Like Dan himself, the now ancient Rick Pitino quote is long past retirement age. Yet no one seems to have told The CHB, who keeps trotting it out like a Suffolk Downs nag that's overdue for the glue wagon. It's probably hard-coded into Microsoft Word on his PC.
Today's incarnation: "Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Terry O'Reilly, Ray Bourque, and Joe Thornton aren't walking through that door. Cam Neely and Pie McKenzie aren't walking through that door, either."
It's just one more in a string of cliches and suckups. The Bruins are the
"team with the most loyal fans." Those same fans are "by far the most knowledgable [sic!] fan base in our town" -- good luck proving that -- and adds "you know a large number of men in the crowd are dads who talk about Orr when they watch the game with the new generation of hockey fans," as if we are to believe Dan ever leaves the press box.
Dan's weak attempt to peddle a feelgood Bruins story feels as contrived as O.J. Simpson's assertions that he's looking for Nicole's killer.
One need only recall his Jan. 16 piece, when he wrote
One thing is for sure: The Patriots' sudden, stunning defeat in Denver Saturday night is not a good thing for Mike O'Connell and the Bruins. While Tom Brady and Friends were bound for Super Bowl XL in Detroit, it was easy to ignore the train wreck on Causeway Street, but now the moribund Bruins and the southbound Celtics have our attention again -- at a time when they'd rather be hiding in the weeds.Or his Nov. 22, 2005, piece, in which he called the B's
... a defenseless, last-place team in a town that's all too ready to relegate hockey to the status accorded the New England Revolution. Hockey -- the new professional soccer. Ugh.Where were all those loyal fans when you wrote that?
As if Boston needed more proof of The CHB's blindness to his surroundings, he writes: "Close your eyes and you can tell what is going on simply by listening to the Garden crowd." It is a nice insight on how he does his job, though.
10 comments:
In alio pediculum, in te ricinum non vides.
Looks like we not only have problems understanding the terms we attempt to use, we can't read either.
The column that provoked today's foolishness is about the loyalty of the core Bruins fans, how 16,000-odd people show up to watch a lousy team, even when they're playing a very good team. Apparently the blogger is so eager to run to the archives that he eagerly sees things that aren't there. It's not a "feelgood' piece about Bruins, it's a piece about how their core fan base has rather deeply-rooted loyalty, even when the team stinks and most of the day-to-day sports fans ignore them.
What was once the blotter's occasional meandering away from responsible and respectable criticism has now become a rather dismal self-parody.
Up myus anus toous.
Nice how you consistently have to explain what Dan meant. It's like you are the same person.
Maybe it's because I read it to hear what the columnist has to say, not with one eye on the column with a pre-determined agenda that I'm going to disagree, and the other eye frantically scanning The Globe archives, searching phrases in a comical attempt to find something that can be twisted into an irrelevant inconsistency.
Maybe it's because you wrote it in the first place.
Just like you, my 2 year old understands his own gibberish.
the chief,
Have you read the novel "Ballpark Blues"? A very forgettable book except for the author's attack on sportswriters, especially the Boston media. The author shows particular venom for a columnist described as a "big-hair prick" having a "huge mop of 70's permed hair."
If you would like, I could send you my bargain bin copy or email some of the attacks on sportswriters. I think you, Sheriff Sully, and Bruce Allen would enjoy the commentary.
dbvader
I love when Shaughnessy tries to pretend to be an expert on other teams and sports and just writes cliched forgettable garbage. The Globe should have a wheel with all sorts of sports and teams written on it and just spin it once in a while and see if Dan can produce a column on the topic that comes up. Maybe then he can stop harassing the Red Sox and making enemies there and do what he always do, write about the same tired themes and stories everyoen knows and do his job in such a way that he doesn't even give any indication he actually atches the games. Did you see his contribution to a Sunday quick shot piece entitled "Should parochial schools have their own tournament?". He talks aobut the subject of high school hockey and can't even make intelligent points about hockey and instead lashes out against all private schools and brings up football. It is almost like he expects us to believe he's seen more than two hockey or football games this year.
Oh good. We get to stand by for drivel from a bargain-bin book featuring a main baseball character named Casey (at least he didn't name the protagonist "Babe").
And I thought we had already seen the B team weigh in with its best shots.
I have on multiple occasions seen The CHB at the Borders in the Atrium Mall paging through his own book.
And I have seen so many copies of "The Curse..." in used bookstores that I have to wonder whether anyone actually bought it to read it, or whether it's one of those books that relatives buy as gifts -- Should I get Barry a nice scarf for Christmas, or this Red Sox book? -- and that the horrified recipients immediately toss in the Goodwill pile.
Never said it was a good book (in fact, as a work of fiction it is terrible), but the author does make some biting attacks on the Boston media that a lot of fans agree with.
Of course, his points would carry more weight if he did not locate the Fenway bleachers in left field and the hand-operated scoreboard in center.
You sure Dan didn't write it and cast himself as the protaganist?
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