Camp, that is.
Welcome to a new week, folks — and this week features the start of training camp!
Get stoked.
Believe it or not, the Bruins will be playing preseason game in just six days, facing the New York Rangers at TD Garden.
Training camp itself starts on Thursday, which is when the Take Machine will be in overdrive if/when Jeremy Swayman doesn’t show up.
(I’m not even sure if a player is allowed to show up at training camp without either a contract or PTO, but I’m also far from an expert in the CBA.)
At this point, it sure doesn’t look like Swayman will have a new deal in place prior to camp starting, and even something prior to the first preseason game looks pretty unlikely at this point.
While the preseason doesn’t matter a ton, it’ll be interesting to see how this goes the longer it drags on.
It would seem (to me) like Swayman has all the leverage, as the Bruins already traded Linus Ullmark and Swayman will know that the team, after splashing the cash in the off-season, isn’t looking to go into the season opener with a Joonas Korpisalo-Brandon Bussi tandem.
Still, it wouldn’t really benefit the player much if he just sat out for months, let alone the entire season, so…I guess we’ll see!
The B’s have one more Prospects Challenge game today to close out that tournament, facing the New Jersey Devils at the very strange hour of 10 AM.
We’ll get back to the player ratings soon, I swear — those have just proven to be a little bit more of a lift than anticipated.
What’s on tap in your world today?
Today’s discussion topic
My two-year-old son got his hands on my desk, and managed to leaving things strewn across the surface — including by circa 2006 Bruins/Verizon Wireless giveaway black couch.
It got me thinking: what’s the most memorable game Bruins game you’ve attended, in terms of memories that didn’t fully involve the result of the game?
This “couch game” would be up there for me, as I remember attending a matinee against the Flyers around New Year’s Day, when the B’s gave out these squishy armchairs to all fans.
I looked it up to confirm the date, and it was January 2, 2006: Antero Nittymaki shut out the Bruins, and at the end of the 1-0 loss, a number of fans chucked their squishy armchairs onto the ice in disappointment.
I vividly the remember the giveaways flying around the ice, off the boards, etc.
Ah, the magic of the 2005-2006 season. Good times.