Our wonderful new banner, designed by Stephen Slesinski.

I’m sure you’ve noticed a lack of posts recently. No, we haven’t given up. We’re having far too much fun for that.

We’ve been working with the Bloguin staff on a network change. We’re officially part of the Bloguin sports blog network. We’re very excited about the move.

The Bloguin folks were incredible in building/designing the site for us. The Days of Y’Orr staff basically hung out with Patrice Purr-geron all day while Bloguin did the work. So if you hear us complain about all the hard work, know now that we’re lying. Like when Chiarelli said the Ference contract was a great deal for both sides.

If you have us book marked, simply change the old WordPress address to www.daysofyorr.com and you’ll find us. See you over there!

It makes no sense, but then again, nothing about this “Bruins are trading Savard” scenario has made much sense from the get-go. It’s a lot of speculation and poppycock.

That’s right, we said it. Poppycock. What of it?
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Captain Planet Ference goes to the Gulf
Boston Bruins resident super hero Andrew Ference (and some other athletes) visited the BP Oil Spill the other day. The goal was to look at the damage first hand and talk to the locals.

We’ve been known to be hard on Ference, but we’re also anti-BP, “Big Oil” and “Drill-baby-Drill” over at the DOY HQ. We were torn between mocking Ference — we had a “He can’t plug the Bruins defense, he might as well plug the oil spill” joke — and actually supporting this initiative. We figure we’d side with Ference against a common enemy this time.

That’s right, we’re not going to take the insensitive assholes route this time. Stranger things have happened.

We used the word “poppycock” didn’t we?

We just hope this is more than another athlete talking the talk. Ference just signed a (overpaid) new deal this spring. He can pony up a little cash to help.

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Wheeler weds; off to arbitration
Bruins still have yet to sign Campbell and Wheeler who was in Hawaii celebrating his wedding this past weekend. This according to Kevin Paul Dupont, so take it for what it’s worth. He also decide that the Bruins would play Savard against the Sabres because he saw Savard on the ice. We had fun mocking him for such lazy reporting. But I we digress…

Wheels got married. Rumor has it that Wheeler kept trying to kiss the bride before the priest told him to.

That’s our attempt at a “Wheeler is offsides” joke. It’s funny. Laugh dammit.

Anyways, he’s slated to go to arbitration in a couple of weeks. Matt Kalman has an interesting post, comparing Wheeler’s salary situation with other players similar in stats, etc. — $1.55 – $1.9M range is what Matt came up with. We wish we could file for arbitration and make that amount.

Seriously. These are awful.

Justin held down the fort all by his lonesome last week. Send him cookies. And candy. Seriously.

Not much going on in the world of the Bruins this week. Last week was prospect camp, and we came away impressed with Seguin, Colborne and Knight. We’ll have more on that later this week. But we’re back. Patrice Purr-geron is back. We have some good shit coming your way soon.

For now, we thought we’d reminisce a little bit. If you haven’t checked out Boston Sports Then and Now yet, do yourself a favor and click the link. They cover everything that is currently going on in Boston sports as well as provide some historical aspects.

One of their writers, Carl Desberg, recently wrote an article talking about the history of Fenway’s Green Monster. That got us thinking about the old Boston Garden. We have the following post going up over at Boston Sports Then and Now and thought we’d share it with the Days of Y’Orr readers as well.

After the jump, a small tribute to the greatest arena the world has ever seen…

When TD Bank (then TD Banknorth) bought the naming rights in 2005 they dubbed the former Fleetcenter/Shawmut Center the TD Banknorth Garden in honor of the fallen Boston Garden.

We still remember walking through that bridge. Good times.

Despite the homage, it never felt quite right to refer to TD Garden as “The Garden.” That name was reserved for the original Garden, one of the most unique arenas in sports.

The Boston Garden held so much history for hockey fans and Boston sports fans alike. The arena was completed in 1928 and was originally intended to be a Boston version of New York’s Madison Square Garden. In fact, the original name was “Boston Madison Square Garden” before being shortened to “Boston Garden.”

The Garden was originally built to host boxing matches but quickly evolved into an all encompassing sports arena, but the arena was not quite built to general NHL rink standards. Standard NHL rinks are 200 feet long by 85 feet wide but the rink at the Boston Garden was 191 feet long by 83 feet wide.

Playing in the slightly smaller rink gave the Bruins a distinct advantage over their opposition. “It was a tough building to play in,” Paul Ysebaert, former winger of the Detroit Red Wings, once said. “They had a small ice surface, and they got the right players to perform in that type of rink. Every game was tough, with lots of bumping and grinding. You had to change your game plan to mold into that kind of rink.”

The way the arena was structured, the upper balcony literally hung right over the ice, giving fans a unique experience and giving them the impression that they were literally part of the game.

Because of the close proximity of the fans to the playing surface, the building was literally deafening when the fans began cheering on their boys in black and gold.

“The building itself when coming in to play gave maybe a goal and a half, two goal advantage or lead right off the bat, which was nice. The fans were right on top of the players with the balconies. It was close and just a fun place to play.” ~ former Bruin Don Marcotte.

“It was fun because the fans were right above you in the overhang. You could hear the fans cheering for you or yelling at you one way or the other and they enjoyed it too because they could hear what we were saying on the ice. It was just so much fun because the building was a little bit smaller, so you really enjoyed it.” ~ Bruins Hall of Famer Johnny Bucyk.

The TD Garden certainly gave the Bruins and their fans a better built, more modern arena but much of the charm and aura of the original Garden was lost with its destruction. The rink now measures to NHL standards and the fans are a bit further away from the action. The atmosphere of the Boston Garden will perhaps never be replaced.

The Bruins last took the ice at the Boston Garden on September 28, 1995 in a pre-season game against their ultimate rivals the Montreal Canadiens, a fitting end to the historic building.

The Boston Garden saw five Stanley Cup banners soar to the rafters, saw Bobby Orr take flight and saw Phil Esposito assault NHL record books. Other Bruins legends like Cheevers, Neely, O’Reilly, Bourque, Clapper and Shore skated on the fabled Garden ice. The Garden was where legends played.

TD Garden could use some new banners. Go Bruins.

The aura of the old Garden is physically gone, but will forever live on in spirit for those who played on it’s fabled ice and for those who watched the old school Bruins bruising battles. Sorry TD Garden, but there is only one place that will forever be known as “The Garden.”

Another Days of Y’Orr favorite, Mark Stuart, re-signed with the Bruins last night.

We’re stoked. Not as stoked as when Shawn “Wayne” Thornton and Johnny Boychuk re-signed, but we’re still giddy. Before going down with a craptastic (and embarassing) finger infection, Stuart was on a tear, throwing bodies left and right. He was a man on a mission those final several weeks of the season.  For example:

Or better yet, this game against the Flyers a few days later. Something crawled up Stuart’s shorts and he was not pleased…. meaning, we were pleased as fans by his play.

He won points with us for taking on Shit-Stache, but more importantly, he was taking on a leadership role with his physical play at the end of the year. He’s physical. He showed grit and heart. That’s what being a Boston Bruins is all about. That’s why we’re glad he’s back.

The deal is for $1.675 million and Stuart will be an UFA next summer. Bruins now have a little over a million left in capspace and three guys to sign. We have a feeling they’re not going to want to split the bill, so we expect a rush of trade rumor wagons to roll into town starting this afternoon.

But for now, we leave you with this beauty on Kopitar.

Oh, hai...

On this year’s roster:

Forwards: Tyler Brenner, Jordan Caron, Joe Colborne, Craig Cunningham, Alexander Fallstrom, Justin Florek, Mark Goggin, Jared Knight, Tyler Randell, Max Sauve, Tyler Seguin, Ben Sexton, Ryan Spooner, Nick Tremblay

Defensemen: Yuri Alexandrov, Matt Bartkowski, Ryan Button, Marc Cantin, Tommy Cross, Ryan Donald, Steve Kampfer, Zach Trotman, David Warsofsky

Goaltenders: Adam Courchaine, Matt Dalton, Zane Gothberg, Mike Hutchinson

It’ll be Bruins fans first real look at “The Second Coming”, aka Seguin. There was so much hype around Hall before the draft that we think many people don’t know much about Seguin. Should be interesting to hear how he fits with the prospects. DOY favorite Matt Kalman, of TheBruinsBlog.net, has a great post on what he’s looking for at development camp this week. We await his assessment.

On a side note: We envy anyone who’ll be there this week, especially today. It’s hot as balls out in Boston and the idea of spending the day in an ice cold hockey rink sounds pretty good to us. Most of the camp is closed to the public. Apologies to all the OMGHOCKEYPLAYER girls. Here’s a schedule of the camp.

In other news:

Wheeler and Campbell filed for arbitration. We’d laugh if arbitration ruled Wheeler to make less than before. Obviously, that won’t happen. But it’s still a funny thought. Really, as long as the following doesn’t happen, we’d be OK with it… maybe.

We’re hoping Wheeler’s regression last year was just a sophomore slump and not Ryder’s bad habits rubbing off on the kid. *fingers crossed*

Kovalchuck remains unsigned. This is getting ridiculous hilarious. His contract demands are  outrageous. We feel bad for whatever franchise dishes out the cash to get him. Some team is going to overpay the guy, only to see Cooke or anyone on the Flyers take a cheapshot and knock him out for the rest of the season. It’ll happen. We’ll laugh. Also, if you tie too much money up in one player, you don’t have a team. You have a superstar on an AHL-talent team. Kovy’s good, but he’s not as good as he thinks. He can’t single handedly win the Cup by himself.

Stay cool, friends.

Not bad for a cat with no opposable thumbs

DOY favoite, Joe Haggerty had this tweet:

Excited… or surprised?

Chiarelli also brought back locker room favorite, Jeremy Reich. Reich must’ve listened to some Bon Jovi before signing.

Reich’s contract is two-way so he’ll probably spend most of his time in Rhode Island unless someone like Thornton and/or Campbell go down. But if he suits up in Boston, we’ll get to see more of this.

PC said trade talks weren’t really happening yesterday. He’ll try working that market again once more FAs get taken off the market.

The Bs still have Stuart, Campbell (from Florida), Wheeler and McQuaid to re-sign. They were all handed qualifying offers a couple weeks back. Boston.com writer, Fluto, had an interesting ‘graph:

“The Bruins now have $55 million committed to their 2010-11 payroll. They must re-sign restricted free agents Campbell, Wheeler, Mark Stuart, and Adam McQuaid. Chiarelli said that while space would be tight, he believes he can get all of the RFAs back in the fold. For that to take place, Ryder would most likely be assigned to Providence, much like Peter Schaefer was two years ago, to wipe his $4 million from the books.”

We’re pro-sending Ryder to Providence. He admitted he dogged it during the regular season. Fans pay too much money per game to have someone like that on the squad. We think Ryder has talent to be a solid player, but if he’s not going to try, send him to the AHL. Maybe that’ll get his ass in gear.

In other news, Danny Sabourin signed with the Capitals.

Yawn

Somewhere though, there are retarded Capitals fans rejoicing that the Penguins don’t have Sabu and they do. Seriously. They did this when the Caps took Chris flippin’ Bourque from then Pens.

Also, the Flyers signed Jody Shelley, because the real reason they lost to the Blackhawks was because a lack of goonery on the roster.

To be fair, he was fighting Colton Orr. Orr, who when fighting, looks like he’s trying to take a dump.

So a boring day for Bruins fans, free agent wise (which was expected). We’re interested in seeing what PC can do with trades and re-signing his qualifying offer players.

People are already getting uppity about this signing. Saying he’s overpaid and the Bs should’ve let him walk.

We get it. He can’t score.

He scored one goal between February 11th and the end of the season.

We’ve made plenty of digs on Paille about the same thing. Like how he can’t score on a breakaway if his life depended on it. Apparently we were wrong. There’s actual video evidence of Paille scoring on a breakaway.

Practice counts, right?

In somewhat seriousness, the guy’s solid on the PK and he’s going to be making less than he did last year. PC could’ve done a lot worse. He’ll be fourth line and PK specialist so we probably won’t see him on too many breakaway attempts. And if he does, he should dish it to Shawn “Wayne” Thornton.

Half the Days of Y’Orr staff took the day off from work for this.

Bruins aren’t expected to be very active in the free agency market this year. Cap is tight. That’s why there’s been “Trade Thomas” and “Trade Savard” rumors running around galore. If anything, the Bruins might make a trade or two to improve the roster. That might not happen until more free agents go off the market.

We’d love to see Ference, Ryder and Sturm shipped off, but that’s unlikely to happen.

Our friends over at The Pensblog are hosting a live chat in celebrating of this happy occasion. We’ll be participating during the day. There’ll be representatives from different NHL team blogs. Join in the fun.

Keep checking back here for our takes on any moves, non-moves, trades, etc. the Bruins make. We won’t break the news. We’ll just ridicule it into a pool of sorrow.

Happy Free Agency Day!

We wouldn’t have blamed him. He’s got nothing to prove to anyone at this point in his career.

You’d be hard pressed to find anyone currently wearing a Boston Bruins uniform or playing in the NHL that works harder or is more driven than Old Man Recchi. The guy’s 42 years old. We were still crapping our diapers when he played his first NHL game. He’s played almost 1600 games in his career and has scored nearly 1500 points. He’s won two Stanley Cup titles. He has a street named after him. He’s done it all and has nothing to prove.

But he’s a man who plays with pride and heart. He cares about winning and about his team. He doesn’t want his career to end in epic failure.

“I think there was some unfinished business. I’ve never been so disappointed to end the way we did.” –Mark Recchi, (Boston.com)

So, he kept close tabs with Chiarelli and watched the moves PC was making during the early part of the off season. Younger and faster. That’s how Recchi described the route Chiarelli is taking the Bruins — a tad ironic since Rex, at 42, is the oldest active player in the league and isn’t a speed demon on skates. He’s no longer the 100 point player he was when he donned a Penguins & Flyers jersey during the early-90s. Yet on any given night you’ll find him out hustling, out working and out playing guys half his age. He’s driven by the hunger to succeed and a strong work ethic, and that’s why we, and Bruins fans nation-wide, love Rex.

And it’s why PC brought him back into the fold. To have him pass along that grit, work ethic and know-how from 20+ years of experience to the Bruins youngsters — specifically, Nathan Horton, Blake Wheeler, Milan Lucic and, of course, Tyler Seguin.

Playing the role of mentor won’t be new to Recchi. He was around during both Sidney Crosby’s and Steve Stamkos’ rookie seasons and those two have plenty of hardware between the two of them — especially Crosby. On the Bruins, he’s worked with Lucic and Wheeler, “showing them how to engage in the dirty areas for tips and rebounds,” according to Fluto (Boston.com). Clearly, Lucic took notes from Professor Recchi while Wheeler jerked off during class. And now Rex will get his chance to work his magic with Seguin. The two began bonding before the Bruins even drafted Seguin.

“I ran into Mark Recchi a couple of times and we were definitely elevator buddies. He’s a great guy and I’m sure he’s going to give me a lot of advice. I’m really looking forward to that.” –Tyler Seguin (CSNNE.com)

With the roster and depth the Bruins have up the middle, Seguin will be able to adjust to the hard and fast life of the NHL a little bit easier than his counterpart in Edmonton. And with Recchi as his mentor, he’ll have someone to lean on for when times get tough during his rookie season and for useful advice. The Bruins newest franchise player is in good hands.

“[Tyler] can come in and learn and grow and be a part of a very good hockey team. I think that’s very important for the development of a young kid.” –Rex

Recchi will also get a chance to help mold rough and tough winger Nathan Horton into the player Horton says he wants (and management hopes) him to be.

“[Horton's] a tough kid. He can score. He can pass. This kid’s got pure talent. We’ve just got to get it out of him on a more consistent basis and surround him with the right people. If he’s willing to learn and be effective, then it’s going to be a great fit. He’s going to be a huge factor for our hockey club. It sounds like he’s willing and able to come in here, get better, learn, and continue to grow.”

“He’s a young gentleman whose potential’s been untapped, really.I think the Boston market, the sports market, is going to be tremendous for him.”

We believe Rex. After 20+ years of professional experience, you can’t argue with the man. We’ve lost count the number of times during the regular season — when Boston was at its worst — we found ourselves smiling and nodding in approval as Recchi busted ass into the corner and upended some 20-something-year-old, despite being down by three goals. He’s got a passion for the game and a desire to be the best and win. He hates to lose and he hates complacency even more. For most of the season he was the only thing on the ice that made us smile in the stands. It’s exactly the type of leadership Boston needs if it wants to bring the Cup back to Causeway St. He might only wear an ‘A’ but he’s much more than that for this team.

In the Bruins era led by President Neely, where work ethic, heart and accountability are the currency of the franchise, no one is better suited than Recchi to mold the youngest Bruins talent into those types of players. Players in his image.

Boston’s youngest members are in good hands.

Go Recchi. Go Bruins.