As the evening closed on Thursday night, the mighty French cannons of Columbus remained silent. Just like their fans who left the building with three minutes left, down three goals. In the playoffs. What a bunch of bandwagon-hoppers. I couldn't believe how many empty seats I saw immediately after the Bruins scored their fourth goal. Would it be unlikely to come back? Sure. But if you leave, you are saying that there is no chance you are missing anything of value. There is no chance you are missing anything meaningful. And that means that you've already lost, even though you haven't played 60 minutes.
I remember watching Bruins-Leafs Game 7 back in 2013 and the comeback that happened that night. Did I know it was going to happen? Hell no. But I didn't stop watching. And when I look at the videos of that game now, there's one thing that stands out to me.
The entire arena was filled.
See, Columbus fans and their team don't really believe they're going to win. And there are a number of reasons for this. But they call come back to one overarching theme.
They don't believe they're going to win because deep down, they know the truth about their team.
They know that the only thing Boone Jenner has ever won is the Douchiest Name in Hockey Award, Non-Duchene Division. They know that calling Artemi Panarin the "Bread Man" because his name sounds like Panera is the least original nickname ever. And most importantly, they know that Sergei Fraudrovsky is nothing more than an aerobics video on skates. And despite the best efforts of all the spandex in the world, the horseshoe that was comfortably lodged between his ass cheeks fell out last night for all the world to see, and now he's been exposed.
Thursday night was a prelude to the main event tonight. Because I want the Columbus fans who journey to TD Garden on tonight, who we will allow to buy tickets because we aren't afraid of you the way you're afraid of us, to feel for the entire game the way they felt for those last three minutes of Thursday night's game.
Hopeless.
Thursday didn't show that you aren't who you thought you were. It showed that you are exactly what you thought you were. And tonight, it's the beginning of the end for you. And if you want to avoid the emotional abyss that comes with watching your team get destroyed in the most complete fashion imaginable, you're going to have to leave our arena way fucking sooner than 3 minutes from the end of the game. Because our team isn't afraid of anything.
5-2 Bruins.
Prepare yourselves for the most awesome hockey destruction you have ever seen.