How The Game Is Played

I'm not talking about hockey, but rather Shank's sporadic coverage of it. Ninety-plus games in, behold, his fourth Boston Bruins column this hockey season:

RALEIGH, N.C. — The Bruins are running downhill on the way to the Stanley Cup Final. Each series has been easier than the one before.

These Cup playoffs for the Spoked-B’s have been like a NASA countdown.

Seven games . . . then six . . . now perhaps four?

Liftoff.

Bring on the San Jose Sharks or the St. Louis Blues.

It’s strange. Has there ever been a championship run in which each round got easier? Certainly the 2004 and 2007 Red Sox were more tested in the ALCS than in the World Series, but they did not experience anything like what we are seeing in this magical — dare we say easy? — run to the Final. Those Sox faced much tougher competition in the second round than they did in the first. Only the World Series (both sweeps) was easy.

It’s never easy, of course — unless it’s the Patriots in the AFC East or the 2018-19 Red Sox against the AL bum-of-the-week clubs. Winning at the playoff level is always rugged and hard.

Do any of you think Shank watched any of last night's game? That Bruins win was not easy.

Let's set aside the obvious bullshit praising the Red Sox; he's been taking dumps on them nearly every day from Spring training until they got hot two weeks ago and now pretends to be on their side.

I've helpfully pointed out the theme that Shank is using in his not so genuine praise of the Bruins, and longtime readers will recognize it right away when compared to many of his Patriots columns. By claiming the Bruins' playoff run is easy (and in the next breath saying it's not easy), Shank nonetheless creates the impression, however false, that a Stanley Cup for the Bruins will be easy. If they do not, Shank will then take the mother of all shits on the Bruins for not winning the Stanley Cup because it was supposed to be easy.

And that's how the game is played.