17,565 living breathing Bostonians. When they walked into the TD garden they came, lone members silently reminiscing on a scene the hoped never to witness. Yet when they rose from their seats, removed their caps and turned their eyes to the majestically empowering 50 stars and 13 red and white stripes of the American Flag, those near 20,000 fans stood together not just representing their own lives and sadness but the unchanging grief of a city riddled with a kind of merciless terrorism our nation hoped never to see again.
Nonetheless that kind of horrendous murder has returned and when US president Barrack Obama took to the podium in DC a couple days ago, this is what he had so say. "Boston is a tough and resilient town. So are its people"
We ARE tough. Yet no matter how much "toughness" one possesses within them, there is no way to unsee the carnage in Boston Monday and no way to unhear the sickening crack of those two bombs ripping apart Copley square. Instead Bostonian s flocked to the TD Garden last night, looking to relieve their pain as they attempted to rally around an outlet of success and compassion that the City of Boston has literally been built around. The Boston Bruins.
In the confusion following Monday's attacks, the Bruins were placed in a position to, because of a ever present fear of additional attacks postpone their second game of the year, this time delaying their Monday night meeting with the Ottawa Senators.
"Public safety personnel from the City and State are still gathering information regarding today's events and it is vital they have all resources available for their investigation. The thoughts and prayers of everyone in the Bruins organization are with the city of Boston and all those affected by today's tragedy.” Bruins President Cam Neely said after announcing the cancellation of the game.
Aside from the Bruins, the Boston Celtics also cancelled their game set to take place Tuesday night. This fact, coupled with the Red Sox being out of town for the majority of this week made it so that Wednesday night's Bruins, Sabers game represented the first time since the attacks that a major sporting event would take place on Boston soil.
"It’s going to go on for a few days, weeks and possibly months. We all feel for the people that have been affected by this. It was a sad and emotional day for all of us,” said B's captain Zedeno Chara “We just have to support each other. We can all play for each other, and maybe during these tough times, help people cheer.” and while at that point Chara was representing his wish to use the Bruins play of late to help cheer up the people of Boston, before last nights game, Bruins fans were doing a pretty god job at bringing their team to its feat.
For 3 wonderful minutes a perfectly imperfect choir of 17,565 voices, showered Boston in a rendition of the national anthem where the microphone of lead anthem singer Rene Rancort was rendered unimportant. For 3 wonderful minutes 17,565 individuals stood as one as, until the last of Mondays victims was helped from the ashes, the City of Boston would never fully heal. Yet while the game kicked off supercharged with emotion, the Bruins still had a game to play and as the night went on, even that night of tribute and heavy hearts turned to one of playoff atmosphere and divisional implications.
By the conclusion of the second period, the division leading Montreal Canadians were down 5 to 2 to the Penguins and were on pace to loose their 3rd straight game, meaning that if the Bruins could salvage so much as a single point in their game with Buffalo, they would launch themselves to the top of the Northeast and in turn the second seed in the conference. In addition to that while it has long been evident that it would take a collapse of historic proportions for the Bruins to miss the playoffs, the B's pulled within one point of clenching their ticket to post season action over a week ago. Yet with 2 games in which all the needed was 1 point, they came into last nights game riding a streak of 2 straight regulation losses looming over their heads meaning that the Boys in Black and Gold were still chasing that all important 57 point plateau, that, once achieved, would officially punch their ticket to the playoffs.
With that knowledge dominating their minds, the Bruins rode the cheers of the crowd and, after a pair of spectacular saves from backup net-minder Anton Khudobin they managed to pull out to a promising 2 to 1 lead going into the 3rd period.
"Late in the game there we just wanted to make sure that we got pucks at the net and weren't trying to be too fancy," Buffalo interim head coach Ron Rolston said when reflecting on last nights 3rd period Buffalo play. Yet while the Sabers DID in fact pound the net with shots (they racked up 11 shots in the period to bring their game total up to 27) a slew of Anton Khudobin saves held the the puck out of the net for much of the 3rd period. The Sabers had been pressing, and, while they would go on to tie the game with the goalie pulled, it seemed for a brief time that the deal had been done long before Miller was forced to vacate his net.
With just over 3 minutes left in the game, Bruins goalie Anton Khudobin found himself caught several feet out the front of the net as he was then feeling the immediate repercussions of a failed poke check. With Khudobin diving towards the badly managed rebound, Buffalo right wind Drew Stafford made a skillful spin-o-rama taking the puck onto his stick and rapidly blasting the shot towards the front of the net. Yet after watching the play quickly develop and as the entire Buffalo bench rose to its feet, the 34 year old bruins D-man Andrew Ference launched himself on his knees before, with his leg sitting just inches in front of the goal line he was able to kick the puck wide of the right goal post.
Yet even the antics that followed that spectacular play served as a prelude to what would occur less than 2 and a half minutes later. With the clock ticking a way and the 6 by 4 Buffalo net empty, a delay of game penalty with 48 seconds left assessed to Ference gave the Sabers a wonderful opportunity to execute a simple yet golden plan. Win the face off, set up at the top of the offensive zone and for 48 seconds just pound the Bruins net with as many shots physically possible. Long story short, that plan worked. With just over 30 seconds to go in the game and the face off won away from Bergeron, the puck was quickly passed from winger Thomas Vanak back to his defense before the puck was urgently sent back to Vanak who had since rotated to a position just below the right face-off dot. Surveying the front of the net, Vanak watched as 2nd year forward Cody Hodgsen gained well sought after body position not only in-front of B's captain Zedeno Chara but also in a place that blocked the view of Bruin Anton Khudobin.
After assertively answering Hodgsen's calls for the puck Vanak launched the pass towards the blue paint where a quick flick of the wrist by Hodgsen the game was tied and destined for overtime. (The 10th time Boston has gone past regulation this year.)
After neither team managed to put anything past either net-minder in the 5 minute overtime, off we went to a shootout and as the eastern timezone clocks clicked past 10:00 at night the Bruins looked to send their fans to sleep happy. They didn't, well sorta.
Boston lost yesterday but with the point gained by reaching overtime, they have officially punched their ticket to the postseason, and by way of the tie breaker have leapfrogged the Canadians and Capitals to take the honers (at least for now) of being the second seeded team in the east. Yet much like almost all the sporting events that have taken place this week, high school, college or pro, wins and losses once again mean almost nothing. So many things about this game draw similarities to the other events taking place since Monday, the sings, the words of condolence and the occasional tear as the national anthem is sung. Yet one difference between this game and others was the fact that this one took place in Boston, and after kicking off the night with the less than ordinarily singing of the Star Spangled Banner, the Bruins and Sabers book-ended the evening by skating to the center of the arena and raising their sticks to the rafters, a touching salute to those whose lives were forever changed by what happened at 2:50 in the afternoon, on April 15th 2013.
0 comments:
Post a Comment