That’s NESN’s well-known, clearly patriotic gem, Jack Edwards, after Game 7 between the Bruins and Canadiens last night. We’ve talked about our buddy Jack here many times before, and since then, I’ll admit it: the guy has grown on me. Sure, he’s utterly insane, but as long as you get where the guy is coming from, you can deal with it.
That manical message he’s spewing there, equating the Bruins to the Americans during the revolution and the Habs to the British monarchy, is one that any Montreal hater like myself (and likely you) can get behind. (Seriously, anybody calling out the arrogance of those in Montreal, no matter the form, gets a good mark in my book.)
But for every redeeming quality Edwards has — the laughter he causes, mostly — there’s a bit of what he said this AM on sports talk radio in Boston, in which he completely gets the facts wrong for no apparent reason whatsoever.
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Are we making too much of the Flyers goaltending situation, Jack? The audio from 98.5 The Sports Hub, and the transcript below:
No, not at all. Goaltending is a huge part of winning the Stanley Cup and the fact that Chicago got it from Antti Niemi last year and that Philadelphia almost got it from Michael Leighton last year is a wonderful story, but neither one of those goaltenders had proven themselves in the playoffs. To go with a guy who’s not proven is not usually a sound plan.
Brian Boucher, I think, is Philadelphia’s No. 1 guy right now with Leighton the backup. Sergei Bobrovsky — or whatever his first name is — you know, the Russian kid who played okay for stretches during the regular season was relegated to the press box as everyone predicted he would be since he had no NHL playoff experience and very little in Europe also.
It’s a huge position. Think about what Tim Thomas did in sudden death last night. Three times in sudden death, Thomas deflected shots that were headed into the goal. One time, a carom went off Dennis Seidenberg‘s leg and went two inches wide. You have to have a goalie who can stand on his head at the most important part of the season, and right now Philadelphia doesn’t have the kind of guy that they can look to and say, “yeah, he’s definitely going to steal us a game down the line.”
We could easily break that down line-by-line and point out how just about everything Jack says here is wrong — from the goaltending situation to “everybody knew Bob would suck!” to the fact that Boucher has better playoff numbers than Thomas to the fact that Seidenberg, not Thomas, barely saved that chance in OT last night… and well, yeah.
Homerism is fantastic (on local broadcasts, at least). Comparing the Bruins to the American Revolution is great theater, and arguably fantastic. But man, getting the whole Flyers goaltending situation wrong, basically just for effect?
That’s just weird and pointless and the reason a lot of people outside of Boston dislike you. As for people in Boston, well, you’re their folk hero, and they take everything you say as gospel. And that’s probably why a lot of people in Boston are just like this girl…
See what I did there, Jack? If Philly fans take our opinions directly from the Flyers PR department like you said we do, then that means all Boston fans take their opinions from you, right? I bet this girl thought the escalator was the Royal family, and by God, she was going to conquer it….
