Boston-How man champions in one year?

1 down, 3 to go.
The Boston Red Sox won the World Series this season, and fans from the entire New England Region hope it was just the first of four from the four major sports. The New England Patriots sit in 1st place, and are the only remaining undefeated team, sitting 9-0, in the NFL. Throughout the first 10 weeks of the season, the boys from Foxborough are averaging a 24.2 margin of victory. They are right now by far the most likely team to win Super Bowl XLII in February. This would be 2 out of 4 championships; look for it to happen.
The Boston Celtics are also in a class of their own. After trading for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, the Celtics are right now the only undefeated team, 7-0, in the NBA. They are the early season favorites to win it all, and take home their 17th NBA championship, and the 3rd out of 4 Boston Championships. The Celtics look unstoppable, and also have a large margin of victory. They are right now averaging a 17.1 margin of victory through their first 7 games. The least likely team to win the championship in their respective sport is the NHL's Bruins. Just under a quarter of the way into the season, the Bruins do sit 3 games above .500 and in the 6th playoff seed. With a little luck the Bruins could stay around this slot. As the past has shown, anything can then happen in the NHL playoffs.
There has never been this good of a chance of one city making a clean sweep of the four major sport's championships.

What a game

Rick Dipietro of the New York Islanders fights Al Montoya of the New York Rangers in a pre-season game Rangers

The New York Islanders and New York Rangers had their second match-up of the season, and second time at the Nassau Coliseum Tuesday night. Both teams came in hot. The Isles were winners of four of their last five, and the Rangers had finally kicked their bad start, winning four in a row, courtesy of two goals allowed by Henrik Lundqvist in the four games. The game got off to a good start, as the teams traded chances throughout the first period. A contest between these two rivals always has the fans riled up, as the crowd is split about 50-50 for the fans of each team. No fights occurred on the ice, but the punches were being the thrown all over the stands. That just shows how much intensity is flared in these games.
The first goal of an Islander-Ranger game is huge, and the Rangers struck first. Chris Drury scored a powerplay goal in the second period to give the Rags a 1-0 lead.
The Rangers were ahead as the third period began, but the Isles struck back early on. The Rangers regained the lead on a Tomas Pock powerplay goal. The Tank, Ruslan Fedetenko struck back for the Isles to tie it up. With 8 minutes to go however, the Isles took the lead for good as Miroslav Satan scored his second consecutive game winning goal. The Islanders now lead the season series 2-0 over the Rangers. The next battle between the two rivals will be at Madison Square Garden on November 19.

Whos real and whos not in the NHL?

The NHL season kicked off over one month ago now, and this blog will discuss which teams and players are for real, and who is not. The biggest surprise has certainly been the Columbus Blue Jackets led by goalie Pascal Leclaire. Leclaire, the 8th overall pick of the 2001 NHL draft, has finally arrived. After 9 games played, Leclaire has 7 wins, an astounding 1.12 Goals Against Average, and a .957 save percentage. This is topped off by the fact that Leclaire has had 5 shutouts in 9 games. This puts him on track for an unbelievable 32 shutouts. This of course wont happen, but the Blue Jackets are 2nd place in the central division with a record of 8-3-2. This just may be the year the Jackets finally make it to the playoffs since becoming a franchise in the 00-01 season. Expect it to happen.

Who would have thought the New York Rangers would as of right have the least goals scored in the NHL following the acquisitions of Scott Gomez and Chris Drury via free agency. The Rangers have to thank Henrik Lundqvist for being the only reason the Rangers are at .500. If not for the Swedish King, the Rangers would not even be near this mark. Henrik has been the second best goalie in the NHL so far this year. Even if he keeps this up, the Rangers just wont be able to make the playoffs unless they can figure out a way to score. However you should expect them to turn it around and stay in the race in the competitive Atlantic Division all season.
The Atlantic Division should be fun all season long. The way the season has started, any team can win it. There is the least amount of separation between the first and last place team, 4 points, of any division. This is the division that sent 4 teams to the playoffs last year. It also contains the team that was the worst in the NHL last year, the Philadelphia Flyers, but Danny Briere has turned them around as they currently sit in first place in the division. Expect the Flyers to keep it up all season long and finish with a top 6 playoff seed.
The biggest dissapointment so far this year has been the play of Vancouver Canucks all star goaltender, Roberto Luongo. Luongo, in his second year with the club, currently holds a 2.93 goals against average, and a .899 save percentage. This GAA is the third worst of his career, only being worse in his rookie year playing 24 games with the Islanders in 99-00 and in the 05-06 season, his last with the Florida Panthers. Luongo has never finished an NHL season with worse than a .904 save percentage. This was in his rookie season. The Canucks are currently 2 games under .500 and Luongo needs to pick up his game for their record to improve.