Weekend Sports Chowdah Updat- 8 is Enough? Celtics Buck Trend; BC, UConn Football 2011 Schedule Released

NHL: Like it or not, all good things must come to an end. And although they wouldn't come away from Saturday night's game empty-handed, the Bruins 7-game win streak has come to a close against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

After a scoreless 1st period, Zdeno Chara would get the scoring underway 7 and a half minutes into the 2nd period, beating Marc-Andre Fleury to put Boston up 1-0. However, the Penguins would come right back with a pair of goals a minute and ten seconds apart to put Pittsburgh up 2-1. David Krejci would get the equalizer with 33 seconds remaining in regulation after the Bruins pulled Thomas for an extra attacker.

However, the Pens would capitalize on a Dennis Seidenberg turnover and C Dustin Jeffery got the game winning tally 1:52 into OT for the win. Boston gets the one point for forcing OT, so their point streak continues through at least 8 games, but that's the end of their impressive 7 game win streak.

Tim Thomas stopped 36 of 39 shots while Pittsbugh's Marc Andre Fleury turned aside 29 of 31 shots faced on the night.

Boston's next game will be a rematch of last month's feisty, high scoring affair versus Montreal. This will take place at Montreal on Tuesday night, 7:30 PM ET on NESN. The Canadiens are riding a 4-game win streak coming into the Tuesday night game, having downed Tampa Bay by a 4-2 final on Saturday.
NBA: After a 107-103 win against the Golden State Warriors at the Garden on Friday night, the C's embarked on a quick 1-game road trip to Milwaukee for a Sunday night game televised on ESPN.

Although trailing at the half 43-49 (including being held to only 16 points in the 2nd quarter), the C's would come back and outscore the Bucks 46-34 in the second half to win by the final of 89-83. Paul Pierce led the scoring with 23 points as well as 5 rebounds while Kevin Garnett had 14 points and 11 rebounds.

The C's next game will be at home against the LA Clippers on Wednesday night at 7:30 PM ET on Comcast New England.

OTHER CELTICS NEWS: Interestingly, only 9 players were in uniform for Boston on Sunday night [same w/Milwaukee, but this isn't Not Another Milwaukee Sports Blog- NANESB!]. According to head coach Doc Rivers, Delonte West is likely to return in time for Wednesday's game against the Clippers, but Shaquille O'Neal's return is unlikely.

MLB: While the Red Sox were vicorious in their Friday night spring training game against the NY Yankees, the Red Sox haven't won a game since, falling to the Florida Marlings by an 11-2 margin and reaching a 4-4 deadlock with the Orioles in split squad action on Saturday and losing to the Mets 5-6 on Sunday.

John Lackey will get the start at City of Palms park against Baltimore (or should I say half the Orioles, since they will be doing the split-squad thing) on Monday afternoon at 1:05 PM ET.

NCAA FOOTBALL: The 2011 football schedules for both Boston College and UConn were released towards the end of February. While the dates have pretty much been settled, the game times for the overwhelming majority remain up in the air.

The Boston College football schedule is as follows:

09/03/11 vs. Northwestern Chestnut Hill, Mass. TBA
09/10/11 at UCF Orlando, Fla. TBA
09/17/11 vs. Duke Chestnut Hill, Mass. TBA
09/24/11 vs. Massachusetts Chestnut Hill, Mass. TBA
10/01/11 vs. Wake Forest Chestnut Hill, Mass. TBA
10/08/11 at Clemson Clemson, S.C. TBA
10/22/11 at Virginia Tech Blacksburg, Va. TBA
10/29/11 at Maryland College Park, Md. TBA
11/03/11 vs. Florida State Chestnut Hill, Mass. 8:00 p.m. ET
11/12/11 vs. North Carolina State Chestnut Hill, Mass. TBA
11/19/11 at Notre Dame Notre Dame, Ind. TBA
11/26/11 at Miami Miami Gardens, Fla. TBA

The UConn football schedule is as follows:

09/01/11 vs. Fordham Rentschler Field, East Hartford, Conn. TBA
09/10/11 at Vanderbilt Vanderbilt Stadium, Nashville, Tenn. TBA
09/16/11 vs. Iowa State Rentschler Field, East Hartford, Conn. 8:00 p.m. ET
09/24/11 at Buffalo UB Stadium, Buffalo, N.Y. TBA
10/01/11 vs. Western Michigan Rentschler Field, East Hartford, Conn. TBA
10/08/11 at West Virginia Milan Puskar Stadium, Morgantown, WVa. TBA
10/15/11 vs. USF Rentscler Field, East Hartford, Conn. TBA
10/26/11 at Pittsburgh Heinz Field, Pittsburgh, Pa. 8:00 p.m. ET
11/05/11 vs. Syracuse Rentschler Field, East Hartford, Conn. TBA
11/19/11 vs. Louisville Rentschler Field, East Hartford, Conn. TBA
11/26/11 vs. Rutgers Rentschler Field, East Hartford, Conn. TBA
12/03/11 at Cincinnati Nippert Stadium, Cincinnati, Ohio TBA

Election Day Chowdah Update- Giant Wait Over; No Doubting Thomas; Moss on the Move Again

WORLD SERIES: A month after barely squeaking past his former team to win the NL West pennant, Bruce Bochy's San Francisco Giants are World Series Champions.

Unlike Game 1, The Cliff Lee-Tim Lincecum matchup on Monday night had both starters carrying a shutout into the 7th inning. In the top of the inning, Lee gave up back to back singles to Cody Ross and Juan Uribe but appeared to be working his way out of the two on/nobody out jam he found himself in after Aubrey Huff sac-bunted to move the runners over and Pat Burrell struck out. However, Edgar Renteria belted a 2-0 Lee offering into the stands at left center field to make it a 3-0 San Francisco lead.

Texas would get a run back in the bottom of the 7th with solo homer off the bat of Nelson Cruz, but Lincecum and closer Brian Wilson would shut them down to give San Francisco the 3-1 win, giving the Giants the World Series win, 4 games to 1 over the Rangers.

The San Francisco Giants had made three prior appearances in the World Series; 1962, 1989 [the earthquake series- NANESB!] and 2002- all of them losing efforts. This is the first World Series title for the baseball Giants since 1954, 4 years before the Giants and Dodgers moved out to the West Coast.

Monday night's win snapped the longest World Series drought (56 years) in the National League outside of the Windy City.

Sparky Anderson: 1934-2010

ELSEWHERE IN MLB: Former Detroit Tigers and Cincinnati Reds manager Sparky Anderson has passed away at his Thousand Oaks, CA home on Thursday. With 1331 wins as Tiger's manager, Anderson was the all time leader in wins for Detroit and was at the helm from 1979 through 1995. Anderson also was manager for 'The Big Red Machine' in Cincinnati for their back to back World Series wins in 1975-76 and elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000.


NHL: The pessimist in me knows that Tim Thomas' white-hot start in net is too good to last, but I didn't think it would be this good to start off with.

Despite allowing more than one goal for the first time this season, the veteran keeper's streak continued through Wednesday night at Buffalo's HSCB Arena. And of course, lots of offense helps as well....and that's exactly what Thomas got.

The Bruins opened up the scoring with a shorthanded goal from Brad Marchand three and a half minutes into the first and was followed up with another shorthanded tally from Patrice Bergeron and an even-strength one from Blake Wheeler to make it a 3-0 game before the end of the 1st.

Michael Ryder made it a 4-0 game about 2 minutes into the 2nd before Buffalo got on the board with a power-play goal from Drew Stafford. Buffalo managed to cut the Bruins lead in half with an even-strength, unassisted Andrej Sekera goal in the third before Milan Lucic tallies an empty-netter for the 5-2 win.

The win brings Boston's record to 7-2-0, one point behind Montreal for first in the Northeast division. The Bruins will travel to Washington DC to take on the Caps on Friday night next.

NBA: You know, I hate to say it, but apparently Kevin Garnett is kind of a dick. Yeah, I know the NBA never had the reputation of being the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in the first place, but good God, man....

After Tuesday night's 109-86 win at Detroit [between KG and Barney Frank, the Bay State seems to have cornered the market on sore winners this month- NANESB!] the C's travelled back to the Garden to host the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night. The Bucks forced overtime, where Paul Pierce was kept busy with 12 points and breaking the 20,000 career points milestone in Boston's 105-102 OT win. Pierce has 28 points altogether along with making all 11 free throws, getting 5 rebounds on the night and a pivotal steal late in the game.

The Celtics will next host the Chicago Bulls on Friday night- the game will be broadcast on ESPN at 8PM Eastern time.

NFL: Well, Randy Moss is on his third team in less than a month. The Tennessee Titans claimed the WR off of waivers after being cut by the Minnesota Vikings earlier this week. The Vikings acquired Moss from New England in October in exchange for a 3rd round draft pick.