Boston Bruins

Boston-Bruins

Today in Boston Bruins History: May 18

1960: Brent Ashton (full name Brent Kenneth Ashton) is born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. His time as part of the Boston Bruins was not a long time, but it was just another location change on a resume studded with them. Overall in his career, he played for nine different NHL teams–Boston was team number eight–setting a league record that has since been tied but not exceeded. It’s an unusual place in Boston Bruins history, to be another stop on this player’s long list of teams, but there it is.
1963: Marty McSorley is born in Hamilton, Ontario. He’d already had a long storied career by the time he became part of the Bruins: he was well-known as Wayne Gretzky’s bodyguard in both Edmonton and Los Angeles, and he’d played in a few other cities before arriving in Boston in 1999. It was as a Bruin, though, that his playing career would effectively come to an end. During a February 2000 game with the Vancouver Canucks, with just seconds left to play,…

Slovakia, Czech Republic Go to Semifinals of Hockey World Championship

After a flurry of four games played one after the other on the same day, the scores have been settled at the IIHF Hockey World Championship and the semifinal matchups are set. The two Boston Bruins, Zdeno Chara and David Krejci, are both on teams that will move to the next round of the tournament.
Slovakia started the day off by pulling off a big upset and defeating Canada 4-3. The Slovakian team built up a 2-0 lead early in the first period on goals by Tomas Kopecky and Miroslav Satan. Evander Kane put Canada on the board before the first period ended, starting a bounce-back that erased Slovakia’s lead. In the second period, Jeff Skinner scored a power play goal to tie the game at two and the tie held–until Alexandre Burrows untied it and actually put Canada ahead for a time. Milan Bartovich re-tied it in the third period. Then Ryan Getzlaf was given a game misconduct for kneeing Juraj Milus. Milus had to be helped off the ice and seemed to be in pain: he couldn’t…

Incredible Timing On This Picture: Patrice Bergeron Likes That Ass

Patrice Is A Fan Of That Butt
A.B. Absolute perfection. And it doesn’t matter that it’s only a poster of Patrice. You can better your last dollar that if this was Bergeron in real life, he would do the exact same thing. Except if it was real life, that girl would jog straight into to his apartment. His girlfriend might not be very happy about it but I’m sure he would figure something out. He is the ultimate team player after all.

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London Knights Set for Memorial Cup

The OHL champion London Knights, including Boston Bruins prospect Jared Knight on the roster, are ready to challenge for the biggest prize in Canadian junior hockey–the Memorial Cup.
This year, all three of the junior leagues’ regular-season champions (London, the Saint John Sea Dogs in Quebec and the Edmonton Oil Kings in the Western League) went on to win their leagues’ titles, giving them clearance to try for the top trophy. The fourth spot in what would be an otherwise lopsided tourney is given to the team in the host city, which this year is Shawinigan, Quebec and the Cataractes.
The Knights’ road to the “Mem Cup” began with a 49-18-0-1 record in the regular season and a 16-3 playoff run that included two sweeps, a six-game round and a five-game series with the Niagara IceDogs. The Knights also recently made news as the team to which Dale Hunter will return after his time coaching the Washington Capitals; brother Mark is behind the bench in L…

Today in Boston Bruins History: May 17

1992: The Boston Bruins lose 4-3 in overtime of Game 1 in the semifinals to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
2011: Tyler Seguin is the man of the night, putting up two goals and two assists as the Bruins win 6-5 over the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference final. He scores all four of his points in the second period (of his second playoff game), tying a league record for points in a period and placing himself in Boston Bruins history among other four-points-a-period scorers Barry Pederson, Peter McNab and Ken Linseman. In that same second period, the Bruins score all but one of their goals, the highest total for one playoff period since 1991.
Seguin isn’t the only one to create this victory, of course: Nathan Horton scores on the power play, David Krejci scores and Michael Ryder puts away two goals of his own as well. But Seguin’s big night is a huge turnaround for a guy who was advised that all the practices before games in the previous two rounds were basic…

Boston Bruins Tyler Seguin Showing Off His Boston Celtic Pride

Tyler Seguin At The 3 Point Line
A.B. What’s the over/under on how many 3 pointers Seguin could drain in 60 seconds? On athletic ability & luck alone I say 2. But for all I know he could have been the Canadien Michael Jordan before ultimately deciding to go with hockey. You just never know with these 2 sport pro athletes. Just absolute freaks of nature.
So going back to the post about Boston athletes crossing over sports – do you think Seguin could make it in the NBA? Something (the fact he’s not 6’10) tells me he probably wouldn’t last very long – regardless of how smooth his jump shot follow through is. Prove me wrong Tyler.

Tim Thomas is spending his offseason stopping iPhone cases

With the Bruins first-round exit in this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs, Tim Thomas has apparently been keeping busy during his offseason by starring in G-Form iPhone case commercials.
By the way, I’m really questioning how realistic this commercial is. Not because some dude is firing iPhones as slap shots without them breaking, but rather because Tim Thomas stayed in the crease the whole time. No way in hell that’s real.
[h/t Days of Y'Orr]

Tyler Seguin Feeling Good After Hand Surgery, Looking to Add ‘Man Strength’ Over Summer (Video)

Tyler Seguin was forced to embrace the summertime much earlier than he did last season, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Bruins forward would obviously rather still be playing, but the B’s first-round exit from the playoffs does give him a chance to get some maintenance work done and prepare for next season. The first step in that came recently when Seguin underwent hand surgery to help repair a tendon in his left hand. He returned to Boston recently to have it examined, and he chatted with the team website for a little bit as well. Seguin said…

Today in Boston Bruins History: May 16

1974: After winning Game 1 of the series, then losing the next three, the Boston Bruins know they’re on the brink of being eliminated by the Philadelphia Flyers–so they win 5-1 in Game 5. However, obviously this comeback isn’t enough to cement another Cup win in Boston Bruins history.
1978: The Bruins lose 3-2 to the Montreal Canadiens in overtime of Stanley Cup Final Game 2.
1999: The Bruins win 5-3 over the Buffalo Sabres in Game 5 of the conference semifinals.
2011: Hoping to improve after dropping Game 1 of the conference final to the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Bruins take in some practice and a few of them speak to the media about expectations for Game 2.

(This interview with Nathan Horton has a rather eerie foreshadowing question about whether he’s ever had an injury or concussion to try to battle through, which at the time he did not…)

Also, Patrice Bergeron is seen at full practice, giving his teammates hope for his speedy return to the ice.

Slovakia, Czech Republic Seize Quarterfinal Berths at World Championship

The preliminary round at the 2012 IIHF Hockey World Championship has ended and there’s good news for both Zdeno Chara and David Krejci‘s teams–they’re bound for the quarterfinals.
Slovakia denied France the ability to complete le upset by beating them 5-4. France was in a position to possibly swipe fourth place in Group S away from Slovakia after narrowly beating Belarus in their penultimate preliminary game. They needed a regulation win against Slovakia to seal the deal, but Slovakia persevered and it’s au revoir France.
Not that France went quietly into the night: they came from behind to tie up the game three separate times, including ties before both intermissions. Chara did his part by contributing on the power play, sending one of his famous slap shots towards the net, where Michal Handzus deflected it in and made it 3-2 at the time. He also played nearly 25 minutes in this victory and surely must be pleased to see his team’s success after a…

Tim Thomas Shows He Can Stop More Than Just Pucks in New G-Form Ad (Video)

Bruins goalie Tim Thomas allowed two goals in the team’s Game 7 loss to the Capitals to end the 2011-2012 season. Things might have gone differently, however, if the Caps had been shooting iPhones instead of hockey pucks. Thomas appears in a new advertisement by G-form, featuring the company’s impact-protected iPhone cases. In the ad, Thomas turns away all seven iPhones which are fired on net, and answers a phone call after saving the last iPhone in his glove, with the phone completely intact. Watch the video here:

Today in Boston Bruins History: May 15

1964: Dave Reid (full name David William Reid) is born in Etobicoke, Ontario. Reid was drafted by the Boston Bruins in 1982, spending one more year with the junior Peterborough Petes club before going to the NHL. He then spent much of the ’80s bouncing around between Boston and their minor-league clubs. In 1988 he went to the Toronto Maple Leafs as a free agent, but after three seasons in Toronto, he returned to Boston for five more years before heading to the Dallas Stars. While in Dallas, he was part of the 1999 Stanley Cup Champion team. Two years later, he added another Cup ring to his collection with the Colorado Avalanche before retiring. These days he dabbles in analyst roles and is the general manager of the Petes.
1970: Wes Walz (full name Wesley Walz) is born in Calgary, Alberta. Drafted by the Bruins in 1989, he spent two years with the Bruins before going off to the Philadelphia Flyers. After that, even as part of the Calgary Flames and Detroit Red Wings organizati…

Tim Thomas Shows Toughness of G-Form iPhone Cases

There is a huge market out there for cases meant to protect delicate iPhones from the various injuries that can befall them: scratches, dings, falls, you name it. But there might only be one company out there that can say their cases are strong enough to withstand being shot at a goalie.
Check out the video here:

The G-form X-Protect for iPhone comes in seven colors and retail for $40. That’s all well and good if you’re an iPhone owner looking for a sturdy case, I suppose. But there’s another distinction here for Boston Bruins fans: it looks like Tim Thomas stops every single one of those phones. So, he has a perfect 1.000 save percentage–against iPhones.
This isn’t Thomas’ only foray into the world of advertising, though. Here’s a spot he did earlier this year for Arbella Insurance–a home and car insurance company in New England–in which he is a polite bus rider saving seats for use by his fellow passengers:

Then of course the…

London Knights Win Robertson Cup

The London Knights, boasting Boston Bruins 2010 draft pick Jared Knight on the roster, defeated the Niagara IceDogs 2-1 in Game 5 of the OHL Championship Series to win the title of OHL champions and the Robertson Cup. Now they go on to face the Shawinigan Cataractes, Saint John Sea Dogs and the winner of the WHL championship series in the Memorial Cup tournament.
After a scoreless first period that had seven stopped shots by both goalies, the Knights’ Austin Watson broke through and got on the board. That 1-0 score held until the third period, when Seth Griffith added another goal for London. Though Tom Kuhnhackl broke the shutout and got Niagara on the boards, it wasn’t enough to turn the tides and London won the series in five games.
The Knights last won the Robertson Cup in 2005. At that time, Corey Perry of the Anaheim Ducks was on the team and won the Wayne Gretzky 99 Trophy for playoff MVP. Watson won the 2012 award.
Though Dougie Hamilton was on the losing side of…

Bruins Mailbag: Zach Parise, Ryan Suter Unlikely for B’s, Dougie Hamilton Should Be Big Addition

The Bruins are no longer part of the chase for Lord Stanley’s coveted Cup, but there’s still plenty to talk about with regards to the club as it begins its preparations for next season. That point was driven home by the volume of entries for this week’s edition of the Bruins Mailbag, and I’ve tried to answer as many of them as possible. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to answer any of the submissions from the small but passionate fan base in Arizona. It seems I touched a nerve with my column questioning the long-term viability of Phoenix as a hockey…

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