Israel's Football Team (I'm sure he didn't know they were called that) went to visit President Hussein Obama at the White House on Thursday. Obama's joke about Deflategate fell flat. But most important, star quarterback Tom Brady (in the sunglasses behind owner Bob Kraft and an IDF soldier from the Boston area a few years ago) didn't show up.
"I usually tell jokes at these events, but I was worried 11 of 12 of
them would fall flat,” Obama joked during a ceremony honoring the
Patriots' Super Bowl title on the South Lawn.
The crowd let out an audible groan at the president's jab.
The president conceded that the "whole story got blown a little out of proportion."
The
Patriots' championship run was clouded by allegations that a team
employee deflated 11 out its 12 footballs during the AFC Championship
game.
Team owner Robert Kraft, head coach Bill Belichick, and
starting quarterback Tom Brady, who was not in attendance at the White
House ceremony, have denied any wrongdoing.
In February, an NFL.com report found that only one football was severely deflated.
Good for Brady. Reminds me of another Boston sports hero who didn't show up at the White House during Obama's term.
Red Sox outfielder skipping trip to the White House
The World Champion Boston Red Sox are taking advantage of the fact that they are playing in Baltimore to drop in on the White House on Tuesday. But one player won't be going along. No, this is not another TimThomas story (although the comments about the visit on Facebook were surprisingly nasty given that Massachusetts is probably the bluest state in the Union). But Jonny Gomes is staying in Baltimore.
BDD has learned that Turnaround King Jonny Gomes has decided to stay in
Baltimore this morning as the team bus prepares for a trip to the White
House. Gomes said this was not in protest of any government policy or
activity, i.e. former Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas, but it is a protest
of the fact that Red Sox manager John Farrell elected to keep Gomes on
the bench in Boston's 2-1 Opening Day loss to the Orioles.
Gomes could have pinch-hit for new Red Sox catcher A.J.
Pierzynski in the eighth inning, or again, batted for the struggling
Jackie Bradley Jr. in the ninth inning. But Farrell chose to let the man
with a World Series tattoo rot on the bench.
Gomes indicated that he may hit the Baltimore aquarium today in lieu of
the White House trip, but stopped short of saying he was going to head
back to Boston and hope for a better fate in the home opener on Friday
at Fenway.
Tukka Rask was awesome in net, and Daniel Paille continued the hot hand with another goal as the Boston Bruins took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Finals on Monday night.
The Boston Bruins have made it to the Stanley Cup Finals for the second time in three years, shutting out the heavily favored Pittsburgh Penguins 1-0 on Friday night for a four-game sweep in the Eastern Conference Finals. They now await the winner of the Chicago - Los Angeles series (Chicago leads 3-1, with Game 5 Saturday night in Chicago) to see whom they will meet for the Stanley Cup. (Hat Tip: Ephy G for the picture).
Must see video: Boston Marathon double amputee victim honored by Bruins
This is a must-see video. Jeff Bauman lost both his legs in the Boston Marathon terror attack. On Saturday night, at Game 2 of their first-round playoff series, the Boston Bruins honored Bauman.
Awesome video: Pre-game and national anthem from Bruins-Sabres game, Wednesday, April 17
As you all know, I grew up in Boston, one of the few cities in the world where professional sports are usually found on the front page of the daily newspaper. I've been to TD Garden many times over the past seven years - it's an amazing place.
Wednesday night was the first professional sports event in Boston that wasn't cancelled since the terror attack on Monday's Boston Marathon (in which I ran in 1991). It was a hockey game between the Boston Bruins and the Buffalo Sabres. This is what happened when longtime singer Rene Rancourt tried to sing the national anthem.
The end came at about 5 a.m. Sunday, the 113th day of the lockout, at a Midtown Manhattan hotel.
“Don Fehr and I are here to tell you that we have reached an agreement
on a framework for a new collective bargaining agreement,” the N.H.L.
commissioner Gary Bettman said, standing alongside Donald Fehr, the
executive director of the N.H.L. Players’ Association. “We still have
more work to do, but it’s good to be at this point.”
“Hopefully within a very few days,” Fehr said, “The fans can get back to
watching people who are skating, not the two of us.”
Pending ratification, which is likely, by the players and owners, a 48-
to 50-game season is expected to begin before Jan. 20, with the Stanley
Cup awarded by the end of June.
Hockey until the end of June? How bizarre....
Maybe they should let fewer teams into the playoffs instead.
As may of you know, the National Hockey League has been on strike since the beginning of the season, and the chances of there being any professional hockey at all this year (at least in North America) are looking grim.
Here's a great ad that Nike did to show how defiant the fans in Canada are about the situation.
Let's go to the videotape.
In case you're wondering, the guy who speaks Russian and says 'smart move, kid' is the Washington Capitals' Alex Ovechkin, who is playing in Russia so long as there is a strike.
They delivered. See photo. Add comment. It doesn't get any better than playoff hockey.
Doesn't get any better? Well, what doesn't get any better is that the Bruins won on the road Monday night to reclaim their home ice advantage, coming back twice from one-goal deficits and winning the game on a Zdeno Chara goal with less than two minutes remaining in regulation. But as to taunting Timmy Thomas over this nonsense? I cannot think of anyone less relevant to playoff hockey than Barack Hussein Obama.
I grew up a rabid Boston sports fan, and I still follow my teams from Israel, so I hope you all will forgive me one more slightly off-topic post.
When I wrote my Tim Thomas post on Tuesday night, I was looking in the dark for someone from Boston who skipped out on one of the championship trips to the White House when George W. Bush was in office. My mistake was including Kevin Paul DuPont in the search terms, because DuPont, it goes without saying, was silent about it.
When the Red Sox won the World Series in 2007, principal owner John Henry and then general manager Theo Epstein - both dyed in the wool Democrats - skipped the White House visit with George W. Bush. And, as you might guess, Kevin Paul DuPont did not say a word nor did anyone else at the Uber Leftist Boston Globe (Hat Tip: Malcolm via The Colossus of Rhodey).
Notably, no one at the Boston Globe complained when Red Sox owner John Henry and general manager Theo Epstein, both dyed-in-the-wool Democrats, opted out of the invites to the Bush White House after the 2007 World Series. Nor should they have. While there are considerations of common courtesy in deciding whether to accept such an invitation, a player, manager or owner might reasonably choose not to take part in a rah-rah event by a president that they do not support. You might accuse Tim Thomas of a lack of courtesy and even lack of consideration for his teammates, as Mr. Dupont does. His approach, however, is preferable to the “courageous” alternative suggested by Mr. Dupont, who argued that Thomas would have been better served by showing up and giving President Obama a piece of his mind. Now, how would that have been perceived in very blue Boston?
Mr. Dupont’s most woeful error, however, was in suggesting that Thomas’s disagreement with the current government equals a lack of love of country. “It was the same government yesterday, and will be today, that protected his country, his security, his family, and his right to make $5 million a year, all last season.” Tim Thomas was a U.S. Olympian and won a silver medal for his country. Mr. Dupont contends that someone “so disgusted with our government ought to turn in the sweater and the medal. It must be a horrible burden, if not a pox, to have them in his house.”
Yeah, Henry and Epstein were management; Thomas is a star player. Well, if anything, that makes it worse. And notably, Bush was not in a reelection campaign at the time, which could have been helped by their showing up at the White House. Obama is.
So, as usual, we have a complete lack of consistency and rank hypocrisy on the Left. It's a pity that they continue to dominate the media. DuPont should keep his pompous mouth shut.
Anyone know what Belichick's and Brady's politics are? This may become relevant again real soon.
Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas, the second American-born player ever to win the Conn Smythe trophy as the most valuable player in the Stanley Cup finals, has caused a bit of a scandal by skipping the team's White House visit with President Obama on Monday. The Bruins are in Washington to play the Capitals on Tuesday evening.
Tim Thomas, one of two American players on last year’s roster, chose not to attend the ceremony. During his six-minute speech in the East Room, Obama mentioned Thomas for his performance in the Stanley Cup Final and how he was only the second American to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as postseason MVP.
“I believe the federal government has grown out of control, threatening the rights, liberties, and property of the people,’’ Thomas said in a statement on his Facebook page. “This is being done at the executive, legislative, and judicial level. This is in direct opposite to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers’ vision for the federal government. Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a free citizen and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion, both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an individual.’’
Bruins president Cam Neely released a statement on the Bruins’ website.
“As an organization we were honored by President Obama’s invitation to the White House. It was a great day and a perfect way to cap our team’s achievement from last season. It was a day that none of us will soon forget. We are disappointed that Tim chose not to join us, and his views certainly do not reflect those of the Jacobs family or the Bruins organization. This will be the last public comment from the Bruins organization on this subject.’’
General manager Peter Chiarelli spoke with Thomas several times about attending the ceremony over the last few months.
We must all celebrate that Thomas, born in Flint, Mich., nearly 38 years ago, has the right to say all of that and more, and we’ve grown accustomed to hearing near-identical dogma from the right wing/conservative/Tea Party end of our political spectrum for the last 2-3 years. He is a free man, living in a free country, and he can sing that blatherall from his hotel room, his crease, and the corner of Causeway and Staniford if he so chooses.
As a country, we’re not yet so deep in the handbasket that any of us has been denied that right. Thankfully.
But yesterday was not about politics and government until Thomas made it about politics and government. The day, long set on the calendar, was a day when the Boston Bruins were asked to visit Pennsylvania Avenue to celebrate what they did as a team last season. It was their day in the national spotlight, until Thomas didn’t show, and then the focal point became, much the way it would be in a hockey game, on the guy who was no longer standing in goal.
Shabby. Immature. Unprofessional. Self-centered. Bush league. Need I go on? All that and more applies to what Thomas did, on a day when Cup teammates Mark Recchi (now retired), Shane Hnidy (a radio guy these days in Winnipeg), and Tomas Kaberle (a member of some Original Six team in Canada), all gladly joined the red-white-blue-black-and-gold hugfest at the White House.
Thomas needed to be there in solidarity, and celebration, with his team. It was the same government yesterday, and will be today, that protected his country, his security, his family, and his right to make $5 million a year, all last season. In his absence, he stole his teammates’ spotlight. Win as a team. Lose as a team. And when asked to stand up and take a bow, then stand up there and suffer if need be, even if you don’t like the setting, the host, or any of the political trappings and tenets that come with it.
Team guys don’t opt out of team meetings or celebrations.
I wonder what DuPont would have said had one of the Red Sox or Patriots or Celtics opted out of meeting George W. Bush when he was in the White House (yeah, it's been a heck of a decade for Boston sports).
At Commentary, Jonathan Tobin defended Thomas (didn't know you followed Boston sports Jonathan):
But the Globe and other liberal outlets that claim Thomas politicized something that had nothing to do with partisan strife are wrong. The business of schlepping team members and officials and their trophy for photos with the president months after their triumph may be a harmless tradition, but as much as the president serves as head of state as well as head of our government, no one should feel obligated to play along with the charade. Thomas was fully within his rights and is no more at fault than any left-wing actors who denied themselves the pleasure of a visit with George W. Bush.
Thomas, the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the 2011 playoffs, was one of only three American citizens on the Bruins and is also an active member of the Republican Party. And because he sports the image of the Gasden flag (“Don’t Tread On Me”), the symbol of the Tea Party, on his goalie mask, it isn’t too hard to figure out where his political sympathies lie. But unlike some Tea Partiers who got in the face of politicians who voted for the bank bailouts, the stimulus or Obamacare, Thomas kept a respectful distance from the event.
Oddly enough, the Globe’s Dupont criticized Thomas as lacking the guts to criticize Obama to his face. Of course, creating an incident at the White House would have been in bad taste, embarrassed his teammates and spoiled their fun. Nor should, as Dupont claimed, his beliefs have obligated him to not represent his country at the Olympics, as Thomas has done. Reading this attack, one can’t help wondering whether he would not be praised in the Globe and elsewhere had his protest been against a Republican president.
Indeed.
Let's go to the videotape. More after the video.
I don't think I'd want to meet Obama either. Of course, like Binyamin Netanyahu, I'd probably have to enter and leave the White House through the service entrance and leave the photographers at home.
The Globe has a poll on Thomas' actions, and frankly he's getting slammed. If you're so inclined, please go here and agree with Tim Thomas.
The Bruins finally played in Vancouver like they did in Boston and bring home the Stanley Cup for the first time since I was in high school.
The Bruins defeated the Vancouver Canucks tonight at Rogers Arena, 4-0, becoming the Stanley Cup champions for the first time since the big, bad glory days of Orr and Espo in 1972. The victory ends a 39-year title drought and gives the Bruins a place on the pedestal (or the at least the duck boats) alongside the Celtics (2007), Patriots (2001, '03, '04) and Red Sox (2004, '07) as champions during this unprecendented era of all-around professional sports success in the city.
The victory was the Bruins' first here during the series in three tries here in Vancouver, which had won Games 1, 2, and 5 here despite scoring a total of just five goals on their home ice and eight overall in the series. The Bruins won all three games at the Garden by a 17-3 advantage, but winning in Vancouver was a tall challenge.
Of course, these Bruins, on determined path since blowing a three-game lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals to the Philadelphia Flyers last postseason, have been up for every tall challenge they have faced during this playoff run, beating the rival Montreal Canadiens in seven games in the first round, avenging the previous loss to the Flyers with a sweep, then taking down the talented Tampa Bay Lightning in seven games to reach the Cup Finals against the gifted Canucks.
Tonight's challenge was also one they proved up to almost immediately, with Bergeron flipping a one-timer past beleagured Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo at the 14:37 mark of the first period to give the Bruins the crucial first goal.
The play was set up by the relentless rookie Marchand, who boosted the Bruins lead to 2-0 in the second period with a wraparound goal after beating Luongo to the far post at 12:13 of the second period.
Bergeron got his second of the night a little more than five minutes later on a shorthanded break in in which the puck trickled past Luongo as Bergeron and defenseman Christian Ehrhoff crashed into the net. Marchand iced the cake with an empty-netter at 17:16 of the third period.
The winning effort was typical of these Bruins, with so many players contributing to the clinching victory. Tireless defenseman Dennis Seidenberg had two assists. The fourth line of Daniel Paille, Gregory Campbell and Shawn Thornton was stellar defensively. Mark Recchi, the classy 43-year-old future Hall of Famer, had an assist in the final game of an NHL career than began in November 1988. Andrew Ference . . . David Krejci . . . Milan Lucic . . . Johnny Boychuk . . . and on it goes.
But it will be the 37-year-old Thomas who is remembered the most for what happened tonight. The Conn Smythe award winner as the MVP of the postseason, the affable goalie allowed the Canucks -- the highest scoring team in the NHL this season -- just eight goals in the seven games while setting a record for saves by one goalie in a single postseason. Until this postseason, Gerry Cheevers was the most beloved goalie in franchise history.
Tonight, he has company. And so do the rest of his teammates on those cherished 1970 and '72 champions.
The 2010-11 Boston Bruins have made some history of their own.
Awesome.
Can't wait to see the duck boats again.
Let's go to the videotape.
By the way, most of the video search results were about riots in Vancouver. Calm down folks. It's still only a game (and I'm as big a fan as anyone).
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
