Boston Sports Then and Now

Marco Sturm etched his name in Boston Sports lore with his Winter Classic clincher.

The Winter Classic lived up to all the hype and then some. It truly was a spectacle and made hockey relevant in this country again. It was a needed shot in the arm for a sport that has been taking up the rear behind baseball, football, and basketball for years.

Personally, I was very excited just to WATCH this game. I watched the Winter Classics in Chicago and snowy Buffalo, but now it was in my backyard at Fenway Park.

I was down at Mohegan Sun and MGM at Foxwoods for New Years. My whole departure was planned around this game.

One of the cashiers at the MGM said to me after seeing my Bruins cap, “I hope you make it home before the game.”

Me too, but those one armed bandits put their magical spell even over the most die hard Bruins fan.

My girlfriend said, “It’s 11:30am.” I told her to give my version of the two hour warning, but I didn’t listen.

I was going to miss some of the game!

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Tuukka Rask stopped all 18 shots against him and the Boston Bruins scored 4 goals to shut out the Atlanta Thrashers 4-0 Wednesday night.

The Bruins scored 3 times in the opening frame and played consistently the entire game to secure a victory in the last game before the Winter Classic game on New Year’s Day.  The Bruins had won 3 of their previous 4 games but had not played well for 3 full periods.  The Bruins found their game Wednesday, but Coach Claude Julien insists the Winter Classic had nothing to do with it, “Our whole focus was about that we needed to find our game for the sake of finding our game.”

Byron Bitz opened the scoring at 6:33 into the first, when he redirected a Shawn Thornton shot past Atlanta’s netminder Ondrej Pavelec.  Boston scored again on the power-play at 12:56 after Marco Strum banged in a shot Marc Savard had rung off the post.  Boston’s third goal of the peroid, and the last goal against Pavelec before Johan Hedberg replaced him, came just before the 17 minute mark.  A Derek Morris blast from the point redirected off of Steve Begin, and past Pavelec, giving Begin his first goal in 30 games.  That was only the 10th shot Pavelec faced.  Pavelec was also pulled in Atlanta’s 6-4 loss to the Bruins on December 3rd.

Hedberg took over for the Thrashers and played well stopping 19 of 20 shots faced, some of which were excellent scoring opportunities.  The only shot that got passed Hedberg was by Patrice Bergeron, his 11th goal of the year, at 14:56 in the second period.    The goal came only hours after Bergeron was named to the Canadian Olympic team.  Bergeron could potentially face teammate Tim Thomas, who is a strong candidate to be selected for the U.S. team.  That announcement is expected Friday after the Winter Classic.

Fenway Park being outfitted for the Winter Classic.

The Winter Classic is the next game up for the Bruins, where they will take on the Philadelphia Flyers.  The game will be played in historic Fenway Park, Friday afternoon.  The forecast is calling for some rain Friday morning that will hopefully have ceased in time for the game.  The weather could pose problems for players, as it has in the past. “I don’t know if the ice would hold up with (rain),” Boston’s Michael Ryder said, “but I’m sure they’ve got something figured out.”

Last year’s Winter Classic game was head in Chicago at Wrigley Field.  Chicago was defeated by the Detroit Red Wings 6-4 in front of 40,818 fans.  The first ever Winter Classic game took place in 2008 and featured the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Buffalo Sabres.  The game to place at Ralph Wilson Stadium, the home stadium of the Buffalo Bills, and was attended by 71,217 fans.  Pittsburgh won the game 2-1 in a shoot-out.  Weather posed players a bit of trouble in that game, having temperatures around the freezing point, and featuring snow through much of the play.  Although it made play more difficult for players, it was enjoyable to watch for fans.  This year’s game is set for a 1PM ET start.

Fenway will be the site of the 2010 Winter Classic.

When the Bruins take to the ice at Fenway Park to skate against the Philadelphia Flyers on New Years Day, it will undoubtedly be a curious sight. Trying to envision America’s most beloved ballpark transformed into a hockey barn might stretch the imagination of die-hard Boston sports fans, but the Winter Classic will not be the first time that the city’s hardball cathedral has hosted other types of sporting events. Not by any means.

Fenway Park has been home to an array of unconventional sub-letters during its illustrious history. Between 1963 and 1968, long before Foxboro, Fenway was actually home to the Patriots.  Other football teams that hit the field included Boston College, Boston University, the Boston Bears, the Boston Shamrocks, the Boston Redskins (before they moved to Washington) in the 1930s, and the Boston Yanks in the 1940s. (It’s hard to imagine any team named the Yanks playing at Fenway Park and not being booed back to New York, but there you have it.)

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