The Spoked B

Posted in Vacation October 10th, 2007

Swept on my personal road trip

Well, as expected, I returned from my trip to Vacation Village in the Berkshires (Hancock, MA) with having experienced virtually none of the Bruins first two games. Being from central NJ, I was hoping that my trip to Massachusetts would result in being to experience SOME of the first two games, but it wasn’t to be.

The internet experience was actually somewhat better than I expected. With the lobby serving up wi-fi, I was able to spend my late nights hanging outside on the laptop in some pleasantly balmy (for October) weather after the kids went to sleep. On the other hand, Vacation Village did NOT offer NESN (presumably due to their reliance on satellite and not local cable due to the mountainous locale) meaning I was not able to watch either the Stars or the Coyotes game.

Game One found me switching between the Red Sox game and ESPN News so that I could glance at the ticker at the bottom of the screen to catch the Bruins-Stars score. I briefly debated hitting a local bar in hopes of catching the Bruins game, but two things stopped me: disconcerting glances from my wife and the fact that every bar in the New England area would have had the Sox game on TV. My meek request to watch the Bruins on at least ONE TV would have probably been shot down. When I resigned to the lobby for the evening, I was hoping to catch some insight from Neb (who was online) who had recorded the game, but he hadn’t seen it yet. He told me not to tell him anything (hah!) since he didn’t know the score.

For Game Two against the Coyotes, I was in a more desperate and aggressive position. Dammit, I was going to experience the Bruins game somehow, but an additional problem faced me…the game began at 10 PM and we were leaving the next morning. Still, all I wanted was a snippet…ANY snippet…to say that I was at least able to take SOMETHING out of this road trip. Suddenly, it hit me: I have Sirius and could probably catch the game in my car. After all, I was able to listen to Bruins games last year. But as I flipping through the channels there were no NHL games at all. Then it hit me: the NHL package was on XM and Sirius last year, but only on XM this year. Shut out again. Then, I tried to find WBZ on the radio. Success! The B’s were up 2-0, but there were about seven minutes left in the 2nd period and the reception was horrible. Worse than my reception back in NJ. I retreated to the lobby in disgust. And in the time it took for me to get from my car to setting up my laptop, the period ended, and with the Coyotes adding an insult goal (to me anyway) to halve the score to 2-1. Looking for some solace online, I found Russ. He game me some valuable insight on how the game had progressed so far, but he was exhausted and was hitting the sack. Stuck in intermission, and with a long day ahead of me on Sunday, I quickly wrapped things up and went back to my room.

Oh and one last thing about Massachusetts? It’s disturbing the lack of Bruins merchandise to be found at the major stores. I noticed this last year when I stopped by Salem and had it re-confirmed this year on the other end of the state (which, naturally, I expected to be even worse due to the distance). Red Sox and Patriots clothing everywhere, but not a stitch of Bruins stuff to be found. I know that the Bruins haven’t been serious contenders recently and the strike no doubt crippled them further, but c’mon.

But enough about my journeys. With a 1-1 start, the Bruins are where they were at last year record-wise. Oddly, Tim Thomas was shelled in the opener last year and Hannu Toivonen (remember him?) showed some redemption in game 2 against the Lightning. So far, it’s been a role reversal with Manny Fernandez having a subpar game on Friday and Thomas having a good showing Saturday. It’ll be interesting to see where this all heads. Hopefully, they won’t lose five of their next six games like they did last October.

As for tonight, the B’s will be in Anaheim to face the Ducks. Going against them: the champion Ducks will be receiving their rings tonight and will have an emotional home crowd advantage. Also, Marc Savard is nursing a strained groin and is doubtful for the game. The positives: the Ducks are even more banged up. Ex-#$@% Hab Mathieu Schneider, J-S Giguere and Sammy Pahlsson are all hurt.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Vacation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.