Black and gold

Black and gold.

A lot of pro sports teams have adopted those championship colors over the years. But when I was young they stood for one -- and only one -- team. The Big Bad Bruins. They still do as far as I'm concerned.

Boston's hockey team and us long-suffering fans are just four wins away from bringing the greatest trophy in sports back to the city. Here's hoping this very likable team (even Claude is growing on me) can pull it off. It would be a great way to start the summer.

BUCYK: Hail to the Chief.

I grew up a devoted Bruins fan. Hell, in 1970 (when I was 8) who wasn't? It was always hockey first, football second for me. Baseball and basketball were a distant third and fourth. I've been to about 40 or 50 Red Sox games in my life and only about five Celtics games. But I've been to more than 200 Patriots games and well over 100 Bruins games. I prefer my sports cold and tortured.

My days in 1970, '71, '72, '73, etc. were simple. Get up, go to school, come home, do homework quickly, and play street hockey till Mom called me for supper. On weekends it was just play street hockey. One-on-one, three-on-three, five-on-five. It didn't matter. Me, Jimmy, Gator, Mike, Chipper, Paul, Butter, and Ricky would play game after game till our legs were sore. Then at night I'd sit next to Dad on the couch in front of the black and white television and turn on Channel 38 and watch the B's. (''Score! Bobby Orr!'') I can still hear the first notes of ''Nutty,'' the TV theme song for the games.

But it was going to Bruins games that I remember best of all. Of the great memories that I have from being a Boston sports fan, there are none stronger and richer than those from the old Boston Garden. I can still smell the place. I can still feel that long walk up flight after flight of stairs in my calves as the anticipation built. I can still hear the organ playing and the sound of my sneakers sticking to the beer-covered floor. I can still hear the arms banging on the bottom of the second balcony that hung just a few feet over those of us wedged into the very back of the first balcony. I can still feel the old barn shake after a goal.

CHEEVERS: Scar face.

It was there I saw Bobby Orr race down the ice, leaving opponents chasing his shadow as #4 changed the game right in front of our eyes. Terry O'Reilly (my all-time favorite) wipe blood from his face just in time to score a game-winner. The classy Jean Ratelle net an epic overtime goal against the hated Canadiens in the greatest series every played ('78-'79). Gerry Cheevers notch a few more stitches on the greatest goalie mask ever made. Ray Bourque burst onto the scene as rookie of the year and go on to become one of the greatest defensemen who ever played. Cam Neely invent a new position -- power forward. And it was there that I saw fights -- on and off the ice -- that were as much a part of the game as passing and stick-handling. So many great memories.

Like the very first game I saw in person.

It was the spring of 1973. I was 10 years old. The city was being torn apart by the court-ordered busing crisis. I saw my oldest brother come home after school bloodied from a fight sparked by the soaring tempers. The word lock-down became part of the school day. It was an interesting time to grow up. The B's were a big part of that time.

The Bruins were defending their second Cup in three seasons and were one of the greatest offensive machines the sport has ever seen. Orr, Espo, Bucyk, Westfall, Pie, Cash, Hodgie. They dominated opponents and the league's scoring leader board. And the hearts and minds of the city. It was a hockey town.

Another part of my daily routine was driving with Mom to the train station to pick Dad up after he got out of work in the art department of Prudential. One day he got in the car and told my mom that one of the printers that they worked with had given him two seats five rows from the ice for the Bruins game the next night. Against the hated Rangers. I edged myself closer to the front seat. Mom asked the question that the youngest of four children was thinking. "Who are you taking?"

"Ya, Dad. Who?" I asked, my face now leaning over the front seat.

"I think you are old enough for your first hockey game. Don't you?" he answered. I spent the rest of the ride home rolling around the very back of the station wagon (seat belts? what seat belts?) with a tennis ball, pretending to be Phil Esposito, my favorite Big Bad Bruin.

ESPO: Center of my attention.

I can still remember the train ride into Boston as if it was yesterday. Dad pointing out all the places as they passed by the window. The elevated Orange Line may have cast a shadow over the city streets below for decades, but for a 10-year-old the view was awesome. We switched over to the Green Line and as the train pulled into North Station I got my first view ever of the Boston Garden, a place I would spend much of my teenage years in. What was a dump to some was a palace to me. We walked with the crowd into the stadium, my dad keeping his hand on my shoulder the whole time. It was my first experience of that feeling of the pre-game buzz of the fans as the anticipation of the game built. It was one of my first "grown-up" moments.

We made our way down to our seats near one of the face-off circles. Me with my popcorn and souvenir Bruins puck already in hand. I got chills from the roar of the crowd as the national anthem ended. (I still do.)  I got chills when I got my first close-up look at Mr. Robert Gordon Orr. I got chills when Espo scored to put the Bruins ahead for good. Pie McKenzie smashed a Ranger into the boards right in front of me and the two started brawling. Pie whupped him. The crowd went nuts. So did I. My dad gave me a slightly concerned look when he saw just how much I enjoyed the fight.

Late in the third period Espo lined up for a face-off against Walt Tkaczuk right in front of me. The two had been battling all game. Each time the linesman went to drop the puck Tkaczuk would whack Espo's stick with his, something centers do to cheat to try and win the draw. Four times in a row Tkaczuk hit Espo's stick. Four times in a row Espo whacked his stick back. Four times in a row the linesman yelled at them to knock it off. Finally, after the fifth time, Espo had had enough.

"If you hit my stick one more time," Espo, my idol, yelled. "I'm going to take your bleeping stick and shove it up your bleeping ass."

A lifelong hockey fan was born.

Where have I heard that before?

John Tomase finally resurfaced today with an appearance on "Sports Tonight" on Comcast SportsNet. Tomase of course is the Patriots beat reporter for the Herald who wrote that, according to an unnamed source, the team had videotaped the walk-through practice of the St. Louis Rams before Super Bowl XXXVI. And that former Pats video assistant Matt Walsh had the tape. He gave credibility to the mother of all Spygate rumors. Turned out Tomase was a little off. As in totally wrong. The Herald apologized. Tomase apologized. Looks like Tomase keeps his job and will continue to appear on "Sports Tonight" during the football season (I give it a day till Barstool asks for a boycott on the show). That's fine. And give him credit for taking questions from Felger and Grande about the issue and being honest about it. But he had one quote that seemed very familiar. "We're moving on," Tomase said after saying he screwed up, he's sorry, he'll do better. "We're moving on." Isn't that what Bill Belichick said after the team was caught and punished for the illegal taping? "We're moving on." Yup. That's what he said. And what did guys like Tomase and Felger say about that? Mostly that Belichick was evasive and arrogant and that he owed it to the public to say more than that. I was always fine with Belichick's "we're moving on" attitude. I wonder if Tomase would agree with me now.

I will go to Iraq

So Barack Obama will visit Iraq this summer. Which means the clock is ticking on how much longer I get to enjoy my daily check on the Republican National Committee's "Days Since Obama Visited Iraq" counter on its website. By the way, it's 904 days, 21 hours, 24 minutes, and 13 seconds as I write. I'm sure going to miss that. The GOP and McCain campaign have put Obama's lack of time in the Green Zone right up there in importance with wearing a flag pin. And like the flag pin, Obama has finally relented. Again. But unlike his new lapel apparel, his going to Iraq will actually mean something. But what? McCain says that when Obama gets to the Green Zone he will see that things are much improved from his last visit. McCain has been to Iraq several times over the past few years as the champion of the surge so he is certainly an expert on how well the war is going. In fact his visits have made his outlook on the situation so bright that he expects the country's military involvement there to end in a brief 100 years. And what of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld? The three of them combined for many visits to the war zone. And what did they learn? Apparently not that the mission was not accomplished or that Iraq was splitting apart or even that our Allies were growing weary of the arrangement and preparing to leave. No. Their trips did not seem to be very enlightening. It's a good idea for Obama to visit Iraq although it's hard not to expect it to come across as more a PR stunt than anything else. (Thanks Fox). But it's not going to make him any wiser about how to solve the mess the current adminstration has created or make him more respected on the world stage. Obama, or McCain, will have to base the decisions on how to end the war in Iraq on good judgment, intelligence, instincts, and a desire to do what's best for a fragile world. And if he does that then he will be way ahead of the man who made the decision to start the war.

Rules of the road

Marshawn Lynch finally admitted that he was indeed driving his car when it struck a woman a few weeks ago. The running back of the Buffalo Bills had been reportedly saying that he was not driving the car even though people in the area had said "Ya. It was Marshawn. I saw him driving." His damaged car was parked in his driveway and he didn't cooperate with police for a few days. But finally he fessed up. His penalty for hitting a woman with his car? A $100 fine and $50 surcharge. $150 for hitting a woman and then leaving the scene of an accident. Oh, and his license has been revoked for a while although his lawyer calls that "a little harsh." Only for an athlete would you see that small a penalty. This reminds me of a string of bad luck behind the wheel that I had last year. One Friday night I was coming home after a double-shift at the newspaper and was going 80 in a 65-mph zone with no other cars to be seen. Except for the State Trooper off to the side of the road. He was not interested that I was less than a mile from my exit and was just hurrying to use the bathroom. $150 ticket. That came a few months after a computer problem in my car wouldn't let the check engine light shut off and wouldn't let my car pass inspection. Three $50 expired inspection tickets in about two months. Those came a few months after an accident that involved the car in front of me coming to a complete stop as we merged from Rte. 24 to 95 and me slamming on my brakes but not fast enough to prevent my car from hitting the car that had stopped. Stopped in the left-hand lane on Rte. 24 because the driver was afraid to merge. No ticket. But bad luck. That was five "surchargeable" violations in a year. I had to take a driver attitudinal adjustment course which cost me another $200 and eight hours on a Saturday. And after forgetting to pay one of the inspection tickets my license was suspended. Only I didn't know it so when I was stopped by UMass police for a broken headlight they informed me that my license had been suspended and that they had to tow my car. Of course they could have arrested me so I have to thank them for not doing that. I had to stay at the campus hotel ($85) and then had to go to the RMV the next morning to pay my fines and get my license reinstated. $350. And then I had to get my car out of the tow lot. $200. Overnight storage charge you know. So for having an expired inspection sticker, getting a speeding ticket, and hitting a car stopped on the highway where it shouldn't have stopped I had to pay more than $1,100 (not counting the insurance surcharges). Lynch hit a woman and had to pay $150. And the thing that makes me really annoyed is that Lynch isn't even that good a running back.