The Next Step

I have to give a little shout out to the Bruins for the great series they played against a team that was supposed to roll right over them. All season long, (and even before the season started) people had been predicting that the Bruins would end up near the bottom of the pile. And yet, despite, season-ending injuries to Patrice Bergeron and Chuck Kobasew, two of their most potent offensive players, this team found a way into the playoffs. Not only that, but they took the number-one seeded Canadiens to seven games. Not too bad. So who’s responsible for this?

1. Claude Julien – The man knows his team in and out, and he knows what they need to do to win hockey games. Not many coaches would bench Phil Kessel for three straight games in a playoff series, but all three of those games could have gone either way. The whole team played with grit and determination that reminds you of the Good Old Days, and you can bet the Julien had a lot to do with that.

2. Tim Thomas – About time people started showing him a little respect.

3. The rookies – Watching Milan Lucic stampede through the offensive zone during the Montreal series is going to get even more people comparing him to Cam Neely. And if Lucic can’t get through you, Kessel will find away around you. Add David Krejci and Vladimir Sobotka to that group, and there’s a lot of young, talented players ready to prove themselves next year.

All that remains is for the Bruins management not to royally screw things up in the off-season. Think you can handle that, guys?

With the Bruins out, I’m rooting for San Jose and my man Joe Thornton. In the east, I’m with the Caps in the hopes of seeing a Huet-Price matchup further down the line.

A while back, I used ForecastFox in my browser so that I wouldn’t have to click a bookmark every time I wanted to know what the weather was going to be like tomorrow or what it was like outside at the time. And it was good. But then one day, ForecastFox switched to using Accuweather for its weather data instead of The Weather Channel. I can’t quite put a finger on it, but something about Accuweather just bugs me. Maybe it’s their hideous radar maps? In any case, I uninstalled it and have been living with a *shudder* bookmark to NOAA ever since. Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that the folks over at The Weather Channel apparently released a Firefox plugin of their own three years ago or so. Why didn’t anyone tell me? It’s got all the options of ForecastFox, detailed point forecasts, and pretty radar maps. My browser is happy to finally know the weather again.