Worst Weekend in Recent Boston Sports History

I might be being a little dramatic as the Bruins won two games and the Patriots executed a brilliant, but sloppy come from behind victory over Cleveland today.

But, at least personnel-wise, this was a tough weekend on the city.

Let's start with the Bruins. Just Thursday Johnny Boychuk took an illegal hit from Max Pacioretty and gave the fan base quite a scare afterwards as he was unable to move for over 10 minutes. The hit was dirty but Pacioretty won't be facing supplemental punishment nor should he. Luckily, Boychuk is only supposed to be out 7-10 days with a lower back injury. It could have been much worse.

Then there was the debacle last night against Pittsburgh. It started with Brooks Orpik's brutal interference hit on Louis Eriksson, which gave him his second concussion of the season. It's undetermined how much time he'll miss.

Orpik is a hard-hitting defenseman who has had his moments crossing the line before but is not considered to be a dirty player. But it was a dirty hit.

Follow that up with Brad Marchand being tripped up by Crosby and while he's down, he got a knee in the face from James Neal. An altercation broke out and resulted in Bruin's tough guy Shawn Thornton pulling down Orpik from behind and throwing him a couple punches when he was down. Orpik was knocked out and Thornton was ejected.

If you saw it, it's just terrible on so many levels. Thornton has never been suspended and though he loves to scrap, he has always been one to preach the mutual respect between players. He can't talk like that anymore. He deliberately sought out an opposing player and pulled a dirty, dirty move with an intent to injure. He will be suspended and deserves it. Bad for him, bad for the team, bad for the sport. Hope Orpik is okay.

And to top if off, Chris Kelly took a slash to the ankle from Pascal Dupuis that broke it and now he's out 4-6 weeks.

Then tonight, Dougie Hamilton hurt his leg or ankle and he is expected to miss some time. And to top it all off, Kevan Miller, who was called up to replace the injured Boychuk, took a brutal hit from behind from Phaneuf and didn't return. No updates on that yet.

So now the Bruins are without Boychuk, McQuaid, Miller, Hamilton, Kelly, Eriksson, and Thornton.


Then today, the Patriots lost Rob Gronkowski for the season with a torn ACL. Many fans are ready to pull the plug on the playoff hopes, but at 10-3 I'm a little more optimistic. Still terrible news though.

Don't forget either that Jacoby Ellsbury just signed a big contract with the Yankees, so we'll be seeing him in pinstripes for a long time. At least Robinson Cano is out of the AL East now.

Finally, the Celtics keep winning which seems good but they're not good enough to do any real playoff damage and it really hampers out ability to get a high draft spot to the team can really go into rebuild mode.

Am I being a little dramatic or was this weekend just a little subpar?