Pound sand Tiger.

I had the extreme and remarkable pleasure of attending SCTV’s Benefit of Laughter Monday night in Toronto, and the after party was held next door at Wayne Gretzky’s. I couldn’t resist having my photo taken beneath his gallery of jerseys, and I could feel the glory eminating from them against my back. The next morning it took the healing power of 6 aloe vera plants before I could even put on an undershirt.

The full SCTV Reunion gallery is worth a glance, if only to see me frightening the bejeepers out of Martin Short. What a wonderful night in the T-Dot.

Why does everyone have their panties in a bunch about the Bruins and whether or not they will make the playoffs this season? As I watch them battle the Leafs tonight, at best they could finish in 6th place but more realistically in 7th or 8th. Great, so they make the playoffs and lose in the first round probably via a sweep. So what the fuck does that do for the franchise? Not much. I’ll keep watching because I am a total suck bag but seriously they are not a good team so keep your expectations low.

Now the rest of this article will be another helpful travel tip to all you loyal Goonblog readers. Hopefully, many of you have read my post titled “This has Nothing to do With Hockey”. Well so does this. Last week, I was fortunate enough to spend Monday – Friday night in The City of Sin. Part of it was work that I won’t talk about but there sure was some fun!

I arrived in town on St. Paddy’s day afternoon after a joyous flight. You would think by now, with my history on Delta, they would stock up on vodka before I board. Sure as shit, this was the third trip in the past few years that I have single handedly cleaned out the vodka on a flight. So as Chris and the rest of my Irish booze bag friends were falling down drunk that day, I was 37,000’ above smashed up like crash test dummy. As we took a cab to the hotel, we passed an Irish bar with 2 chicks passed out on the sidewalk wearing mini skirts with their roast beef curtains hanging out. I looked at the cab driver and said “Vegas Baby! Vegas!

I had work events Monday night ending Thursday at lunch time. I survived that and even ended up + $$$ on the tables. Beginning Thursday at 9:20 a.m. PST was the NCAA division 1 hoops tourney. The Ref offered up a great piece last week and I hope you get a chance to read it. I’m not a huge hoops fan but anything that gets you out of work early, allows many people to gamble together and involves drinking, I am all for it!

I spent most of the time watching games at several sports books including The Wynn’s, The Venetian’s and the Mirage’s. The entire city was jammed with party goers and hoops fans from all over. Stepping off the elevator Friday morning and walking into a packed sports book full of people boozing it up was awesome. With bets being made on individual games as well as parlay’s, every contest was closely watched by all. I personally would like to thank Clemson for totally fucking me in the ass with their loss to Villanova.

I headed home Friday night on a red eye with blurry eyes and a pocket full of Benjamin’s. I wish I could have stayed through the weekend but duty called with MBH and the Million Dollar Babies. If you ever plan a weekend to Vegas, make sure you do it around the first weekend of March Madness. Or, as my buddy Red Dog who lives in Vegas told me, come here for Rodeo weekend as it is the most popular and craziest weekend of the year. If you have any questions about Vegas contact me, I would be happy to share my experiences after multiple trips to the belly of the beast.

Hey gang. MOL and I just got back from the Bruins game. I am not as offended by the Bruins play as I am by the Toronto fans behind us. The Leafs KILLED Boston. I have only a slight problem with that. The Bruins’ game has gone to shit at the worst possible time. I wish that was my biggest problem.

When I go to the Bruins, or any event for that matter, I make sure I am there for the National Anthem. Sometimes when it is two American based teams I can maybe stand still in the aisle when Rene belts out The Star Spangled Banner. I always remove my hat, and I do not move until the singer stops the drawn out braaaaaaaaave. It’s what you are supposed to do as a good American. I love our anthem and I love being an American.

When a team from north of the border is in town, I make sure I am in my seat for the anthem. I think the Canadian National Anthem is one of the most beautiful songs. While not Canadian, I sing along to every word, and I do so out of respect. Before the tilt tonight, all the Leafs fans behind us emplored us to stand up and be respectful. They all sang loudly, and proudly as Rene did their Anthem and Country proud. I sang along quietly as I do and had my usual smile on my face as I love the song, and I knew my favorite song was next.

As Rene started into my anthem, the Toronto fans behind me proceeded to talk about the game upcoming through our entire song. I am a well disciplined Marine, so I stood at attention hand over heart and stewed as it kept going on throughout the whole song. Red Thunder can attest to not “Squaring Away” someone being disrespectful to our anthem while standing at attention. MOL was even slightly bothered, and she lives with me so you know it takes her a lot to get going. The song ended and I said, so they could hear me, “What the fuck? We were quiet through their song.” Some ass face said something rude, and I settled in to watch the Bruins get lambasted. There was zero point in saying anything to them, and I was with my wife and her lovely friend, so there was also no point in pressing the issue.

The Goonsquad prides themselves on being Ameridan. We love all hockey playing nations, especially Canada and America. I hear stories about the “Ugly Americans” around the world, and I do not want to turn this into a political blog, but tonight, I was seated with some “Ugly Canadians”. If you guys are on the road in America remember there are two anthems to be played. Try to show some respect for both.

As an aside. The current tally for Hockey Week in Acton is below. I may scrap this event due to poor showing.

Bruins: 0-3. Outscored 19-4. 2 fights (although the Chara Brash fight really wasn’t much)
Devils: 1-0. They won 4-1 after two VERY boring periods last night. 0 fights.

Overall record: 1-3. I’ll be in Worcester tomorrow to see Albany take on the Sharks. I have no rooting interest in this game other than I want to see Trevor Gillies go nuts on someone. You’ll recognize me as the fat kid that didn’t move during our national anthem.

Internet down. Writing on stolen weak signal from neighbor. Stopping at Best Buy on way home for new router and microphone. Will report on trade deadline then. Very sorry. I’ve always loved you.

While everyone was watching Gay Idol last night, seriously I think half of the guys are pole smokers this season; I was suffering through another B’s tilt. Boston was up 2-0 with 1:03 remaining in the game and they ended up tying the Canes 2-2. Fortunately, they pulled out the shootout victory thanks to goals by Kessel and Krejci. At least this game had 3 fights to keep us goons entertained. Lucic is very happy to have his half shield gone, so much so that after a go with Brookbank in the first he had another go with Gleason in the third after Marc Savard was buried.

Anyone catch Friday night’s game in Toronto? It’s the same story with these guys. Play a close game but in the end they can’t close the deal. Watching both contests, I was waiting for the B’s to blow it and they didn’t let me down. Why do they crap their pants with the game on the line? I really thought that Julien would be able to have these guys in better positions to close games especially with a 2 g lead with just over a minute to play. I really want to like this B’s team but they can’t keep blowing it.

Goons and goonettes. I am having serious problems with my internet at home. Something about my IP address not renewing? I’m all, I didn’t think I had to renew my IP address. I am going snowmobiling this weekend, but I wanted to give you a topic to discuss while I am gone. There is a reason behind this, and I will reveal it upon my return. Simple question really. You’ve probably been asked it before.

Why do you love enforcers?

Have a great weekend all. Please don’t forget to goon it up.

I’m as frustrated as a person that’s had January 23rd circled on their schedule because Bones is going to be in town, only to find out Bones is out until after the all star break with back spasms. I guess I’ll leave the “I’m as frustrated as” jokes to Larry the Cable Guy. But still, I’m pretty frustrated. Even more so because at about 5 Tweener e-mailed me to let me know Cam Janssen had been sent down for conditioning. There are few things that make me more excited than hearing a tough guy is in town right before I go to the rink. One of the others is me dressed as Little Bo Peep, but that is another blog. Anyway, the night wasn’t a total loss. There was one very scheduled fight between Mark Fraser of Lowell, and a Mohawk wearing Paul Bissonnette. It wasn’t much of a scrap really. Bissonnette landed a few hard rights, and Fraser didn’t do much of anything except get punched in the face. I got to speak to Bissonnette, and he was a very good guy. We talked a bit about the new jerseys, and fighting David Clarkson when he was in Junior. Good guy. Bones was in the house, but I couldn’t track him down to talk to him. I guess I’ll have to go on the road to see the all time AHL penalty minute leader before he skates off into the sunset.

This was a good hockey week for me actually. Thursday found me in the Garden for the Bruins and Islanders tilt. Naturally before I could be found at Halftime Pizza where I bumped into Cato, Mad Dog, Hoddy, and the other guy whose name I always forget. Along with that crew there were 4500 of our closest friends slugging down pizza, and 25oz’s of their favorite brew. I cannot believe how popular the place has become. I was turned onto Halftime last season by Killer. What were great about it were the huge beers, excellent pizza, and the fights on the plasmas. The best part however, was that there weren’t a zillion people in the place, so you could enjoy your pie, brews and fights in relative comfort. Now the place is a fucking zoo. It’s really caught on in a big way. Good for Halftime, bad for you and I. Oh yeah, Bruins won. No fights.

Wow who woke up the big bad Bruins. I was watching Lucic in HD drop the gloves in the first five minutes of the game and had to immediately call Chris and give him the detial (he and HOL were present in the Garden for the tilt), I thought it was a pretty good bout and Lucic came out on top. That was soon followed up by Stewart throwing his weight around and pounding people into the boards.
Chris and I will be attending Thursday nights throwdown in the Garden, any other Goons out there, you can be assured we will be at Sully Tap before the game so please join us for a cold one.

In reply to Chris’ most recent post, I wanted to add my 2 cents:

Wondering Point # 1 – Are the Bruins for real?
No they are not and here is why:
• The “new” starting goalie is on the shelf and could be for an extended period of time as he may need additional knee surgery
• The “backup” goalie who has stood on his head All season and was among the leaders in goals against average and save % is on the shelf now
• They have 15 guys in their lineup with less than double digit points on the season
• They rank 19th out of 30 teams for total goals for
• They are in second to last place in penalty kill
• The teams they have beaten have a combined record of 133 wins and 149 losses
• The teams they have lost against have a combined record of 136 wins and 103 losses
• They have lost all 4 games vs. Montreal this year being outscored 19-8
• And yes Chara is the most overrated player in the NHL today

Wondering Point # 2 – Claude Julien for coach of the year?
Claude has significantly improved the Bruins, not hard to do after Dave Lewis was at the helm last year. Think about that for a second…this time last year Dave Lewis was coaching the Boston Bruins!! He has them playing physical, disciplined and smart hockey…to date. It’s early still and we will see how things progress after the holidays. As I have said numerous times in the past, as long as JJ and his Smarty Pants Lucky Sperm Club son are in charge of this team, mediocrity is the best we will get as fans.

Wondering Point # 3 – Is Chris on drugs
Ah yeah Chris…we all know you are!