A Study on Bruins Thinking

The Bruins and their fans are an interesting study in thinking. Between games, an interesting documentary on one-sided thinking is being recorded for posterity.

1. Thronton

I have been particularly interested in the past couple of days in the Shawn Thornton moment for a few reasons:



1) Shawn Thornton has declared in the past he doesn't like exaggerating injuries (interesting)
2) Shawn Thornton has now declared he doesn't like ducking
3) Shawn Thornton has declared himself a clean player (after repeatedly punching an unconscious player in the head)
4) He apparently is a fan of taking 20 steps to hit a vulnerable player on a puck that will be recovered by his team anyway.


OK, so Shawn Thornton isn't the nicest guy and he has the Ference-requisite top up of hypocrisy (i.e., overbrimming). You can watch his thinking abetted by two fans posing as journalists.

- "Thornton was nearly killed" (presumably by being so out of control by his own power.
- Pain can subside. Probably a revelation to Boston.
- Silly slips and modified body position is an unsportsmanlike component of the game



2. Julien

Julien is lead lobbier for the Boston Bruins, a team tenuously built to take advantage of increased leniency in the post season. Julien knows his job depends on leniency and he spends every minute of air time spinning the victim story, all the while coaching his team to hold and hook to the limit.

Whether he is knowingly the hypocrite or unknowingly makes little difference to me. The coach who gets off so lightly for the tactics employed never seems bashful about asking for more clemncy still.

"All the crap" the Bruins had to deal with in Game two were presumably the 5 minor penalties they were assessed to Montreal's 3. I'm not counting the penalty for outright dissent, as that was crap he inflicted on the team.

They should have dealt with a lot more crap than that, as Michel Therrien rightly noted:

“I thought they got away with a lot of things, as far as we’re concerned,” Therrien said of some missed penalty calls.

Julien must surely know this deep down. But nothing that escapes his three necks ever comes close to sincerity, so we may never know.

Good on Therrien on responding to the PR barrage of the Bruins. Someone needed to step in and prevent the seepage of their message unchallenged.



So what makes a Bruins fan blood boil?

Hard to tell.

Diving? Contextual
Dirty hits? Contextual
Exaggerating injury? Contextual
Hypocrisy? Allegedly, but they can't even talk straight about that

Not taking a Buins hit? Seems so
Not letting a Bruin score? Yep
Having the gaul to score on a Bruin? Definitely
Getting penalized for the 26th hook/hold/obstruction of the period? 


It's not as if we didn't know it. But the amount they are putting into video evidence for their own education is wonderful. Canadiens fans should each carry a bag of salt for the next few days, a lot of grains will be on call.



Still, I'm glad Subban fell/slipped/moved. He would have been hurt by the blind hit under full steam (perhaps seriously). I'm also glad Line Fourton wasn't injured. His minutes give respite and daylight to the Habs in between shifts of far superior all-round players on the Bruins.


Mere hours now...