Those t-shirt makers are right, life is good.
Maybe not real life, where there’s certainly plenty to fret about from the stock market to the gas pump and everywhere in between.
But for those of us that derive much of our escapist entertainment from Boston sports, well we got it pretty darn good these days. Maybe not quite yet to the level of Duck Boats and adding another title to the collective trophy case, but as pastimes and refuges from reality go it’s not too shabby.
And it’s not about one local team or one night of action.
Sure, it sucks that the Bruins sucked last night in Carolina to go down three games to two against the Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Stanley Cup Playoffs.
It’s obviously less than ideal that the Red Sox are in last place in the American League East, two full games behind the woeful Orioles.
And maybe the offseason hasn’t gone exactly how some New England fans wanted it in regards to the local football squad, Bill Belichick’s Patriots selecting a guard in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft to continue what at times has been a frustrating winter and spring roster retooling.
If we step back from out individual team annoyances for a minute and take a bit more wide-angle view, the current buffet of Boston sports is pretty well stocked.
Luckily we needed not debate the disappointment of the Patriots latest draft too long because there was not one but rather two competitive, entertaining playoff series to turn our attention to. While both Boston winter sports teams were left for dead at various points this season, they hit the month of May with plenty to play for while providing an abundance of entertainment to make up for the lackluster start of the Fenway 9.
Every night this week, in fact, TVs throughout New England get to turn on a playoff game for either the Celtics or the Bruins. Every night.
As old friend Steve Buckley pointed out in The Athletic, the two teams haven’t advanced to the third round of the playoffs together since 1988, but that was a legitimate possibility and goal when this postseason tipped off.
It’s not just that the Bruins and Celtics are in the playoffs, it’s also the entertainment value they’ve provided in these series.
In the opening-round matchup with the feared Nets, Jayson Tatum and the Celtics did the almost unthinkable by shutting up and sweeping Kyrie, K.D and company right into the offseason. That alone might be enough to call it a successful year.
But now Boston’s basketball team is in the midst of a back-and-forth dogfight with the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks and their bullying, borderline sports hate-worthy superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo.
While Tatum is trying to write his story as a legendary franchise star, Al Horford had an stunning, resurgent 30-point effort to carry his team to a 2-2 series tie. It was one of the latest examples of the unscripted, unforeseen nature of sports that is at the heart of what makes it arguably the best entertainment there is. The 35-year-old Horford reminded us of Forrest Gump’s famous declaration, “you never know what you’re gonna get” with the greatest playoff performance of his fading career.
The same is true of the Bruins. Some games they have looked like the team that couldn’t keep up with the Hurricanes during the regular season, a bad matchup in a bad series. But on home ice, well they got two wins to give us all hope when things weren’t exactly hopeless.
And it’s not just what our local teams are providing, there’s also been a unifying angst in Boston sports these days. We all hate the officiating in each of these playoff series, the Bruins and Celtics seemingly battling the officials as much as they are the Hurricanes and Bucks, respectively. We all see it. We all feel it. We all tweet about it!
There’s also the brewing distaste for Giannis’ style of play, the mean-mugging ways that Horford fought back against to forever stamp a meme-ready memory in our collective minds. Oh, and Canes antagonist Tony DeAngelo, has become a stick-throwing, TD Garden crowd-criticizing dink that New England can collectively despise even if ESPN tries to tell us otherwise.
No, all is not perfect in Boston sports this early-May morning. Despite an early flurry, the Bruins never had a shot in last night’s loss. And the Red Sox, despite finally breaking out with the bats in a 9-4 win in Atlanta have still lost seven of their last nine infuriating games. Heck, maybe a week from now neither the Bruins nor the Celtics will still be playing.
But watching nightly playoff action, having actual hope of coinciding championship runs as we wait for the Sox lineup to reach its supposed potential and the calendar to allow us to truly turn some attention to Mac Jones and the Patriots season, well it’s still a pretty darn good time to be a Boston sports fan. Sit back, relax and turn on the Celtics game tonight.
It beats thinking about the real world.
