Black and Gold

What a great decision to jump on the Bruins bandwagon this year. Usually when I jump on a team's bandwagon that ends up being the kiss of death, but apparently, just like everything else in hockey, this was different.

The Stanley Cup finals were incredible, mostly for Bruins fans, but even people that were just hockey fans and love to see great games. The games for the most part were exciting, suspenseful, and overall entertaining. I used to watch a hockey game and be bored after about five minutes, because I didn't understand the game and the scoring was too low. I didn't understand the beauty of the game and the skill it took to play it. Like just about every other bandwagon hockey fan, I would tune in and watch a big game every now and again, but I just couldn't make myself watch more than a game or two a year. Not having played the game, I didn't understand the rules, so when a whistle blew for something like icing, I had no idea what was going on. Hockey also features players who seem to have picked out the letters for their last name much in the same way a lottery might be drawn, by picking letters out of a bag and just putting them all together.

But this year was different. I tried to jump on the bandwagon last year, but two things were working against the Bruins. The first was that the Celtics made it all the way to the finals, so they were my main focus and also the Bruins blew a 3-0 series lead against the Flyers, disappointing me during my first full series of watching. This year everything fell perfectly into place for the Bruins and my fandom. The Celtics disappointingly bowed out in the second round of the playoffs, and the Bruins played perhaps the most exciting month and a half of hockey in the history of the NHL. Three game 7's, multiple overtime games, a goalie that was locked in for a solid month, and a team that was as gritty and hard nosed as any.

I'd love to talk about some of the great plays and games from this playoff run, but I think that would be an insult to the hardcore fans of the Bruins. I'd probably butcher explanations and completely miss the ideas behind doing certain things. It would be no different than a bandwagon basketball fan trying to analyze the Celtics. I will say this though, Brad Marchand is a guy that I hope is a Bruin for a long time. In my limited time watching the team, he has become a guy that I really enjoy watching and came up big in the biggest moment with two goals in game 7. Maybe he'll never be a star, but to make an NBA comparison, he could be the Robert Horry of the NHL. Also I'd like to mention Patrice Bergeron. When I first tried out being a hockey fan about 7 years ago, Bergeron was a rookie and in the game I watched he played great. From that point forward he was my favorite player on the team and someone that I always pulled for to win a Cup. Well, Wednesday night it was a really cool feeling to see him score a goal and then raise the cup, celebrating a championship that, after multiple concussions, I'm sure he thought might never come.

Anyways, that's really all I can say about the Bruins. They completed the grandslam of championships for Boston in this decade and Tim Thomas' playoff run ranks up their with David Ortiz's run in 2004 in terms of great playoff runs by Boston athletes. For me, this ranks behind the 2008 Celtics, 2004 Red Sox, and 2001 Patriots, as far as Boston championships go, but it was no less exciting than any of those three. I guess that's the perils of being a bandwagon fan, you love to see the team win, but it's always sweeter when you're with the team through the tough times. It's why nothing will surpass that 2008 Celtics title for me, I actually started to tear up watching Paul Pierce raise that Larry O'Brien trophy, it just meant so much after watching him struggle with bad teams for so long. Those are the sweetest moments for fans, and that's why I'm so happy for those hardcore Bruins fans who got to have that moment on Wednesday night. It may have come later for them than it did for any of the other Boston sports fans, but I guarantee it was every bit as sweet.

Other Stuff:

-The sports God's have apparently decided this is their year to act, because no "bad" people seem to be winning titles this year. Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers were able to beat Big Ben, rumored rapist, and the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl. Then Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavs were able to overcome Lebron, who completely screwed Cleveland, and the Heat in the NBA Finals, and finally Tim Thomas and the Bruins were able to defeat Alex "The Biter" Burrows, Roberto Luongo and the Canucks in the Stanley Cup Finals.

-If you go back through my blogs, you'll see that I made my predictions for the NHL and NBA Finals before either started and I called both the winner and the amount of games it would take for both of them. Just saying, that's pretty impressive considering I was so far off throughout the other rounds of the NBA playoffs and that I only had watched hockey for a month.

Well thanks for reading. Hopefully with school ending these will be a bit more frequent.

Win or Lose Dirk is No Longer "Soft"

Welcome back to another edition of "Thoughts of a Sports Addict". This week I'm going to explore the revolution in the popular opinion of Dirk Nowitzki and what that means for other European players. Also a little tribute to Paul Pierce, Kobe Bryant, and Tim Duncan for being part of an exclusive club, that Dirk is trying to join and that Lebron can never be a part of.

If I asked you a year ago what words came to mind when you thought of Dirk Nowitzki, what would they have been? Probably something like "soft", "choker", "typical European big man", "hates contact", "soft", "soft", "soft" and well you get the idea. Even though he has career averages of 23points, 8.4rebounds, 2.7assists, and 1 block, Dirk was always considered a "lesser" superstar by many people. Aside from one finals appearance in 2006, when he was a victim of the worst officiating in NBA history, the Mavs always seemed to run into the worst possible matchup in the playoffs. The 2007 Warriors may have been the epitome of this problem, as they were literally the only team in the Western Conference that had a chance against that Mavs team. That was Dirk's best year, he was named MVP and presented the trophy in a very awkward ceremony that took place after his team had been eliminated, and that Mavs team won a league best 67 games.

Dirk's other issue was that he was constantly being compared to the "other" great power forward in Texas, Tim Duncan. Duncan, as great a player as he is, always seemed to catch the lucky breaks that eluded Dirk his entire career. No break may have been luckier than when the Warriors knocked off that 2007 Mavs team and opened up the West for the Spurs. Fans all over saw Duncan winning championships while Dirk was constantly coming up short and assumed that it was because Duncan was a leader and Dirk was a soft, jump shooting big man who could never win a title. What people seemed to overlook is that Duncan had at different points, David Robinson, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker as teammates. Dirk was always trying to carry guys way past their prime or guys who were too young to really help. His best teammates have been Jason Terry, a slightly over the hill Michael Finley, and a not yet an MVP candidate Steve Nash.

This year Dirk has changed everyone's opinion. He's been anything but soft in the playoffs. While last year the playoff news was dominated by Lebron and LeElbow, this year has been about Dirk playing through a torn tendon in his non-shooting hand without any complaint or hesitation. It's been about Dirk leading a team of over-the-hill former all stars to the finals while playing the best basketball of his career. It's been about Dirk trying to outplay three of the best players in the league, all in their prime, and bring the Mavs their first title. He's earned my respect for how he's played this year, it's been a true pleasure to watch him get an edge and show the world that he belongs in the upper tier of superstars in the NBA. For future European big men, this is also a blessing, because Dirk has shown that just because they are good shooters, doesn't mean they're soft. He is changing the perception of European big men much like Vlade Divac, Drazen Petrovic, and Arvydas Sabonis showed that European's could hang with NBA guys almost 20 years ago.

Fun picture, check this out and tell me what the odds of this picture featuring two future MVP's was when it was taken?

So now onto the second part of what I want to talk about in this entry. I know you've all been anxiously waiting to see what group Paul Pierce, Kobe Bryant, and Tim Duncan all belong to, and Dirk is trying to join that Lebron can never be in. Well the group is of current players that stayed with the team that drafted them and went on to win a championship and be the MVP of the finals. In the age of free agency and superstars getting traded to any team they want, it's rare for a guy to be with the same team his whole career. These three guys have all been in the league for over 10 years, all with the same team and all led that team to at least one championship. All also went through trials and tribulations to get to that moment, which makes it even better. Kobe had, mostly, self inflicted problems in his time with the Lakers. First he pushed Shaq out of town and then he had the rape case in Colorado, but through it all he stayed with the Lakers and is one of the most competitive players in league history. I'm not a fan, because he plays for the Lakers and because he just seems like a terrible teammate, but it can't be denied that he's one of the greatest to every play. It might be a surprise to some to see Tim Duncan, and tribulations mentioned in the same sentence, because Tim is such a class guy, but he almost ended up leaving the Spurs for Orlando to join Grant Hill. It was only at the last minute where he decided against it and went back to the Spurs. We all know what happened in Orlando, Grant Hill barely played because of injury, and Tracy Mcgrady turned into a superstar, but imagine how different it would have been if Tim Duncan was there. Paul Pierce is my favorite example of this. He came to Boston, was stabbed in the face in a Philly nightclub after his rookie year, but returned and played with a vengeance. Pierce then became a punk for a few seasons, and was very nearly traded for the 3rd pick in the 2005 draft (presumably so the Celtics could select Chris Paul). After the near trade, where Pierce actually refused to show up in Portland if the trade was completed, Paul turned into a mature superstar who played like he was proud to be a Celtic and really enjoyed carrying the team on his back every night. Speaking for every Boston fan, it was an honor to watch Paul Pierce grow up before our eyes and I know I wasn't the only Celtics' fan to tear up when I watched him celebrate with the Finals MVP award.

Fans of Boston, San Antonio, and the Lakers know how it feels to watch rookies grow into superstars and eventually win championships, and I for one hope that Dallas fans will get to have this same experience this year. Sorry Lebron, you blew it in Cleveland, have fun making memories for Dwyane Wade's team.

Well that's it for this week. Hope you enjoyed it. Leave a comment.