Larry Brown Sports

Phil Esposito is one of the greatest players in NHL history, and he played for both the Chicago Blackhawks and Boston Bruins. For that reason, one might assume he would be torn when it comes to choosing a team to root for in this year’s Stanley Cup Final. As it turns out, that could not be further from the truth.

During a recent interview with the Toronto Sun, Esposito emphatically stated that he feels no connection to the Bruins or Blackhawks.

“You want to know the truth?” he said. “This series doesn’t mean s*** to me. I have no feeling for these teams. There’s nothing emotional about it. They both got rid of me, traded me. So screw them.”

Esposito was considered the greatest scorer of his generation, becoming the first ever player to score over 100 points in a season when he recorded a whopping 126 in 1969. He led the NHL in scoring for six straight seasons from 1969-1975, and he and Bobby Orr were the anchors of a Bruins team that won Stanley Cup championships in 1970 and 1972.

Esposito came to Boston from Chicago in 1967, before his career really took off. During the 1975-76 season, he was traded from the Bruins to the New York Rangers when he supposedly made a fuss about having his playing time reduced because of his age.

“I didn’t choose to leave Chicago,” Esposito said. “I didn’t choose to leave Boston. I signed a contract in Boston for less money than I could have gotten from going to the WHA. I could have made millions doing that. And you know how they repaid me? Three weeks later, they traded me (to the New York Rangers).”

The fifth-leading scorer in NHL history went on to coach and become general manager of the Rangers after he retired in 1981. In 1987, the Bruins held an emotional ceremony where they retired Esposito’s No. 7 jersey and had Ray Bourque remove the number from his back to reveal his new No. 77. Esposito was moved by the ceremony and later attended a ceremony in Boston when the Bruins retired Bourque’s number, but apparently he has had no association with the team since then. Talk about a crying shame.

H/T Deadspin

Alright, that one doesn’t even make sense. The long period of downtime the Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins have had to wait before their Eastern Conference Finals series begins has led to a lot of boredom. Saturday night can’t get here quick enough.

Earlier this week, we showed you a bar that has vowed to stop serving a certain type of beer once the Bruins-Penguins series begins. Now, we have the Oakmont Bakery in Oakmont, Penn. changing the name of its Boston cream pie to Penguins cream pie. Come on now. If they really wanted to man up they’d stop serving it altogether.

Time to drop the puck already. And I know there’s something that sounds horribly wrong about Penguins cream pie, but keep the dirty jokes to yourselves. There are kids watching — maybe.

As Pittsburgh and Boston fans anxiously await the start of the Eastern Conference Finals series between the Penguins and Bruins, local restaurants and bars have been given plenty of time to get all their marketing ducks in a row. For Pens fans who enjoy grabbing a beer at Howlers Coyote Cafe in Pittsburgh, that means dropping by for a Sam Adams while you still can.

Howlers Coyote announced on its Facebook page Wednesday that it will no longer be serving Sam Adams, which is a brewing company based in Boston, once the Eastern Conference Finals begin.

“Two days left to order any Sam Adams,” a sign inside the bar currently reads. ” We will not be serving any Boston beers during the Eastern Conference Finals!”

Clever marketing tool? They got me to write about it, so I suppose I’ll give them that. However, it should be noted that a bar in New York did the exact same thing before the Super Bowl between the Giants and Patriots a couple of years ago. This is not a novel concept.

H/T Puck Daddy

As expected, the pregame ceremony at TD Garden before the Boston Bruins took on the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday night was incredibly emotional. One of the highlights of the ceremony was when Bruins National Anthem singer Rene Rancourt, who is as much a legend in Boston as Bobby Orr, got things started with the National Anthem before letting the packed house of 18,000 fans take over.

A video montage shown on the arena videoboard before the puck dropped paid tribute to those who lost their lives or were affected by the tragic events that took place at the Boston Marathon on Monday.

Read The Rest of the Story…

The Boston Bruins’ home game against the Ottawa Senators has been postponed in light of the Boston Marathon bombings on Monday.

The NHL said in a statement:

The game will be rescheduled. The date and time will be announced at a later date.

The National Hockey League wishes to express its sympathy to all affected by the tragic events that took place in Boston earlier this afternoon.

ESPN’s Joe McDonald says Boston Bruins players were told not to speak with the media.

Cancelling the game was the only option during such a troubling time. Boston PD was advising residents to stay at home.

Google has created a person finder for anyone looking to get in touch with someone involved in the Boston Marathon. This link at the marathon’s website has an athlete tracker.

To locate family members, this is the number: 617-635-4500. Tips on the matter should be called into 800-494-tips.

Boston Bruins fans went to sleep on Wednesday night feeling the sting of a 6-5 shootout loss to the Montreal Canadiens. It doesn’t get much worse than blowing a 5-3, third-period lead against your most bitter rival, but there was a tremendous silver lining even after the most painful loss of the season. It appeared certain the Bruins had landed Calgary Flames star Jarome Iginla.

When Boston fans wake up, they’ll be in an even worse mood than they were when they hit the sheets. Despite various reports that Iginla to Boston was a done deal, the 15-year veteran has been traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins. How could this have happened? Iginla picked it himself.

“He agreed to waive and come to Pittsburgh,” Penguins GM Ray Shero told the team’s official website. “The trade conference call was done with the league. Everything was final. That was it. I talked to him a while ago after it. He said he was excited to come to Pittsburgh. He said he would help anyway he could, didn’t care about role or who he was playing with. He wants to help the team win and be a part of it.”

In fact, TSN’s Bob McKenzie has reported that the Flames preferred Boston’s offer of a first-round pick and two prospects, but Iginla would not waive his no-trade clause to be sent to the Bruins. Considering he had been a healthy scratch for the first time in his career and two of the Bruins’ top prospects were scratched from their AHL affiliate’s game, it seemed certain Iginla was Boston-bound.

Perhaps he watched the Bruins’ meltdown and changed his mind at the last second. Boston was unable to score on six attempts in the shootout, and goalie Tuukka Rask threw a classic spaz and broke his stick after letting in the deciding goal. Pittsburgh is already one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference and recently got even better by trading for former Dallas Stars forward Brenden Morrow. Iginla makes them the clear-cut favorite in the East.

Sunday night’s game between the Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins featured a full-on playoff atmosphere, with Montreal winning a 4-3 thriller that went down to the wire. Penalties were one of the stories of the evening, as the Bruins served 32 minutes in the box compared to Montreal’s 16. The Canadiens had five power play’s, while Boston had only six.

After the game, Bruins head coach Claude Julien was furious over what he perceived to be a significant amount of acting from the visiting team.

“The frustrating thing is that we get 17 minutes into the penalty box when we should have been on the power play,” Julien told reporters, via Joe Haggerty of CSNBoston.com. “It’s as simple as that,” said Julien. “It’s frustrating because tonight – as everybody saw – there’s a lot of embellishment. This is embarrassing for our game: the embellishing. Right now they’ve got over 100 power plays [this season] and it’s pretty obvious why.

“We’re trying to clean that out of our game, and its got to be done soon. It’s not about [Sunday]. It’s about the game and the embellishment embarrasses our game. We need to be better than that. It’s pretty obvious when P.K. [Subban] gets hit and throws himself into the glass and holds his head. You know what? If we start calling those penalties for embellishment, maybe teams stop doing it. But until we take charge of that it’s going to be an issue.”

The play Julien was referring to happened in the third period, when Shawn Thornton hit PK Subban in the corner and Subban grabbed his head before looking to the officials for a call. Julien was also angry over a no-call when Montreal defenseman Alexei Emelin crossed checked Tyler Seguin in the midsection near center ice late in the second period. Seguin fell to the ground in pain, and Zdeno Chara started a fight with Emelin after the shot. Chara was given an instigator penalty and the Canadiens went on to score on the power play.

The Canadiens lead the league with 100 power play chances this season. You typically don’t earn that title without a bit of acting, so you can understand why Julien was upset. Boston and Montreal have one of the oldest rivalries in hockey, and they happen to be two of the best teams in the Eastern Conference this season. That should make for some epic battles heading forward.

Read The Rest of the Story…