The Bruins ended their postseason run earlier than anyone wanted or expected as their hated nemesis the Montreal Canadiens took the final two games of the series, including last night’s game 7 on the Bruins home ice at TD Garden.

The 3-1 loss for the Bruins is hard to take, especially given how dominant they were during the regular season and in their first round series against the Red Wings.

There was plenty of trolling by the local media going on last night, with some taking victory laps and others just glad this annoying hockey stuff can be done and over with so the focus can be on real sports like baseball.

Dan Shaughnessy is happy, he got to write his Bruins are guaranteed to win game 7 column yesterday and followed up with his ghosts and curses and choke column today. Mike Felger after game three lectured the Bruins fans about how they underestimated Montreal and how it was going to be a really tough series, but yesterday also said if the Bruins didn’t win it would be a choke. Good times.

Get all the coverage at Bruinslinks.com.

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Interesting article in Boston Business Journal about Glenn Ordway’s project the Big Show Unfiltered and his future plans for it – Glenn ‘The Big O’ Ordway plots a comeback amid sports-media tumult in Boston.

Ordway and Jason Wolfe confirm in the article that they are in negotiations with several terrestrial broadcasters and that a deal for the show on traditional radio is likely happening in the months ahead. They also will increase programming, but not just on sports.

The show might have a winner with the #TwitterPolice segment. Pete Sheppard goes after inane Tweets by the sports media. There’s plenty of material out there.

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The Inside Track had this bit on the recent changes at WEEI:

That Mike Mutnansky, who was booted from WEEI’s midday show last week, was reassigned yesterday to host the station’s Red Sox pre- and postgame shows, replacing John Ryder later this month. As part of his new duties, Mut will take over the 10 p.m.-midnight shift and will appear on the “Planet Mikey” show that airs from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Ryder is moving over to the Total Traffic & Weather Network and will provide updates for stations all over New England. Last week, the station announced the shakeup in the midday show, teaming Mutnansky’s partner, Lou Merloni, with former Patriots tight end Christian Fauria and Tim Benz, a host and sports director for 970 ESPN Pittsburgh. WEEI has been losing the midday battle badly to rival 98.5 The Sports Hub, which finished second with adult male listeners in recent ratings, while ’EEI was 10th.

With Mutnansky, that’s pretty much what I expected to happen. For Ryder, hopefully this is just a placeholder job for something bigger and better. The reaction from both fellow media and from WEEI listeners to Ryder’s termination has been completely supportive of Ryder and expressing dismay at the loss of his intelligent, reasoned voice on the airwaves.

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

28 thoughts on “Bruins Bow Out In Depressing Game 7 Loss”

  1. Should also highlight the “breaking news” of the hour about Hernandez being indicted on the 2012 murders:

    http://bit.ly/1n0QtCT

    The Tomase tweet is funny. I think he forgot that they play this sport called “football” in this town. No, not the same thing that is about to go on in Brazil. It’s this sport that looks like “Rugby” but they do some things differently. Maybe you’ve heard of it?

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    1. 1510 is no longer ‘progressive’ political talk. It now bcasts the syndicated Yahoo Sports Network. I note this only because at 10am the long time local 1510 legend in his own mind Anthony Pepe bcasts a strange self vanity show . This is, perhaps, the absolute worst Boston based sports talk that I have ever heard. Fawning questions. Clichéd opinions. Flat comedy Wicked Boston accents. Never a single caller. Only a drone like sound interrupted occasionally by the pretentious Bob Ryan and a humorless Ron Borges. Pepe produces a show that seems aimed at the intellectually challenged among us. This show is so bad that it needs to be listened to at least once. It will take your breath away.

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        1. Thank you for the update. I had forgotten that link. Also, thanks for your past and future uplinks. They are always informative.

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  2. I wonder if there is a possible scenario where 850 picks up Ordway’s show. I doubt it happens though.

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    1. Maybe Bob Nelson or someone else knows the answer there?

      You would think that the contract they have with ESPN prohibits them from doing anything local w/o renegotiating the deal?

      Plus, horrid signal, but better than 1510.

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      1. WEEI doesn’t want to put somebody it canned on as competition. 850 isn’t a bad signal. it worked fine before The Sports Hub came along.

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        1. I agree, but what if it might be the only viable option to yield more than a 0.1 or 0.2 share, if they were to insert it from 3-6?

          Many ESPN affils do the same where they cut an hour off one show and JIP another for local programming. Right now, with the current full-time ESPN, do they even make money on that part of the operation?

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  3. Another kick in the teeth for Mutnansky regarding this move is he likely loses those evening gigs he did at NESN, in addition to playing the radio version of auto-correct for Planet Mikey.

    At least Ryder landed back on his feet, although it’s too bad he’s not still working in sports.

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  4. Oh than John Dennis, he’s so likeable. Is it any wonder he has no real friends and therefore had to rely on show sponsors to organize a bachelor party with paid tickets for sycophantic radio listeners?

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        1. My bad. I completely missed the first Tweet.

          There should be a rule on this type of thing for media members:

          “I said something against the grain that had a 50% chance of coming true.”

          Event comes true.

          “God damn look at my f—ing brilliance at foreseeing the future.”

          (Of course, not a word or at least a “I was wrong” when the opposite happens.)

          All I can say to that is: put some skin in the game, big boy (and not just him). Go find an offshore casino or fly your ass to Vegas if you’re that smart. Put your $ where your mouth is.

          IIRC, the Habs were between +200 – +240 for the series before it started at most books. That would have been a nice payday.

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  6. How about Ryder in the booth with Orsillo? Are you listening NESN? I have some openings in my viewing schedule not that the Bruins are done.

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  7. I saw some fodder about people trying to link the Patriots to knowing about AH with the news yesterday. It looks like JT Da BrIcK was layin some #HOTSPORTZTAKEZ on his show yesterday:

    @JTTheBrick He becomes the ONLY player in NFL history to allegedly kill 3 people while employed by an NFL team. Go try to spin that in New England!

    (He’s got a few more shots on there if you’re intrerested.)

    Is this just more butthurt for “snow bowl” in 2001 due to his Raiders allegiance?

    I think what happened was more of a “league doesn’t want to know” but we can all infer how quickly any type of “offseason babysitting” would be shut down by the NFLPA. If the Patriots did know something, they should be hit, but I’ve yet to see any evidence. Moreover, if a local here wanted their ticket out of this market and into a national job, what better way than to get your name on the map than start finding evidence that BB/Patriots/Kraft did have some idea but looked the other way?

    I think the NFL has an even bigger problem as its allowed Irsay to basically resume leadership of a team that he was using to support his prescription pill addiction, but it is up to the NFLPA to make some noise there. So far, nothing.

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    1. Adam Wilbur did this yesterday, talking about the Patriots media sycophants yukking it up (his words, not mine) with Hernandez on his first day in camp just 11 days after the double murder took place. He also revisited the whole “The Patriots should have known this when they drafted him” angle from last summer when the story first broke. I’d like to see what these same writers who’ve taken this tack wrote back when he first was drafted or when he signed the large contract to see what their “concerns” were.

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      1. Sounds like the Bill Pollian approach, just without the “oh, well I did draft a bad one myself but make sure not to remind me on camera.”

        Being local, unlike JT, dig. Dig your heart out. Find some truth and report. You might be burned in town but earn some phony award and ESPN will be on line two.

        Maybe there is something there. You’d have to think a lawyer would love to depose the team if this is the case. I said before that if they knew or had some culpability, I want them to get hit. Until then, there is absolutely nothing beyond media shots.

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        1. So on yesterday’s F&M show I think Felger identified the only potential kink in the “linkage to the Patriots” or lack there of defense the Patriots have put forward.

          What was Hernandez doing in Indianapolis at the Combine when he supposedly met with Belichick and allegedly told him he was in fear of his life. To that end allegedly Belichick told him to go to California, calm down (which he did with only 2 visits by the police for domestic disturbances), regroup and be ready for the upcoming season. I think it is very reasonable to be asking about that conversation, details, substance and nuance. It was out of character and out of the norm.

          Having said that, I still maintain that no one expected a college educated professional athlete to be a psychopathic murderer. Drug user, drug dealer, wannabe gangstah…sure…but capable of not 1 but 3 cold blooded murders that we know about. Even if Hernandez had confessed that to Belichick I am not sure he would have believed him.

          It is so surreal.

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          1. I think it is very reasonable to be asking about that conversation, details, substance and nuance.

            Completely agree. There are some serious questions that could be asked. I don’t think they ever will, though. They also don’t have to offer a defense because the only people that have spoken out are the usual suspects in terms of who you expect to hear from when any opportunity arises to trash the team. A respected person, local or national, could offer up some questions, but I doubt anyone would respond. The only two people that could unearth anything would be the NFL, which would never make it public; or, if one of the families who were affected by Hernandez does want to depose players/Patriots employees.

            Here’s the problem I have, and I think the NFLPA would defend: If we start to “profile” guys and either prevent them from playing or drum them out of the league, based on the “circumstances” surrounding Hernandez, how much of the league now is gone? 15-25%? Urban Meyer even took some heat here but, much like things here, he won.

            I’m sure that if we look back into details not in the public, someone could identify things Hernandez did that would have increased some probability that he was “high-risk”. The issue, though, is that would we have known any of these without violating privacy/civil rights? Or rights the NFLPA negotiated for? It brings up the DeSean Jackson situation all over, no?

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          2. I think the real problem in this case when it comes right down to is:

            Who in their right mind could have foreseen a person putting a $40 mill+ payday at risk because someone at a club looked at him funny or said something to him he did not like.

            Obviously no sane or rational person could have predicted this. Plenty of guys have come into the NFL from “tough” neighborhoods and backgrounds and NOT killed 3 people in cold blood. There were no signals because the actions taken by Hernandez in light of being handed (or about to be handed depending on timelines) $40 mill can only be described as insane.

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          3. That’s just it, LTD. Analogously to fixing games, the thought is, in the big leagues (of any major sport), the money’s too good for the athletes to get mixed up in petty crime. PEDs? Sure. Domestic violence? Yeah, it goes with the territory. But fixing games and doing pulp fiction-type dirty work? Supposed to be below–way below–their pay grade.

            I don’t see any way the NFL or any other league can possibly predict what a player will do once admitted to the league. “He’ll straighten up” due to money, coaching, and veteran influence, is the fond assumption. But on the other side, how bad a profile does someone need to have before they’re shunned? My sense is, from now on, anything involving firearms will be the red flag.

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          4. I still don’t think the league will shun anyone because I do not think a conversation on the topic I raised above is occurring anywhere. The idea that someone who played organized football (or any sport for that matter) who was ingrained with the concepts of team, honor, sportsmanship and discipline from the time they were young could forsake it all and go kill 3 people in cold blood is beyond any scope of rational thought within the confines of the industry.

            We are not discussing a crime of passion (player kills wife in rage over jealousy or some such nonsense), we are not discussing a financial crime (point shaving, gambling and the resulting hole someone finds themselves in) or an accidental killing (drunk driving, hunting accident, gun cleaning accident). We are discussing premeditated murder, two different events, two different sets of circumstances all committed by an individual who at the same time was negotiating a $40 mill contract. The logical extension that someone would have needed to use to predict that type of behavior has not been invented yet (and I doubt it ever will). The only way to see this coming was with hindsight and even then it is hardly believable.

            I don’t believe that players will be shied away from. I just think they will get less money. In the end the old saying is true…if Charles Manson could run a 4.3 40 then some coach would be thinking how he could utilize him and explain it by saying “we all have issues”.

            Lastly, we touched on this a few weeks ago…honor, timé and diké have been lost from professional sports. As such the participants now believe it is their right rather than a privilege to be paid a King’s Ransom to play a children’s game. That is why no coach will ever see a player as a potential murderer/problem. He needs to win football games.

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  8. Merloni, is terrible. He doesn’t have a voice for radio. Not to mention his “knowledge” of sports is faltering, he understands baseball. Minor league baseball.

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  9. Toucher went after PK this morning and sums up what most of us feel about him:

    http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/05/20/toucher-rich-fred-takes-aim-at-peter-king-in-latest-rant/

    Chris Gasper shows, again, how out of touch establishment media are:

    http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2014/05/19/shame-michael-sam-not-going-documentary-series/Kn7NeaSYgWomZiBHe2Ph9K/story.html

    As with most pieces like this, it’s written more for “other journos” than the average person. Basically, you’re fine being tired of reality shows about players, but if you were because it was about Michael Sam, you’re homophobic.

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    1. That reminds me of Craig Dickerson way back when: “If you boo Antoine Walker for chucking terrible threes, you’re a racist.”

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      1. I guess “homophobic-bating” is the new “race-baiting”. It’s just sad. Sullivan even embraced it as, “swimming against the tide of opinion” — really? I would have got an F if I turned a paper into a teacher, unless it was Professor Felger, with such a “logical fallacy”.

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