I watched the game on HNIC tonight.
The announcers were complimenting the Bruins, the entire game.
They talked about them having 4 solid lines; about being the best team along the boards; about friendly competition with each line trying to do better than the others. They talked all night, about how dominating a d-man Chara is.
They showed clips of Thornton standing at the red line in the warm-up, getting into the heads of the leafs, and Tim Thomas joking with the cameraman as he was coming into the arena.
I don't remember one negative comment about the Bruins.
Short of HNIC building a shrine to the Bruins, I don't know what more they should be expected to do.

In Response to Re: GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

Tonite the B's got a heck of a lot respect from the CBC across the board. Most I've heard since the Neely & Bourque days. It was a great day for hockey!

In Response to Re: GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

LMAO! You're just realizing this NOW? He's this teams Marchand on here. Pesky, gets under your skin, pokes at you. There's no in between when it comes to NAS. There's those of us that love him for his condescending remarks, but we usually tell him when he's being a buthead. Then the ones that hate him, because of his condescending remarks & they tell him he's a jerk. He's also this forums Don Cherry. The greatest thing about NAS is he'll tell you what he thinks no matter who you are. I respect him, but he certainly can be a pita a lot. Get used to it.

In Response to Re: GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

Sorry...biggskye, I heard the same from HNIC. In fact, at one point they said "the way they are handling the puck, they should be playing Sweet Georgia Brown". Another nice win by this team.

I don't know what's better..... watching the game on CBC or hearing the words "gap management" from Jack Edwards about 15 times!

In Response to Re: GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!:


Funny stuff, Ronstar.  Minding the gap was all the rage for the first 10 minutes of the game.  Jack and Brick couldn't stop saying it.  Drove me nuts.

No mention of triangles last night, and I only heard about the layers from Brickley.

Been watching HNIC forever and understand that they are trying to hype the game to fans of Canadian teams to boost their ratings. The games are being broadcast in Canada so what's the problem with promoting the game in hand with a Canadian team's perspective. It's really no different then what they've done before. A non-issue if you've followed this network before.

In Response to Re: GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!:


CBC had two tonight Sandog. Former Oiler Craig Simpson in the booth and career backup goalie Glen Healy between the benches. I believe the ring comment was by Healy who is a miserable cuss if there ever was one....he posts as NAS on these boards I believe.

Watched last night's game in enemy territory, at the Real Sports Bar, with my Bruin Jersey and Cap.

Was getting many compliments on the team. One Leaf fan told me, "You got our number this year." I told him, "we got everybody's number, this year. So don't worry about it."

Doug MacLean, ex-GM (Florida, Columbus), was sitting nearby. He says that it will come down to a Pittsburgh-Boston showdown in the playoffs. And said he'd would have loved to have a team like the Bruins.

The Leaf faithful were pretty quiet in the house. Then again, they didn't have much to cheer about.

As for the HNIC commentators, I only heard Hughson and Simpson, and Glen Healy-  believe it or not - and they were quite complimentary. The pre-game, and intermission stuff is drowned out by loud music (except Don Cherry) so I didn't hear everyone else's comments.

Ahh Glen Healy that makes sense and I also agree that it is nice to hear someone else call a Bruins every once in awhile.

In Response to Re: GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!:


I guess my point is that CBC (in theory) is not like NESN in that it is not a local channel but a national one like NBC. Just as I would be angry if NBC decided to back say New Jersey(just an example) and become a homer network it bothers me when I watch a national netowrk that actually does it here in Canada.

Besides, it is not about Canada vs. the US or anything like that. I have dual citizenship and over 80% of all NHL players are Canadian anyway. Its about the lack of respect Boston seems to always get from CBC. I have seen many games over the years and no team is historically treated as shabbily as the B's on CBC, in my opinion. Detroit always gets a ton of respect from CBC as do Chicago, Philly, and any number of other teams that are broadcast with some regularity. When I heard the piece by Maclean it made me angry all over again, hence why I created this thread.

Now, all this being said, during the actual game CBC did in fact do a good job,  generally, overall. For that I am glad to say. Especially near the end of the game when it was clear the B's were going to win although I suspect it was more for the reason that they were building an excuse as to why TO played as poorly as they did.

Nonetheless, they did do a decent job. I especially liked it when Healy gave Rask props by stating, "WE HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THE RETURN OF REIMER SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THIS GAME BUT WHAT ABOUT RASK? HE HAS COME OUT HERE AND EARNED THE FIRST STAR." That was not so hard was it?

Peace.

In Response to Re: GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!:


Jim Huston (sp?) is actually quite decent. He started as the local play-by-play guy for the Nucks so he does not have any ties to TO. Hence, why he is not shy about calling them out on occasion. Now Bob Cole, well.............

The CBC announcers were gushing about Reimer then James lets in 2 goals :laughing:. I do think Reimer is good but Toronto's D is awful.

Not really sold on Reimer yet Sandog. Up until he got called up by a desperate TO team last year for a looksee he was was average at best in the AHL if I recall. He then went on a hot streak for the latter half of the season as did many Leafs when they were well out of contention and no team took them seriously. 

Not saying he is terrible but we have seen this show before.....

On the bright side, BB took advantage of the situation and signed Reimer to a cap friendly 3 year deal averaging 1.8 mill per. So even if he does not pan out as a starter he is not overpriced as a back up. Smart.

Which of these is the better story:

One is a team that has been simply atrocious for almost a decade, in one of hockey's most important markets, and that has had more churn in players trying to change that than any other team in the league - a team that has a few former first round picks on the roster, but a lot of guys playing key roles who took unconventional paths - undrafted college FAs, journeymen on their third or fourth team, and two core stars who were almost chased out of their first cities with pitchforks.  Their goalie has never been a #1 at any level since midget.

The other is the defending Cup champions playing like you'd expect the defending Cup champions to play - they're beating almost everyone, and being really challenged by very few.

Purely from a story perspective, any network not fixated on the Bruins is going to play up the Laff angle because it is a way bigger, more surprising story.  Kessel is playing up to his potential (or has been), Phaneuf looks a lot more like that guy who had 20 goals with Calgary, Lupul's numbers are shocking, Bozek is playing like a guy who put a picture of Oates over his locker to remind him of what undrafted college FAs can do.

The Leaf bias during the game?  Considering how badly the Bruins have beat them up this year, you protect the Leaf brand by pointing out how great the Bruins are.  It sounded at times like Chara was Thor or something - what's the Slovak mythological equivalent of Thor?  Dr CC?