Ugh.

Death, Taxes and Boston sports radio. About the only things in life which are completely predictable.

The Bruins take a 3-0 series lead, and then drop game four in overtime. Ergo, since they once blew a 3-0 series lead and lost a series after losing game four in overtime, this MUST be history repeating itself. This is your local radio programming until the Bruins close the series.

Or you’re a columnist who made a boatload of money on some fictional curse involving a local baseball team. What do you do? Naturally you made any connection you can to this situation.

The media columns today look at the postseason coverage of the Bruins.

NESN, CSNNE compete for Bruins coverage – Chad Finn.

For Pierre McGuire, rinkside beats the booth – Bill Doyle.

It was also a rough night for the Red Sox, as Terry Francona made his return to Fenway Park as an opposing manager. His Indians walloped the Sox 12-3.

Tribe a tribute to Terry Francona

John Tomase says there are two camps when it comes to Francona.

On one side are those who can’t say his name without intoning that he’s The Greatest Manager in Red Sox History, as if it’s an official part of his title. He won two World Series, nearly reached a third, and oversaw the rebirth of the franchise. It’ll take more than one bad month to undo that.

On the other are those who will never forgive him for the collapse of 2011, the fact that he basically skated on it in the court of public opinion, or for employing the player-friendly style that let it happen. The Sox won on their ridiculous talent, which he managed not to screw up. Beatification proceedings can wait.

I’d be curious to know the percentages in each camp. I personally really don’t know anyone in the second camp, though I know they exist. They’re the ones who mockingly called him “Francoma” when they called in to sports radio. I’d have to imagine it is a very very small club.

WEEI can’t be looking forward to the release of the latest ratings numbers. A sneak peek of April and the first week of May reveals that 98.5 is again #1 in their demo for mornings, mid-days and afternoons, while WEEI hovers between 6th and 7th in those same time slots.  According to the numbers I was given, (which I have not been able to confirm, but I have no reason to believe are inaccurate) the first week of May broke down like this:

May week 1

Males 25-54

T&R 13.3 #1 D&C 5.1 #6

G&Z 8.1 #1 M&M 2.6 #12

F&M 12.9 #1 S&H 4.6 T-6TH

Last year, you’ll recall that WEEI won the afternoon drive in May.

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

17 thoughts on “Bruins Blow Series. Season Over”

  1. And you could see this coming literally before the Bruins left the ice last night, too.

    The only concern I came away with from that game was that the Rangers seem to have figured out that they need to hit, hit, hit, and then hit some more, much like a fighter needs to body punch to wear out his opponent. The Bruins were a little off the whole game (Chara’s bout of laziness that led to that cheap goal is, frankly, inexcusable), but especially so in the last half of the third period, and I think a lot of that was due to the Rangers’ increased physicality.

    But that’s a tough story to write — much easier to start with the “OMG IT’S THE FLYERS ALL OVER AGAIN!!!!!” angle and call it a night…

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  2. Just to note it, since I didn’t see it here yet: Meter has been doing a live 11-1 show that is online. If you want details, head to his twitter @meatstweets. If you’re not a fan of him, I don’t suggest it, but he did have on Bedard yesterday so I wanted to check it out.

    Greg opened up a bit about things, I think partially because they had time and also because he’s got a bit more freedom. They had a long segment on Brandon Lloyd, which I think was interesting. Apparently, he’s got a legitimate and diagnosed disorder that he takes something for (would not say what but had to be bi-polar or BPD), so that’s why he’s been on so many teams. However, we could not cut him because of the lack of receivers last year.

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  3. when it comes to sports radio you are literally only as good as your last game. Just can’t listen anymore.

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  4. Here is my uninformed Bruins question…

    leading 3-0 in games after Rask lets in the second goal making the game 2-2 where he clearly looks out of sorts…why not put Khodoben in? The worst thing that happens is you lose the game but you are still up 3-1. Rask can watch from the side and hopefully refocus for the next game. When watching I asked rhetorically why not make that move.

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    1. The glib answer is that the only time you’d pull your starting goalie from a 2-2 tie in a potential clinching playoff game is to tell him his family’s just been murdered by terrorists.

      The serious answer is (a) you’d NEVER pull your best goalie from a tied playoff game, even if he looks out of sorts. You’re not going to improve your chances of winning a game by replacing your #1 guy with a backup who hasn’t spent a minute of gametime on the ice in weeks, and (b) if you wanted to get Khudobin some action, you should have started him. Once Rask is in the game, pulling him — especially from a tied game — will accomplish nothing other than killing his confidence. And in a league where the team with the hottest/most focused goalie always winds up winning the Cup (well, almost always), that’s not a recipe for success. Especially when Rask is, potentially, about to face an offensive juggernaut in Pittsburgh in the next round if the Bruins do advance.

      tl;dr: Because you don’t gain anything by it at all, you can only hurt yourself.

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      1. Dave, your answer is the conservative play not to lose answer that I expect most coaches would follow. However sometimes you need to take a risk. I thought the first goal was soft, the second one was a combination of no communication (Hamilton), poor execution (Chara) and Rask being out of position. At that point Claude had to see his goalie did not have his A game. He has a 3 game cushion. He could have been bold and made the move…its not like Khudobin has sucked this year. He deserves some playing time. Maybe the discussion should be why didn’t they start Khudobin and give him some playoff exp. (That was rhetorical I know the answer).

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        1. Interesting fact: In the Julien era, the Bruins have never used a 2nd goalie at any time during the playoffs. If it was Thomas, he played all the minutes. And with Rask, the same.

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          1. Brady didn’t look good in the second half of that Baltimore playoff game. Did anyone suggest that Bill put Mallett in?

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          2. wow…I think LTD has posted before that he’s not into hockey…it really shows with his opinions on Rask….just WOW..he sounds like a moronic WEEI caller….maybe LTD is “Steve from Fall River”??

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          3. Pretty sure that’s the same for most teams. If your rotating goalies in the playoffs, that basically means you have 2 sucky goaltenders.

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        2. For better or worse, Rask is your #1 guy. This is the postseason. That would’nt have been a “bold” move, it would’ve been a dumb one, seeing as the game was tied at the time. I agree Rask wasn’t exactly Tim Thomas last night, but that’s no place to take him out of the game, not unless he coughs up so many goals they fall behind.

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  5. Even Amonte was trying to calm down Felger last night, especially when he said “have you ever seen anything like THIS before?” You mean a team facing elimination winning a game on their home ice? He must be totally shocked, especially seeing as he predicted a Bruins sweep — didn’t he??? lol.

    I can’t listen to F+M, I find Salk & Holley tedious…really I’ve tuned out sports radio completely of late.

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  6. I will never understand how in the blue hell Gresh & Zo are #1 in anything other than a pie-eating contest.

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  7. Posted before but Bedard’s replacement, Ben Volin, is now fulltime here. His twitter feed, @BenVolin , looks to be all Boston/Patriots related so it looks like a safe follow.

    From him today, he chats with Greg Cosell (always worth the read on anything) on the Pats picks: http://bo.st/1agtYSx

    (usual Globe disclaimer about deleting cookies..)

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  8. Shaughnessy Tweeting? Clearly he must have done this from his Momma’s basement while wearing pajamas.

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  9. Well, with the phrase “Mookie Wilson-esque,” at least we know that Shank IS actually writing some of his Twitter posts.

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