Silver Linings?

In a rare departure from normal business, Shank does his best to find some positives from the lockdown panic:

We are 11 weeks into our quarantined, gameless spring of 2020, and it got me to thinking about sports figures who have (inadvertently in most cases) somehow benefited from this scary, horrible pandemic. Truly this is a time with no winners, but we can identify a few teams and sports figures who’ve taken some positives from the daily darkness.

▪ NHL commissioner Gary Bettman Tuesday afternoon revealed his plan for the league getting into playoff mode. It turns out that eight teams that had no business being in the playoffs are going to be skating for the Stanley Cup because of COVID-19. This is no small break for teams like the Chicago Blackhawks and Montreal Canadiens that could advance when they didn’t deserve to be in the postseason.

This could be particularly galling for Bruins fans. We know that hockey is a sport where playoff upsets are the norm, and how’s it going to feel around here if the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Bruins get sent home by a Habs team that didn’t even deserve a playoff spot? Mon dieu!

And on it goes - as passive / aggressive as it gets. Robert Kraft, the Red Sox, the Patriots and David Ortiz get similar treatment.