The Big Daddy of Sports Chowdah Updates- Grin and Bear It, Triumphant B's Return to Boston, Parade & Fenway Ceremony; Interleague's Stranger Brew

NHL- After a private party at the Foxwoods casino club 'Shrine' in which Tim Thomas, Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, Milan Lucic, Brad Marchand and Shawn Thornton were hand delivered a $100,000 bottle of champagne to drink out of the Stanley Cup, the Boston Bruins capped their most memorable week in nearly 40 years with a parade route jam-packed with yellow and black adorned fans on Saturday and a pregame ceremony at Fenway Park on Sunday.

[By the way, am I the only one that imagined the Bruins exodus from Vancouver might've looked something like the part in The Dark Knight where Gotham Police are escorting Harvey Dent in an armoured truck?- NANESB!]

The players from the Bruins brought the Stanley Cup into the Red Sox clubhouse before Sunday's game and players from both teams posed for pictures with the trophies and swapped caps and jerseys before the pre-game ceremonies.

For the actual ceremony itself, the Bruins entered Fenway Park on the same Duck boats from Saturday's parade (or the Celtics 2008 parade, or the Red Sox 2007 parade or...well you get the idea) taking a lap along the warning track and tossing out pucks and baseballs to fans before disembarking.


For the ceremonial first pitch, every member of the Bruins threw out a pitch to a Red Sox player, with captain Zdeno Chara (#33) throwing to captain Jason Varitek (again, #33) while the Stanley Cup, Conn Smythe award and Prince of Wales trophy were displayed on the mound.

On a side note, I got a book called Travels With Stanley which showed some of the places the Cup has been in its travels. Interestingly, this was not the Stanley Cup's first trip to Fenway in recent history.

Skip Cunningham, the Hurricanes other equipment manager, took possession of the Stanley Cup on August 16 in Boston, Massachusetts.

After a visit to Children's Hospital Boston, hockey's greatest prize visited the Boston Red Sox. In the clubhouse at Fenway Park, slugger David Ortiz did a double-take when he saw the Cup. "My my," he said, shaking his head. "Look at this trophy! Look what those hockey players get to play for. Now that's a trophy!"

Pitcher Mike Timlin stopped by to ogle the Cup, and recalled occasionally attending Maple Leafs games when he played in Toronto for the Blue Jays. Up on the Green Monster in Fenway Park's outfield, Cunningham and the Cup ran into Doug Flutie, retired NFL quarterback, who spun stories about watching hockey while he played in the Canadian Football League. Carolina's Craig Adams, a huge Red Sox fan, was also there with the Stanley Cup.

I remember reading that part and thinking 'Too Bad it's been awhile since the Cup has been inside the Hub- I bet that would go over well with everybody there if somebody took it to Fenway for an afternoon'. I didn't know how right I was, as it turned out.

My, what a differece a few years makes!

MLB- OK, so the hockey season is over- and with the best possible outcome, no less. There's still plenty of baseball to be played, however.

With the Sox taking Friday night's game and the Brewers winning on Saturday by a 4-2 final, Sunday's rubber game almost seemed an afterthought with the Bruins victory lap around the infield.

The Sox got off on the right foot with a 1-2-3 first from Tim Wakefield and 6 runs from the Boston bats in the bottom of the 1st, including a Youkilis 3-run homer. The Brewers would get two back in the top of the 2nd on a 2-run Nyjer Morgan HR, but Wakefield would go on to retire 12 of the next 13 batters he faced while the Red Sox batters continued pouring it on, scoring two more in the bottom of the 4th including a solo homer by Pedroia, followed by a Pedroia sac fly in the 5th and a 2-run Marco Scutaro homer in the bottom of the 6th to make it 11-2. Each team would get a run to make it a 12-3 Red Sox win on Sunday afternoon, with Wakefield going 8 whole innings while giving up 3 hits and 3 earned runs while striking out 6 and walking 1. Wake is now 4-2 on the season with a 4.26 ERA.

Beginning Monday night, the Red Sox will host Adrian Gonzalez (who had his 1000th career MLB hit on Sunday) former team in the San Diego Padres. Wade LeBlanc [0-2; 4.26 ERA] is expected to get the start for San Diego against PawSox call-up Andrew Miller [3-3: 2.47 ERA w/Pawtucket this season]. Game gets underway at 7:05 PM ET, 4:05 Pacific.

OTHER RED SOX NEWS: Shortstop Jed Lowrie, OF Carl Craford and starting pitcher Clay Buchholz all went on the 15 day DL this weekend. Lowrie is reported to have a left shoulder injury while Crawford is said to have a left hamstring strain. Buchholz will miss his scheduled start tomorrow with a strained lower back- Andrew Miller has been called up from AAA Pawtucket to fill in Monday night.

NEW POLL UP: I took it upon myself to wonder who's behavior would be considered more self-destructive this month- Congressman Weiner's or fans of the Vancouver Canucks? I'm interested in why you might think, so there's a poll where you can choose- It will be up for the next couple of days.

AHL: The Binghamton Senators of the American Hockey League are the 2010-2011 AHL Champions after defeating the Houston Aeros on the road by a final of 3-2 earlier this month. The Ottawa Senator's AHL affiliate won the best of seven series by a 4-2 margin over the Aeros.

Woe Canada Sports Chowdah Update- Do or Die in Beantown- Too Much Pressure in Luongo's Tires? TO Too Bad- Sox Sweep Jays North of the Border

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STANLEY CUP FINALS: After Friday night's 1-0 loss in Vancouver, the Stanley Cup finals moved back to Boston for a do-or-die Game 6 on Monday night. The Stanley Cup was inside the Garden- if the Canucks won, it was theirs for the taking.

But the Bruins had other ideas, and unlike Friday night they got on the board and got on the board early. Brad Marchand opened up the scoring with an even strength tally at the five and a half minute mark in the 1st period. Barely 30 seconds later, the Bruins doubled their lead when Milan Lucic beat Luongo at the 6:06 mark to make it 2-0.



With the lead, the Bruins would uncharacteristically cash in on the man advantage after Alex Edler went to the sin bin for a boarding minor. Andre Ference would chase Luongo for the night just under a minute into the Bruins man advantage. Cory Schnieder went in between the pipes after Vigneault pulled Luongo. Although Schneider stopped all 9 shots faced against the Bruins late in Game 4, he allowed Andrew Ference to tip one in just a minute and 10 seconds after coming in in relief of Luongo to make it a 4-0 game. The four goals in 4 minutes and 14 seconds by one team were a record for the Stanley Cup championship game.


Just when it looked like the Bruins had the game put away, the Canucks would get on the board with Henrki Sedin's first goal of the Stanley Cup finals on a power play to open up the 3rd period. Despite the 3 goal lead, Vancouver threatened to steal away the momentum when shortly after Sedin's goal, a shot that rang off the goalpost was ruled a no-goal after a video review.

However, Boston got the momentum back when they had a 5 on 3 man advantage and for the 2nd time in the evening managed to get one past Cory Schneider 7 minutes into the 3rd period to make it a 5-1 game. The Canucks would get one more with about two and a half minutes left in regulation, but would ultimately fall by a 5-2 final.

Tim Thomas faced 38 shots on the night, turning aside 36 while Roberto Luongo faced only 8 shots, stopping five. Cory Schneider faced 32, turning aside 30.

The win tonight forces a Game 7 in Vancouver on Wednesday night at 5 PM Pacific, 8 PM Eastern. The game will be televised on NBC in the USA and the CBC in Canada. While Boston has outscored Vancouver by a composite 17-3 in the Graden during the final, it had lost the three previous games played in Vancouver by exactly 1 goal.

OTHER NOTES FROM TONIGHT: Canucks Forward Mason Raymond was sent to the hospital with an undisclosed injury after a collision with Johnny Boychuck against the boards in the first period.

Nathan Horton made an appearance at the Garden in Game 6, getting a standing ovation from the crowd.

RED SOX: After a lengthy rain delay on Thursday night in the Bronx, the Yankees got off to an early 2-0 lead against Josh Beckett before the wheels started to come off for CC Sabathia in the top of the 7th, when the Red Sox would score 7 runs and chase Sabathia from the mound.

So completing a come-from behind win and vaulting into first place with a 3 game sweep of the Yankees, the Red Sox headed north of the border into Toronto for a weekend series against the Blue Jays.

Clay Buchholz was on the bump Friday night for the Red Sox 5-1 win against Toronto- and that was actually the closest game of the weekend series. Saturday afternoon's game was a brutal 16-4 beating that saw Jays 2B Mike McCoy come in and pitch some relief (and actually get a 1-2-3 inning for his efforts on the mound). On Sunday afternoon, the Jays managed to hold the Sox offense to a mere 14 runs in their 14-1 loss. Lackey got the win on Sunday while Jon Lester got the win on Sunday.

The Red Sox will next travel to Tampa to take on the Rays. Tampa Bay is coming off a 2-1 loss at Detroit's Comerica Park thanks to a controversial call that cost them a run in the 7th inning on Monday night. The game was a makeup of a May 25th rainout in Detroit. Tim Wakefield (3-1; 4.84 ERA) is expected to get the start against James Shields (5-4; 2.85 ERA). First pitch is at 7:10 and the game will be broadcast on NESN.

ELSEWHERE IN MLB: Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky's 18 year old son Trevor Gretzky was drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the 2011 MLB Draft. The younger Gretzky had previously committed to the San Diego State Aztecs, and he would play under Baseball hall of famer Tony Gwynn is he and the Cubs cannot reach an agreement on their contract.

NCAA FOOTBALL: The BCS has stripped the University of Southern California Trojans of their 2004 title. The decision was made official after the NCAA rejected USC's appeal of sanctions resulting from RB Reggie Bush and his family accepting improper benefits while playing for the Trojans.

Other NCAA sanctions against the school include a two year suspension from postseason play and the revocation of at least 30 scholarships over three seasons.

What? WHO? WhY? WTF? Oh....ok.

This past year my "sports card habits" have truly taken a back seat. Oh sure I picked up a few blaster boxes here and there but I have not spent nowhere near the amount of money I used to spend. Even at my local card shop- all he carries is Topps and I'm not impressed with what he has to offer. With what he carries in terms of products I can find it a lot cheaper by almost 20-30.00 at blowout cards with shipping! I'm even less impressed when he whips out the "Holy Beckett Bible" and looks at the high prices 97.8% of the time for any single cards that I pick out that I want or need. Then when it comes to commons he has to go by the "Beckett Bible" on that as well. I usually walk out at that point empty handed hoping he would catch on to the point of "no one goes by that anymore if you really wanna make a sale" but it seems I would have a better time getting felt up by TSA employees than any hopes of him dropping the whole "Beckett" is the gospel approach. Then he gripes as to why he hardly has any business.....GEE I WONDER.

There is one thing that really bothers me a liitle and that is UPPER DECK. A few weeks ago I took part in a 2010 UD Sweet Spot box break over at First and Goal and I was rather surprised at what I had pulled (actually what Dave pulled for me):

I know UD was (in trouble with the NFL: Read it here) making this a college themed set and by most standards I think they did an okay job. However the one thing I was not impressed by was the fact that the LeSean McCoy jersey swatch is green in color. That's funny considering Pitt's colors are blue and gold. So I posted a message on UD's facebook page asking as to why the color difference and I promptly received a reply of :

Upper Deck commented on their wall post.

Upper Deck wrote: "We can use NFL jerseys, just not images of team logos. This was a Eagles jersey."

On the back of the jersey card it states that this jersey was from a rookie photo shoot.



Hmmmm......on the front of the hobby box it states: 2010 NCAA football
???
I think it would be nice to actually use the college jersey swatch pieces in a product that is advertised as NCAA FOOTBALL and not use an NFL jersey swatch in a supposed NCAA product. Even my 9 yr old son looked at me confused and asked, "if it's a college card then why do they have a pro jersey on the card Dad?" Is it me or am I missing something?