non-denominational holiday, we’d like to pay tribute to something that Edwards (along with partner Andy Brickley) did last night that was just, plain awesome.

It all stemmed from a blog posting Edwards wrote up at NESN.com, where he saw a couple of cancer patients getting a chance at calling a Montreal Canadiens game: 

 

“What the heck,” I thought, “we can do this because we have the world’s greatest cancer treatment center right in Boston.” 

We brainstormed the concept at last summer’s telethon with Jimmy Fund executive director Mike Andrews, and he was totally supportive. NESN’s executive vice president of programming and executive producer Joel Feld greenlit it from the get-go and pushed everyone to get it done. Senior producer Brian Zechello, director Rose Mirakian-Wheeler and my broadcast partner Andy Brickley all volunteered their full endorsements as soon as we brought up the idea. To the very last man and woman in our production team, there has been a Bruins-under-Julien type of buy-in.

We went to Jimmy Fund patient activity coordinator Lisa Scherber with a plan: We would need her to identify patients/candidates, then we would introduce them to our techniques, prep them with a visit or two to our Garden booth during Bruins games, and let ‘em rip alongside Brick on game night. She picked it up and skated the plan forward like Phil Kessel rushing up the wing, then banged bodies like Milan Lucic to achieve the goal. 

 

Uh, sure, just like that Jack.  But in all seriousness, a pretty sweet gesture.  NESN.com did a write-up about the two kids.

Devils’ Clemmensen Put on Gag Order

Look, we’re eternally grateful to Lou Lamoriello.  He gave us three championships, and a model of consistency that has given the hockey fans of New Jersey 18 seasons of playoff hockey in the last two decades.  But sometimes, he can be quite ridiculous as far as player access.  There is a well-known SI article depicting the Devil dynasty that quoted an ABC hockey person as saying they were sick of dealing with Lou.

Lamoriello has stepped back on the media unfriendly bandwagon, by placing a gag order on current starting goaltender (in the wake of Marty Brodeur’s injury) Scott Clemmensen.  From Rich Chere of the Newark Star-Ledger:

 

The rule, which began Wednesday in Buffalo and will continue, wasn’t instituted by the always-cooperative goalie. It was an edict from general manager Lou Lamoriello, who apparently felt Clemmensen’s performance in Toronto was affected by his interviews with the Canadian media prior to Tuesday night’s game at the Air Canada Centre.

“It wasn’t my decision,” Clemmensen revealed Friday morning. “It doesn’t matter to me. It’s a new rule from up top.”

Clemmensen will speak with reporters after morning skates, as he did Friday, but there are many mornings when the Devils have optional skates or no morning workout at all. That makes Clemmensen completely unavailable to the New Jersey media.

 

This is completely ridiculous, as it stems from a shootout loss won on a goal that would never happen in regulation play.  Plus, the Devils played awful in front of Clemmensen for most of that game.  Perhaps they should be put under the same rules?

However, I’m not the only one annoyed.  Chere, who has covered the team for 26+ years, has some shots for Lamoriello as well.

This Video is Hypnotizing

We keep checking out this video of the construction of the Winter Classic 2: Chicago Bugaloo ice rink, expecting it to update, until we realize we’re watching a YouTube clip.  Kudos to whoever replaced the NHL.com honkey tonk-style (Or should we say “hockey tonk”?  No, no we shouldn’t) music with an acoustic, banjo-riffic version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”.

We’re more amped up for WC2: CB than we are for Christmas right now, to be honest.

Michael Hiestand Talks About Hockey. Ugh.

Two straight days of great faces to open our day.  This here is USA Today writer Michael Hiestand, and as you can tell, he does my job, but more in the sense of “General Sports”.  Also, he’s being paid.  Also, by general sports, I mean “Everything except hockey”.  He rarely ever talks about hockey, unless it’s devoting a paragraph to NBC’s opening of it’s schedule, or the Stanley Cup Finals, or how hockey’s dying, etc.

But, the Winter Classic, being such a surprisingly positive event for the NHL, cannot be ignored by Hiestand.  It’s a shame, he really should just give all his material to Kevin Allen and let him write the story.  He’s so insistently negative when he writes, well, about all sports.  He claims in his USA Today profile that he has no favorite teams (as he calls it “as neutral as Switzerland).  Why?  You’re one of the few columnists who’s allowed to have a bias!  Let it out, and say it proud!

Anyway, his report on the Winter Classic isn’t too snarky, and gives some actual tidbits of good info.