Boston Sports Then and Now

The Lowell Devils beat the Worcester Sharks 7-3 during a Veteran’s day matinee showing at the DCU Center on Wednesday. Frazer McLaren scored his first goal of the season, while Logan Couture extended his point streak to six games with a goal and two assists (5-8-13) and is now tied for first in points among rookies in the AHL.

Down two men on the power play, Worcester couldn’t hold off Lowell’s Matt Taormina who scored at 6:56 in the first. At 7:39, Nathan Perkovich took advantage of the power play again to put Lowell up 2-0.

The Sharks fought back at 17:33 when Brandon Mashinter grabbed a pass from Logan Couture at the top of the circle and scored on Jeff Frazee, bringing the score to 2-1. Read the rest of this entry →

The scoreboard at the Garden, told the whole story.

There aren’t too many words that excite Bruins fans like “I got FREE tickets to the game tonight! Want to go?”

Well maybe, “Boston Bruins 2009 Stanley Cup Champs”, would put more chills down your spine.

My friend scored free tickets to the game versus Pittsburgh on Tuesday night. I was pumped. It was my first game of the year.

Granted, I didn’t give the Bruins much of a chance because of their helter skelter play of late. They had a good game against Buffalo but that was with the Sabres star goaltender, Ryan Miller, on the bench.

The defending Stanley Cup Champions were in town or I what like to call them, “The OTHER Black and Gold team.”

I am still not happy that the Penguins stole the Bruins color scheme.

Can’t the Bruins copyright that or something?

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Theo is wasting no time tinkering with the Red Sox Roster

We’ve got a handful of things to talk about, following an eventful day initiated by Theo Epstein and company on Monday.

We’ll start with the captain. On Monday, the Red Sox declined the $5 million club option that remained on the contract signed by Jason Varitek this past offseason. However, still remaining is a $3 million player option, which Varitek can exercise himself and return to Boston no questions asked.

If and when Varitek exercises his $3 million option for 2010, he has performances bonuses in his contract that could potentially boost his 2010 earnings to $5 million.

On top of being guaranteed $3 million, the 37-year-old will receive $400,000 each for reaching the plateaus of 80, 90, 100, 110 and 120 games played. It’s only reasonable to assume that the most he could make would be in the $400-$800K range, if that.

I can almost promise you that Varitek will be with the Red Sox on Opening Day, maybe not starting, but definitely on the roster. There is absolutely no way that a catcher who hit .209 with a .313 OBP in 425 plate appearances could command more than $3 million with $2 million in incentives on the open market.
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