Bruins Blog Project Game 3: 11/1/08 vs Dallas Stars

Final Score: Bruins 5 Dallas 1
Attended With: Dave (my brother Dave. For the record, I know about 15 Daves)

Pregame: I have a standard route to the Garden: Red Line->Orange Line->North Station. I avoid the Green because of 80% of the trains stop at Government Center and it's a bitch finding and crowding onto one of the few that heads to North Station. ANOTHER reason I enjoy taking the Orange Line is that you're bound to hear a ridiculously awful street performer at Downtown Crossing. Last week Katelyn and I were treated to this woefully awful woman singing and playing guitar and wouldn't ya know, she was there tonight as well.

The kicker, Dave, who hasn't seen this chick before is cracking up and says she reminds him of Jenny in Forrest Gump. 1 minute later she busts into Blowin' In The Wind, the same song Jenny sang in Gump! Crazy.

We got to the Garden at about 6:15, I had to exchange my my Season Ticket Holder Freebie ticket for another game. 12/8 vs the Lightning Sec. 8 Row 13, baby. We also got those ridiculous fake cardboard goalie masks.


Dave and I meandered around, he's a Celtics STH and this is only his 3rd Bruins game ever. The first one being in 1996 when he was 11, the 2nd being a 1-0 OT loss last year. So, yea, he hasn't seen a Bruins goal in 12 years.

We entered some charity raffle for gift baskets including autographed faux movie posters (Kessel "Catch Me If You Can" and Thomas "300") Who knows if we won.

We took our seats about 10 minutes to 7, waiting for the epic montage and such.

The Game: So far I've been to Opening Night, a game in which my favorite player scored a hat trick and this game. This was by far the best.

Remember how Dave hadn't seen a Bruins goal in 12 years? That changed in minutes. Marco Sturm potted a goal about 2.5 minutes in, it was great to see because he had just been demoted to the third line that night. BTW, our third line is disgusting.

The game was flowing, not as packed as last week, I'd say 14k or so. Bergeron made it 2-1 early in the 2nd, when all hell started to break loose.

Let's just say with about 18 minutes left to go in the 2nd period I received text messages from Steve and Dave B, both along the lines of, "There's going to be a brawl tonight." Ah, they were so right.

For those who don't know much about hockey, Dallas employs two of the biggest douchebags in all of sports, Steve Ott and Sean Avery. I can't really get into the specifics of their douchey tendencies, but let's just say, that they cause a lot of problems, and won't stand up for their actions.

Before the midpoint of the 2nd, Ott had already declined two fights (one involved Sean Thornton punching him in the face while he was holding onto the linesman, the other involved Shane Hnidy dropping his gloves while Ott skated away.)



The crowd was BUZZING by the time the 3rd period rolled around. Everyone knew what was about to go down. It started with Andrew Ference DRILLING Steve Ott at center ice. Just a vicious legal hit by Ference. As the play continued, Ott got up, took a shot on Nokelainen, then Avery skated over to Ference, dropped his gloves, and proceeded to get the snot kicked out of him by Ference (note the 3 rabbit lefts before they fell.) Ference then waved to the crowd after the fight. Just the beginning.



Next up Thornton and Krys Barch. Great fight, Thornton destroyed him with a few shots, but Barch held his own. The crowd was going insane at this point, not only were the fights going down, but the Bruins had potted two more goals. We were kicking their ass physically and on the scoreboard . The Kessel goal was unbelievable, as were the "TUUUUUUURRRRRCCCCOOOOO" chants generated in our section and carrying through the entire stadium.



Finally, the coup de grace; the 5 on 5 line brawl. It started when Lucic was caved in by Avery along the boards, then Marc Savard of all people jumped on Avery and started wailing on him. The best, however, was Shane Hnidy DESTROYING Matt Niskanen. What follows is the full NESN video then my video, you can tell I lost my voice at some point and that I'm very intrigued at what Shane Hnidy is doing to Matt Niskanen's face. I believe 8 people in total were ejected with 10 minute misconducts.





WOW. After the madness, Sturm potted his 2nd of the night and the B's won 5-1. Probably the best game I've ever seen live.

Postgame: The crowd was just so happy following the game. This was old time hockey, old school Big Bad Bruins type shit, and everyone was amped. My brother, who like I said, is not the biggest hockey guy, bought a Bruins hat in between periods and pledged to watch every Bruins game now, and hopefully attend some more. That's how great this game was.



We headed to Sully's Tap after the game because now Hurricane's was rocking a $10 cover. Sully's Tap is probably the most old school bar near the Garden. Walking in is like heading back in a time warp to 1986. I don't really like it for a few reasons, 1) It's narrower than a train, 2) It always smells like hotdogs and shit, but hey, the drinks are cheap.

After a few, we were walking to the T and saw a crowd of autograph seekers waiting for the Bruins to leave the player's parking lot. We saw a car jet out of there (no player in it), and decided to wait around to see at least one car, maybe we'd see someone. All of a sudden a Lexus pulls up and inside of it, Zdeno Chara! Pretty sweet



Following that, we hit the T, helped some Clemson fans in town for the game to get back to Andrew, shot the shit about sports and the following conversation ensued:

Me: We just came back from the hockey game
Older Woman: We don't know much about hockey
Older Man: It's like 2 chicken coops separated, and you gotta keep them outta your chicken coop
Older Woman: Y'al probably don't know what chicken coops are.

Nice. After we got back, myself, Dave, Katelyn, and Scott watched a reshowing of the game. And that's all.

Bruins Blog Project First Star: The crowd. Not huge, but rowdy, supportive and knowledgeable. Bonus to the dudes a few sections down dressed up in Halloween costumes (Dumb & Dumber guys, Ron Burgundy, Champ Kind, etc)

Bruins Blog Project Last Star: Steve Ott. Turtle. Douche. Cheapshot Artist