The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

I made my way to Scotiabank Place tonight to take in my very first regular season game of the year as my Sens took on the Montreal Canadiens. If there's anything I can't complain about, it's the entertainment value. The crowd was lively, not as many Leafs fans in the stands so it made the Habs fans somewhat tolerable. Seeing Nick Foligno score his first NHL goal was special, doing his father's trademark jump after getting it, and Dany Heatley collecting his 400th point at the young age of 26 was nice to see, too. On the downside, sitting beside this overweight old guy, who insisted on spreading his legs wide open so that I was cramped up in my seat was barely tolerable. I really hope he's not a season ticket holder and I won't have to see him again. And getting out of the parking lot, aside from being long as usual, was dangerous as so many cars were trying to chintz their was out, I almost hit a car that was trying to turn in front of me even though the car ahead of him had already barely squeezed in to get to the pavement.

On another hockey note, yesterday I took a little time to watch the NHL network and they showed an old playoff game from 1979 featuring the Canadiens against the Leafs. Now some columnists and traditional hockey fans say the best hockey the NHL has ever seen was 1970s hockey, and I have no clue why anyone would say that. I watched just two periods of it and it looked like shinny. The players looked slow and plodding, the passes were missing, the shots were off, and there was surprisingly a little amount of hitting which sort of goes against the Broadstreet Bullies style of hockey I thought the 70s encompassed. Blatant hooking and tripping were never called. The players today are so much faster and better skilled, I can't help but wonder how well the Canadiens of yesteryear would fare against a current NHL club.