Odds and Ends As We Prep For The Cup Finals

Hindsight is always a fun activity to engage in. Let’s look at this March column from Kevin Paul Dupont for instance:

Jarome Iginla made the right call

The finger-wags that Dupont takes within the column at Bruins fans are outstanding:

Anyone faulting, or even questioning, Jarome Iginla’s decision to drop himself into the Pittsburgh lineup instead of the Boston lineup just isn’t paying attention to what’s going on in the NHL.

The Penguins are a powerhouse, all the more mighty now that Iginla, the aged star right winger, is joining the roster. About the only thing left for Trader Ray Shero to do now is coax Mario Lemieux out of his owner’s box in Pittsburgh, have him suit up, and maybe have Mario Magnifique ask Wayne Gretzky to come along for the ride.

An unbeatable powerhouse. Got it. He goes on to talk about how the Flames had offers from both the Penguins and Bruins, and the Flames GM wanted to take Boston’s but the choice was ultimately Iginla’s and he chose Pittsburgh.

Again, perfectly understandable on Iginla’s part. Bruins fans don’t want to hear it, but the Penguins are the better team this year, should win it all, and Iginla has been chasing a Cup since joining the Flames in October 1996. To have watched Ray Bourque here for a couple of decades is to know Iginla’s pain and wanting.

Then later, shades of Ron Borges here:

Meanwhile, Chiarelli will have to look elsewhere to improve a team that is now three trades behind the Penguins, who in recent days also acquired ex-Stars forward Brenden Morrow and ex-Sharks blue liner Doug Murray. The Bruins also tried to land Morrow, which leaves Chiarelli 0 for 2 in the mano-a-mano matchup with Trader Ray.

We’ve definitely all said things we’d like to take back, thankfully for most of us, those proclamations aren’t made in public. Normally I overlook failed predictions, but the smarm and finger-wags in this column were too much to be left out.

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Meanwhile, as the Bruins prepare to play for the Stanley Cup for the second time in three years, and the Red Sox sit in first place despite plenty of preason doom and gloom predictions, (not) surprisingly talk this morning in some circles seems devoted to whatever negative stories can be found. Mostly these two:

Wes Welker finally able to be himself as member of the Denver Broncos – Mike Silver of Yahoo! sports has the former Patriot no longer feeling the “urgency to walk the line between bland and unrevealing.”

So when John Fox, Jack Del Rio and Peyton Manning do their usual first-round exit, will Silver follow up about how happy Wes still is to be freed of the shackles of Belichick?

Looking closer at that article, it’s hard to know what inferences to the Patriots are Welker’s and which are Silver’s. For instance:

“It is [a bummer], but I think he understands it, and I understand it. … It’s been going on for years and years. I’m not the first [Patriots] player that this happened to, and I definitely won’t be the last.”

The [Patriots] is put in by the author. But was Welker saying he’s not the first Patriots player this has happened to, or first NFL player?

Doc Rivers mum on returning to Celtics – Gary Washburn of the Globe was able to touch base with Rivers, whose comment about his future with the Celtics was only “I’d rather not say.”

I think Doc Rivers is the best thing the Celtics have going for them at the moment, but even I’m annoyed at how he is essentially holding the team hostage right now. If he eventually quits, many of the top candidates are going to be off the market.

Here’s what ESPN Boston thinks are the top sports stories in Boston today:

Meanwhile the Boston Sports Live webshow on Boston.com has their hot topic for the day:

By the way, who at the Globe thought that a front-page cover story in the Sunday Globe was the place for an investigative story on why major league baseball games are longer than they were 50 years ago? Must be a slow news week.