I haven’t avoided posting because I’m lazy; it’s because I’m in Boston. The Wisniewski hit was cheap, and the Alfredsson hit on Beauchemin should have been worthy of at least a game misconduct. There; I’m all caught up.
Several weeks ago, my father and I managed to bag a couple of tickets to the Boston Bruins/Pittsburgh Penguins game of March 18. Of course, there was no way we could have known at the time that this would be one of the most hyped-up games of the 2009-2010 regular season. Fans of opposing teams yelled at each other in the street, and on our way to the TD Garden, more than one passerby asked us, “Are they gonna get revenge tonight or what?” Our answer: “Hopefully.” (One homeless guy also declared to us, “Oh, there’s gonna be blood tonight. Lemme tell ya. It’s gonna be a bloodbath.”)
Let me put this out there: Boston’s not my team. They’re my Dad’s, not mine. But I certainly don’t mind watching them play, and there are a whole host of teams I like to see them beat. And on this night, I wanted them to take Pittsburgh to school - just without any cheap stuff. Like every Bruins fan, I wanted somebody to teach Matt Cooke a lesson that would keep him from ever going after a player’s head again, and I hoped that the entire Boston squad would make Pittsburgh pay a physical price (while keeping it clean).
But on Thursday night, nobody paid much of a price at all.
The way I saw it, the fans had three chances to cheer:
- In the pre-game ceremony, when the Cup-winning team of 1970 was honoured
- During the Thornton/Cooke fight
- During the Chara/Rupp fight.
Beyond that, most of the crowd noise consisted of booing, and not even much of that. 
After Shawn Thornton and Matt Cooke fought on their first shift, the booing of Cooke quickly tailed off; what began as a loud crowd complaint every time he stepped onto the ice turned into every time he touched the puck, and by the first period, it had petered out completely. (I must say that I continued booing every time the puck came to him…thank god for beer, or I might have felt self-conscious.) It was as if everyone had forgotten that in the hours and days leading up to puck drop, their blood had been boiling with fever, and the only prescription was more cowbell revenge. Heck, we were even given signs on our way into the rink, with Marc Savard’s picture on one side and the word “REVENGE” on the other.
Unfortunately for the Bruins, they also seemed to quickly forget about the whole vengeance thing. You would never have known that this was a team fighting to hold onto 8th place, and you couldn’t have guessed that it was Pittsburgh who had played the night before. The whole team was flat, and looked like it was their first game together - they halfheartedly finished their checks (when they finished them at all); they couldn’t complete passes; and when it became apparent that their passing abilities had left them, they would try to dangle in alone, losing the puck every time. (If I had a nickel for every time Sobotka tried and failed to drag the puck across the blue line, I’d have a lot of nickels.)
Of course, all this ineptitude also gave the fans exactly three chances for Bronx cheers:
- Tuukka Rask’s first save after letting in a softie of a third goal
- Boston’s first shot of the third period (from a dump-in about 9 minutes in)
- Boston’s second shot of the third period (from a dump-in about 11 minutes in).
If there was anything I was glad about, it was that the Bruins didn’t go for any cheap shots. Granted, Shawn Thornton got an extra 10 minutes for continuing to punch Cooke after the linesmen stepped in (first time I’ve seen that…remember when Steve Downie popped Jason Blake in the eye after the refs stepped in, and nothing happened?), but they didn’t try any headshots, they didn’t go after Crosby, and they didn’t do anything to add to Colin Campbell’s inbox.
One last thing I was pleased to notice: when they showed highlight videos on the big screen, there were no isolation shots of other teams’ players writhing in agony after being hit. The clip of Matt Stajan lying on the ice after a Johnny Boychuk charge did linger on Stajan’s body a few more seconds than was necessary, but that was the only such incident.
In all, last night’s game showed that while a few critics may decry the way the “code” determines things in the NHL, when the players honour it, issues often get resolved without too much unnecessary bloodshed. After the Cooke/Thornton fight, the players seemed to consider the matter effectively closed. And if the players were happy, the fans were happy, and the TV ratings were up, the debate on whether fighting still belongs in hockey quiets down for another day.
