Posted 11:08 p.m. by Jim Courtney

As mentioned elsewhere (see the Comments here), my neighbour's son, Brad Boyes, made the Boston Bruins this year as a rookie center. Well, he was supposed to be the fourth line center.... but as the season evolved and the injuries to Bruins players built up, Brad has ended up as a right wing on what is currently their number one line. So when the Bruins came to Ottawa last night, where my son and daughter are both registered at the University of Ottawa and home of my wife's brother, it was an opportunity for a family outing to watch our neighbour of the past 19 years.

Now I have been to many NHL rinks and it is most interesting to see what is concocted for the opening ceremony. Disney used to do an interesting job at The Pond, home of the Mighty Ducks, where the mascot arrives sliding down from the roof on a wire. Well, Ottawa seems to have a fetish about the colour red (even though sometimes they wear black and their "Away" colour is white). That opening worship of the colour Red pulsating at 430 billions times a second only served to pulsate the physicist in my background! Argh!!

I was not only looking forward to seeing Brad play but also some of Ottawa's star players such as Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza, both of whom had played with Brad on National Junior teams in the World Junior Championships. My biggest disappointment was finding out that Dominik "The Dominator" Hasek would not be playing goal. Instead they played their backup Ray Emery; last time I saw Brad play against Ray Emery (Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds @ Erie Otters , March 17, 2002), Brad's team had won. This served as an omen for what was to come.


First period. Fan in (red) Senators sweater behind me keeps shouting "Com'on boys, com'on boys". So Brad Boyes pops a pass to Patrice Bergeron who promptly puts it behind a bewildered Ray Emery. This fan keeps on shouting "Com'on boys, com'on boys". So this time Brad (#26) takes a pass from Marco Sturm and lobs it into the net. The Courtneys go crazy but the other 19,545 in the crowd of 19,551 go totally silent. Call Brad's Dad back in Mississauga between periods since no Senators fan will talk to me!



Second period. Four minutes after Nick Boynton scores a short handed goal to make it 3-0, Brad takes a shot that is rebounded to Sturm who promptly pops it in to make it 4-0. Then Sergei Samsonov closes out the scoring later in the period.

Third period: Senators outshoot Bruins 16-1 but nine-game goalie Tim Thomas (6-1-2) stops them all; in the end the Senators outshot them 44-24 over the game but whereas Emery only stopped 19, Thomas earned first star of the game with his 44-shot shutout. Brad gets second star for his best output of the season (1 goal, 2 assists taking him to 14 goals, 22 assists for his rookie season). Bottom line: the Bruins are fighting to get into a playoff position; the Senators were just plain flat. Omen fulfilled.

During the third period, Senators Marketing, promoters of the colour "Red", performed the sports marketing gaff of the season. After Ray Emery had given up five goals with little support from his teammates, they put up on the centre ice scoreboard a video of Ray thanking the fans for attending the game. However, we never heard what Ray had to say as his comments were drowned out in a vociferous chorus of boos.

After the game we met a smiling Brad Boyes who was the happiest person in the arena to have led his team to defeat of his former favorite NHL team (I believe his boyhood Senators jacket is gathering dust in a closet at home). And one of my other son's high school classmates showed up as well: Shaun Majunder of CBC's "This Hour has 22 Minutes". For those in Canada (or with access to CBC via their SlingBox), you can watch Shaun's interviews (as reporter Raj Binder) recorded at this game on this Friday evening's show (8:30 p.m.).

Clarkson High School reunion: Shaun Majunder, Joanna Courtney, Brad Boyes

And I get home to find an email from Alec (who occassionally blogs about the Senators): "....hope you enjoyed the hockey game tonight. Thank goodness I had email to do... YEEESH!"

By the way, at 14 goals and 22 assists Brad is now third in team scoring. Not bad for someone who was supposed to be a fourth line center.