Morning Sports Update

North Carolina governor trash-talked Brad Marchand after Bruins loss with reference-heavy tweet

"Wouldn’t have mattered if the Lamborghini Marchand had played."

By Hayden Bird

February 11, 2022

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The Bruins were thoroughly beaten by the Hurricanes 6-0 on Thursday. Boston will be back on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. to face the Senators in Ottawa.

And after a few moves at the NBA trade deadline, the Celtics will host the Nuggets tonight at 7:30 p.m.

Explaining Roy Cooper’s Brad Marchand tweet: Following the Bruins’ 6-0 loss to the Hurricanes on Thursday, suspended Boston winger Brad Marchand was the subject of a tweet by North Carolina governor Roy Cooper.

“Another impressive win by our [Hurricanes] against the Bruins tonight,” Cooper tweeted. “Wouldn’t have mattered if the Lamborghini Marchand had played. His cheap shots last night will give him a lot more time to post pretentious, misleading smaller hockey market tripe anyway.”

It’s not every day that a state governor trash talks a Bruins player, but there’s some history involved that led to this.

Marchand is currently suspended for punching and high-sticking Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry in a 4-2 loss on Tuesday, which Cooper alluded to.

Prior to that, Marchand has had some things to say about the Hurricanes. Cooper referenced those in his tweet:

Calling him “Lamborghini Marchand”: This goes back to mid-January, when Hurricanes forward Vincent Trocheck took offense to being compared with the 33-year-old Bruin. Marchand replied in an Instagram comment that it was like “comparing a Lambo to a Prius.”

The “smaller hockey market” line: This stems from a comment Marchand made on Twitter following another lopsided Bruins loss to the Hurricanes. After losing to Carolina 7-1 in January, Marchand replied to the Hurricanes not-so-subtly mocking tweet—”L stands for Lamborghini”—by claiming “you’re still the reason we pay 20 percent in escrow.”

The escrow comment is tied to the league’s current salary structure. Players pay a percentage of their salaries to escrow in order to help ensure that owners and players ultimately end up splitting league revenues equally even when there are shortfalls (as agreed upon in the league’s collective bargaining agreement). Marchand was insinuating that the Hurricanes—one of the league’s least valuable franchises, according to Forbes—are small market, and therefore one of the reasons why escrow is still necessary.

While much of the NHL’s revenue shortfalls are tied directly to the effects of the pandemic, escrow has been utilized for years. Still, Marchand’s comment was not entirely accurate: NHL players pay 17.2 percent of their salaries to escrow in the current season, not 20.

The two teams don’t play again in the regular season. The Hurricanes swept the Bruins in the three meetings this season, winning by a combined score of 16-1.

Trivia: What is the smallest nation (by population) to have ever won a gold medal at the Winter Olympics?

(Answer at the bottom).

Hint: Located in Central Europe.

More from Boston.com:

• Patriots great Richard Seymour makes Pro Football Hall of Fame
• 5 things to know about Derrick White, the Celtics new defensive-minded guard
• What we learned from the Bruins’ dismal 6-0 loss to Carolina
• Ian Rapoport: Patriots will have Joe Judge, other assistants call plays
• How hip-hop inched its way to the super bowl halftime stage
• US beats out China to win mixed aerials Olympic debut
• Celtics reportedly acquire Spurs guard Derrick White for Josh Richardson, Romeo Langford, pick
• Celtics reportedly trade Bol Bol, P.J. Dozier to Magic to get under luxury tax
• Olympic win brings U.S. skater Nathan Chen little love in China

After his final run, an emotional interview from Shaun White: The 35-year-old finished fourth, capping a career that’s included three gold medals.

And the absolutely electric gold medal run from Japan’s Ayumu Hirano:

On this day: In 1997, the Jets formally announced the hiring of Bill Parcells as head coach. It represented what appeared to be the end of a tumultuous saga—a chapter that became known as the “border wars” between the Jets and Patriots—in which Parcells left New England for New York in a very public split with Robert Kraft.

After Parcells wasn’t given what he thought was an appropriate level of autonomy to run the Patriots’ football operation during the team’s 1996 season (a year which culminated with a Super Bowl berth), he famously complained that, “they want you to cook the dinner, at least they out to let you shop for some of the groceries.”

“I think our groceries are pretty good,” Kraft countered. “They’re fresh. I like the groceries. I’d like to be flooded with groceries like that next year.”

Despite building a team that won the AFC, Parcells was on his way out of New England (notably, both Parcells and Kraft have expressed regret in subsequent interviews at how they handled the situation). Still, Parcells’s contract wasn’t expired, and his immediate attempt to land the job with the Jets was greeted with anger by the Patriots.

In response, the Jets announced the hiring of Bill Belichick to be what was effectively the team’s place-holder head coach (Belichick having been Parcells’s top assistant in New England). Belichick would nominally run the Jets until Parcells’s contract officially expired in New England in Feb. 1998. Parcells was hired in the short term only as a team “consultant.”

Obviously, the Jets had no intention of waiting a year for Parcells, but simply wanted to force the Patriots’ hand. Kraft, in a team statement, called the Jets’ actions a “transparent farce” that was “the latest in a series of actions by the Jets and Bill Parcells which further demonstrates it’s been their intention all along to have Bill become head coach of the Jets for the 1997 season.”

Eventually, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue was forced to get involved and broker a deal between the two teams. On Feb. 10, an agreement was reached: The Jets could hire Parcells in exchange for sending the Patriots:

• 3rd and 4th round picks in 1997
• 2nd round pick in 1998
• 1st round pick in 1999
• $300,000 contribution to the Patriots’ charitable foundation

In his introductory Jets press conference, Parcells stated that, “When I’m finished coaching here, there are no other jobs.” It was a bold claim, and one that sounded familiar to Patriots media, who recalled Parcells telling a similar tale when he was hired in New England years earlier.

In both cases, Parcells was wrong: After four years with the Patriots, he spent only three seasons with the Jets (a time that included an AFC Championship Game appearance). Parcells’s actual final NFL head coaching job would come in Dallas as the Cowboys’ head coach from 2003-2006.

As for the “border wars,” both teams wouldn’t have to wait long for the conflict to flare up again. In 2000, as Parcells stepped down from his role as Jets head coach, he expected Belichick to step up (as had been the plan). Instead, Belichick quit as “HC of the NYJ” after 24 hours, winding up back in New England after a similarly dramatic standoff.

Daily highlight: It wasn’t the most dazzling of highlights, but Savannah Harmon’s rebound score helped U.S. women’s hockey advance to the Olympic semifinals with a third period goal.

Trivia answer: Liechtenstein