Boston Braindead On This One

I love Boston. What a cool city; a little dyslexic on the urban planning front but still a great town. A sister city of sorts to Montreal with all the charm and corruption.

Me and the gal-missus, try to visit Boston and Cape Cod, where we Honeymooned, as often as we could. Boston's North End and its Little Italy is truly a charming place to visit. It's also among North America's premier sports towns. The Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins is a nice quartet of teams to cheer for.

I have nothing but respect for Beantown.

I guess you can just "feel" the but coming...and here it comes in 3-2-1...

Their rationalization in the aftermath of the Pacioretty-Chara incident, has been nothing short of ridiculous - especially their idiotic sports hosts and journalists. I wasn't impressed one bit. They all failed to see the big picture. While it's true Montreal hockey fans are passionate to the point of delusion, they're also the most knowledgeable of all hockey fans without question. There's no debate about that. Like Mark Recchi says, there's no other major league sports team here. Indeed, we're a second-rate sports town.

Despite this, while Habs talk that reaches mind-numbing proportions (so much so I tune out), they're fully capable of going beyond themselves.

For example, when Patrice Bergeron and Marc Savard were victims of dirty play, Montrealers DID act in outrage over it. They argued those players were lost to dirty hits that had nothing to do with hockey and demanded the NHL do something.  Naturally, it wasn't as vociferous since they're both Boston players, but for weeks Montrealers debated it. That Bostonians use the cheap "yeah, well did they care about Savard" line is beside the point. If Bostonians couldn't be bothered to work itself up over it that's their business. Just don't claim Montrealers didn't.

The bottom line is the NHL HAS A RESPECT AMONG THE PLAYERS PROBLEM and it has been painstakingly slow to address the issue. Period. All the bull I've been hearing from GM's is all poppycock dithering. They can stamp out dirty play.

Sitting Matt Cooke's sad ass the way they did was a good start. That's EXACTLY what the NHL should have done with lengthy suspension given and fine levied.